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Very few countries have an official sign language curriculum for the teaching and learning of signed languages as first/maternal (L1) and/or second (L2) languages. The book discusses its status and visibility of public education policies, consolidating signed languages as a curricular component with specific and progressive objectives that deaf children (primarily) need to acquire and develop in the same fashion that hearing children learn spoken languages as their L1/L2. Existing official sign language curricula are presented, considering broader international contexts of multilingual and multicultural education, covering all grades and levels: primary, secondary and tertiary.
About the author
Dr. Maria Mertzani is a FAPERGS Researcher, coordinating the project Libras First (financed by FAPERGS) in the Language Department of the University of Santa Cruz do Sul, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Her work is in the field of Applied Sign Linguistics, with a current focus on the study of sign languages as first languages at schools. Her latest publications refer to the study of the Sign Language Curriculum and Sign Language Literacy. Dr. Felipe Venâncio Barbosa is a Professor at the Linguistics Department of São Paulo University, São Paulo, Brazil. His research refers to the description and atypical production of sign languages. Since 2018, he has been investigating the construction of the Sign Language Curriculum, with a special focus on sign language metalinguistic knowledge at school.
Summary
Very few countries have an official sign language curriculum for the teaching and learning of signed languages as first/maternal (L1) and/or second (L2) languages. The book discusses its status and visibility of public education policies, consolidating signed languages as a curricular component with specific and progressive objectives that deaf children (primarily) need to acquire and develop in the same fashion that hearing children learn spoken languages as their L1/L2. Existing official sign language curricula are presented, considering broader international contexts of multilingual and multicultural education, covering all grades and levels: primary, secondary and tertiary.
