Research On Language Textbooks For Deaf

In2010, Chinese government promulgated the "National Long-term EducationReform and Development Plan (2010-2020)". In this document, a separate chapter isspecifically dedicated to the special education, stressing that "efforts should be madeto promote the comprehensive development of people with disabilities, to help thembetter integrate into society." Special education, as an important part of China’seducation, is a basic way to achieve the above goal. Among the various disciplines inspecial education schools, language course, as a key element of the deaf education atthe compulsory education stage, plays a very important role. It can be assumed thatthe hearing-impaired students’ language literacy is the basis for all other courses aswell as the students’ adaptation to mainstream society. Therefore, deaf languagetextbooks play a significant role. Deaf language courses are intended for students withhearing impairment who are in the middle of a special physiological andpsychological stage. During this process, one accumulates experience, learn toconduct himself, cultivate one’s world outlook as well as outlook on life. So the deaflanguage textbooks should select texts that are positive, healthy, rich, up-dated andapplicable, which attracts and at the same time encourages the students to integrateinto society. It is thus instructive to make an analysis of the deaf language textbooksand find the relevant problems.The paper deals with the present version of deaf language textbooks commonlyin use–the language textbooks for full-time deaf school by PEP (People’s EducationPress), published in June1996. This version came off the press more than10yearsago. The once advanced technologies and ideas contained in this book have now beenfar behind the times, while at the same time, up-dated technologies and new ideas hasnot been introduced into the textbooks. Considering the hearing-impaired students’limitations in receiving information as well as the around environment and educationconditions, the above textbooks are not suitable not only for the current curriculumreform for schools for the deaf language teaching, but also for the comprehensivedevelopment of the hearing-impaired children. The analysis of the textbooks is made At length from four angles: the lesson theme, the structure of the textbooks, textgenre, and selected texts. In view of the following drawbacks that are found: Contentsof textbooks are not connected with social life, contents of textbooks are outdated andbehind times, the role of the textbooks as a tool are not stressed enough, the authorhas come up with according solutions.The author hope in the future, language books suitable for hearing-impairedstudents are compiled, which can give full play to the practicality of the languagecourse, follow the law of the hearing-impaired students’ psychological, cognitive, andlanguage development, and adhere to the belief that the language knowledge must bemastered.