The Matra Project

Transcription

1 The Matra Project Results and sustainability Peter Strating

2 Matra: Partners 1. De Koninklijke Auris Groep (Netherlands) 2. Marokko Fonds (Netherlands) 3. Stichting AMES (Morocco) WOCAL Rabat Matra Project

3 Matra: Aims 1. Improvement and professionalisation of education of the deaf in Morocco 2. Increase capacity of organisations for the deaf in Morocco 3. A plan for regional cooperation WOCAL Rabat Matra Project

4 Matra: Results Professionalisation School organisation: Adaptation management structure; 2 internal facilitators were appointed Education structure adjustment: separation between the education of the deaf and the hard of hearing Improvement in classroom management; direct instruction model implemented Pedagogical materials purchased WOCAL Rabat Matra Project

5 Matra: Results Professionalisation Personnel: Professional development of staff Training management and working visits to the Netherlands Training of staff in 6 education modules Audiology Language acquisition 1 Language acquisition 2 Classroom management 1 Classroom management 2 Culture of the deaf Coaching of staff by internal mentors WOCAL Rabat Matra Project

6 Matra: Results Capacity expansion organisations for the deaf Administrative and financial management Establishment of projects and project managent Lobby and communication Mobilisation of resources: fund raising Training Train the - trainer WOCAL Rabat Matra Project

7 Matra: Results Toolkit: 1 CD and 3 DVDs Content modules Module class management Module Audiology Module Language acquisition WOCAL Rabat Matra Project

8 Matra: Results 3 Conferences - first conference conference halfway stage: perspectives and reality final conference 2012 Visits - Ministry of Education - Ministry of Social Development - Education Academy Casablanca Regional meetings - North - Central - South WOCAL Rabat Matra Project

9 Sustainability Matra Project Strengthening of Regional Networks: Staff expertise Strengthening organisational competencies Formation of regional networks Standardisation of sign language Improve accessibility in secondary education WOCAL Rabat Matra Project

10 Sustainability Matra Project National cooperation? Discussion partner for government Develop content and administrative policy Development of a vision Organising annual conferences WOCAL Rabat Matra Project

11 Standardisation of the lexicon of Sign Language of the Netherlands (NGT) Dr. Trude Schermer Dutch Sign Language Centre Rabat August 28th 2018 African Sign Languages and the Global World.

12 Size of a country is one factor that determines possibilities and limitations

13 Milestones in NGT lexicon development KOMVA project ( ) First inventory of signs used by deaf people in the Netherlands: signs on video based on 2000 words, collected in five regions from 100 informants of different ages. STABOL project ( ) Standardisation and development of NGT: Basic lexicon and lexicon for specific school subjects (5000 signs)

14 KOMVA Project Corpus avant la lettre : regional variation in notation system.

15 Regional variation in NGT: Around the five schools for the Deaf: Amsterdam, Voorburg, Rotterdam, Groningen and St. Michielsgestel 300 km 150 km

16 Preference signs (1988). A. E. G. R. V Regional variants First NGT dictionary Handen uit de Mouwen

17 Criteria for Preference signs The sign has identical meaning in all regions and is produced in an identical form in all regions; The sign has identical meaning in the majority of the regions and is produced in an identical form in the majority of the regions; Only one region uses a sign for a concept and the other regions do not have a sign.

18 Standardisation: The concept of standardisation: A codified form of a language: an explicit norm of the language in teaching materials and dictionaries.

19 Why standardisation in the Netherlands? - Need for national NGT materials for parents and schools - Prerequisite for legal recognition of NGT by the Dutch Government. How? - Based on previous research about regional variation in NGT and the grammar (KOMVA project). - Project was carried out by deaf people, with support from the Deaf Community and NGT linguists.

20 Stabol Project ( ) The premises were: Only Deaf native signers from different regions and different age groups determine which signs become the standard sign based on information from the KOMVA project. The implication of a standard sign is: the sign shall be used nationally in teaching materials, in schools and pre-school NGT programmes for deaf children, their parents and teachers. Standardisation does NOT imply that other variants are no longer proper signs or that there is no longer variation in NGT.

21 In principle those signs that have been selected as the preference signs for the dictionaries will become standard signs ( = 60% of the total number of signs). Signs that differ from each other in the manual part of the sign are preferred over signs that only differ from each other in mouthing or signs that are based on fingerspelling or sounds (COLOR SIGNS). If we can really not come to a reasonable solution we accept variation and variants become synonyms (SCHOOL).

