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INTEC and Inafocam conclude diploma course on Teaching Sign Language
A total of 71 deaf monitors from Santo Domingo (26); Northern region (22), Southern region (9) and Eastern region (14) They completed the diploma course that had the technical advice of the Scientific Committee of the International Symposium on Education for Deaf People
SANTO DOMINGO. - The Instituto Tecnológico de Santo Domingo (INTEC) and National Institute for Training and Training of Teachers (INAFOCAM) they concluded el diplomat en Teaching Sign Language as L1 and L2, aimed at deaf coeducators who work in schools and specific classrooms for students of the same condition taught sign language.
A total of 71 deaf monitors from Santo Domingo (26); North region (22), South region (9) and East region (14) took the diploma course, which had the technical advice of the Scientific Committee of the International Symposium on Education for Deaf People, to strengthen their pedagogical and linguistic skills regarding teaching in sign language.
María Córdoba, Academic coordinator of the diploma, indicated that the training program was conceived to provide a solution to a problem that had existed in the country for years and had not been addressed: the Training of monitors for deaf children“Today, thanks to this initiative, as a research professor at INTEC, we are able to serve this population and offer them comprehensive training with the support of INAFOCAM,” she said.
The diploma program was conducted in a hybrid format, with completely asynchronous virtual classes and face-to-face meetings once a month to practice, reinforce, provide feedback and evaluate the expected competencies.
At the closing ceremony, Onelia Aybar Sepulveda, advisor to Santa Rosa Institute for the Deaf and Director of Logistics for the International Symposium on Education for Deaf People, highlighted that more than 95% of deaf children in the Dominican Republic were born into hearing families, which is why they are seriously impeded from accessing the acquisition of their first language, which is sign language, because their families do not master it.
"If this difficulty is not corrected in time, deaf children will suffer from what is known as language deprivation and may experience a serious delay in the development of their language and thinking, and therefore, of all their cognitive processes, which are basic tools for success in school, academics and work," he said.
In this sense, she argued that the figures called to be linguistic models, teaching their first language to deaf children when their parents do not know it, are the deaf co-teachers, who also teach sign language to the families of these children, to ensure their full inclusion in the first and most important space of inclusion, which is the family environment.
Aybar stressed that deaf co-teachers are those who can best transmit their own culture within schools for deaf students, and thereby contribute to the formation of a healthy identity among students as deaf people, who recognise and value themselves as such, within the framework of an intercultural society.
He said that it was not an easy task to convince the various bodies that make training and financing decisions of the relevance of this diploma for the country.
“It is in our interest, and the co-teachers have requested this, that they continue to advance in their training, climbing one step further, towards the technical level of teaching. To do this, we count on the continued important support offered by the three institutions responsible for this diploma: Instituto Tecnológico de Santo Domingo, National Institute for Teacher Training and Development and International Symposium on Education for Deaf People. To them, we express our gratitude, on behalf of the deaf community, for assuming this commitment to improve the quality of education received by deaf people in the country," said Aybar, while thanking the doctors. Clara Cruz-Marte and María Córdoba for their active participation in the general and academic coordination of the diploma.
Sign language as L1 refers to the sign language that a deaf person acquires naturally from birth or at a very early age, as their mother tongue and L2 or Sign Language as a 2nd language for hearing people.