22 In summary SIGN LANGUAGE POLICY AND NGT LEXICON INVENTORY and DESCRIPTION Start research into NGT regional variation and production of dictionaries in book and on CD-ROM with regional variants Standardisation of basic and educational lexicon Implementation of standard lexicon in all teaching modules and teaching materials Since 2002 National NGT lexicon database ( signs); online dictionary with standard signs (2018) and information about regional variants Systematic development of new NGT vocabulary (by deaf signers)

23 DUTCH SIGN LANGUAGE CENTRE/ Institute for NGT Lexicography started in 1996, partially funded by Ministery of Education since 2004 as Institute for NGT Lexicography

24 Online NGT dictionary: standard signs; sign movies, 3750 NGT example sentences, regional variants.

25 Online: Make Your Own Sign Drawing Dictionary (4000 entries)

26 Introduction 2013 What happened to standard signs? The effects of the standardization of NGT lexicon on the variation of signs used within deaf families and their children. Richard Cokart and Trude Schermer Methodology Results Since 2002 when standard signs were introduced in the schools for the deaf a generation of young deaf children from deaf families has grown up with standard signs in school on the one hand and their parents regional NGT variety on the other hand. This raises the question if and how the signing within these families is influenced. Did standard signs dominate the inter family signing? Did the regional variation disappear? Did the children use a standard variant at school and a home variant using their parents signs? What happened to the new signs that were introduced? Do the parents know and use these signs? Another issue we adressed in this study is the attitude towards the standard signs of the deaf adults. Voorburg Standardisation process of NGT lexicon Groningen Amsterdam St. Michielsgestel Basic lexicon (2500) Participants: 6 deaf families from four different regions in the Netherlands with at least one deaf child in the age between 8 and 12 who attended a school for the deaf in the period between 2004 and All parents were interviewed on video by a deaf NGT researcher about their experiences with regional signs versus standard signs. 50 signs with a standard variant and at least two regional variants were elicited from the participants. The lexicon of NGT has been expanded since 2002 with a great number of new signs that do not have a regional variant. Twenty of these new standard signs were elicited. Research question: What is the effect of the introduction of standard signs on the variation of signs used by members of deaf families with deaf children who have STABOL Standardisation project of 2500 signsbeen educated at primary school by teachers using standard signs? from basic NGT lexicon en 2500 signs from educational lexicon. Standardisation was carried out by members of the Deaf community and the Dutch Sign Centre. Inplementation in schools and materials >2002 via dvd rom and (online) dictionaries. 60 % : national signs (no variation) 25 % : regional variation: synonyms 15 % : choice for one variant Educational lexicon (2500): little variation, mostly new signs Between 1980 and 1999 a major corpus project had been carried out documenting the lexicon of NGT. The results of this project which involved 100 informants from five different regions and signs on video, yielded information about the extent of regional variation in NGT and formed the basis for the Standardisation of Basic and Educational Lexicon project (STABOL). r.cokart@gebarencentrum.nl t.schermer@gebarencentrum.nl Mothers tend to use more standard signs than fathers. Hearing siblings tend to use very few standard signs Five out of the 6 families use about half of the twenty new standard signs Parents report no problems regarding the introduction standard signs: they often know the standard signs, prefer their own signs at home, but accept the childrens use of standard signs. They point out that they think its important to continue to use regional variants to enrich the language. However, they are not opposed to the use of standard signs in schools. They report that they learn new signs from their children. Conclusion Standard signs do not dominate the inter family signing: parents use their own variation (which might be also a standard), children understand their parents variants but use the standard signs. So there is no school versus home signing. Deaf adult do not have much exposure to new signs via the dictionaries. They are not used to use a sign dictionary. We need to find other ways to spread new signs. References: Reagan, Timothy (2001) Language Planning and Policy. In Lucas, Ceil (ed), The sociolonguistics of Sign Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Schermer, Trude (2012) Sign Language Planning in the Netherlands between 1980 and In: Sign Language Studies, Vol 12, no 4. Summer 2012.

27 Results Mothers tend to use more standard signs than fathers. Hearing siblings tend to use very few standard signs Five out of the 6 families use about half of the twenty new standard signs Parents report no problems regarding the introduction standard signs: they often know the standard signs, prefer their own signs at home, but accept the childrens use of standard signs. They point out that they think its important to continue to use regional variants to enrich the language. However, they are not opposed to the use of standard signs in schools. They report that they learn new signs from their children.

28 Conclusion Standard signs do not dominate the inter family signing in deaf families: parents use their own variation (which might be also a standard), children understand their parents variants but use the standard signs. So there is no school versus home signing. Deaf adults do not have much exposure to new signs via the (online) dictionaries. They are not used to use a sign dictionary. We need to find other ways to spread new signs and teach deaf adults and children how to use the dictionary.

29 Our Team Deaf& Hearing

30 References: Schermer, G.M. (2003) From variant to standard: An overview of the standardization process of the lexicon of Sign Language of the Netherlands (SLN) over two decades. In: Special Issues on Dictionaries and Lexicography, Part 2. Sign Language Studies, volume 3, number 4, summer Schermer,G.M. (2012) Sign Language planning in the Netherlands between 1980 and In Sign Language Studies, Volume 12, no 4. Summer 2012.

31 input DEAF Community Dutch Sign Language Centre NGT Database ON-LINE NGT DICTIONARY output NGT Teaching Materials NGT dictionaries (books/app) Deaf and Hearing Community