Interviews

these schools in connection to the children‟s education hence a challenge in enhancing the reading and writing learnt at school. When I asked about the parent support, Htr.1 had the following to say:

“Parents just bring children here without any support. Some children are neglected and we have even to use our own money to buy them pencils. If a parent says he doesn’t have anything you can’t neglect the child”.

Furthermore the children were reported to have been enrolled from distant districts, rendering it difficult for the parents to travel for the interviews. I had hence to drop the idea of engaging the parents for the interviews. I likewise had to drop the plan of interviewing the learners given that the few I interfaced with in the pilot study were hard for me to pick up regarding their way of communication and they seemed to be unable to answer questions even when I wrote the question on the paper. The children equally looked reserved and hesitant to open up, for reasons I couldn‟t readily fix. I had no intention to use the teachers to interpret for me for fear of teachers relaying the wrong information or substituting children‟s responses. All learners were learning the sign language from their peers through play and other activities; but not as a result of deliberate teaching. Lave & Wenger (1991) explained this form of teaching as legitimate peripheral participation.

4.2.1 The Instructional Materials

The responses in this section were specifically targeting to contribute to answering the research questions on what strategies are used in teaching reading and writing and what problems were met during the teaching of reading and writing to deaf learners.

4.2.2 Interviews

Teaching materials

Evidence shows that all the 7 teachers reported that they were using instructional/teaching materials for teaching reading and writing. Prominent among the methods reported used was the use of real objects; cards; charts; pictures; drawings; reading materials; the blackboard itself; the curriculum materials and teacher made materials. Specifically Tr.1, following prompting by the interviewer, explained:

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“First of all, like now you a teacher, you have, to have pieces of chalk, blackboard. Learners must have pencils and books, we also have the teacher’s Guiding book for reading and writing, that is a text book.”

I probed to know whether they had any other equipment, upon which she added:

“Text books, are they not materials?... we follow the curriculum book”.

To her the teacher‟s guide was very crucial in assisting the teachers to determine what action and area to cover regarding the syllabus. Strangely, Tr.1 did not even name the very teaching learning aids (the drawings of birds) that she had used in her lesson; let alone other instructional materials which could have been applicable to this lesson but were not engaged. She alluded, however, to the fact that real objects could be used, when she stated that:

“……..and may be you can even bring in the “house” and then you ask, do you know the thing that stays in such a house?”

Tr.2 made a similar statement as Tr. 1. An extract of the interview with Tr.2:

“Interviewer: What kind of materials do you use when you are teaching these children reading and writing? Specifically reading and writing.

Interviewee: Ok, we use charts. Sometimes, Ok. They use pencils, books, slates then chalk.

Interviewer: Those are the materials. Do you have other equipments you use when you are teaching reading and writing?

Interviewee: No we don’t have.

Interviewer: So these are the ones specifically, these are the materials you use when teaching reading and writing?

Interviewee: Yes”.

Tr.2.b on the other hand stated that she used flash cards, real materials, charts, sometimes pencils, books, slates, and then chalk. Asked whether they had some equipment they used when teaching reading and writing Tr.2.b first responded: “like what?” To me this was an indication of not being sure of what equipment was. I prompted with examples of computers, projectors as used in some

44 countries and she responded as: “For us here we don’t have such things”, as she insisted that what she had named was the only materials they used. I again did ask if this was all and she said: “Yes”.

Tr. 5 revealed that the materials she used for teaching reading and writing included charts, local materials. I inquired to know what she meant by local materials and she indicated that she meant things found growing naturally in the environment, such as leaves, and objects found such as stones.

She also revealed that they used the ordinary school curriculum. When I probed further she said: “the same syllabus”. The school/teachers were using the same syllabus as other primary schools for teaching reading and writing. There was no evidence of reference to other support/ Supplementary Guides (Adapted curriculum) that had been provided to the schools by the ministry of education and sports. The adapted curriculum was specific adaptations of the present ordinary school curriculum, designed to meet the needs of the learners with special learning needs. The guides were designed and developed to support and give an opportunity even to the teachers who had not been trained formally to teach learners with special learning needs to be able to teach these learners, when required. This equally pointed fingers at the teacher‟s lack of knowledge regarding other materials and methods of teaching reading and writing. Tr.6 on the same subject reported “...you may have a blackboard ruler...you...” Her attention was more on the methods.

Tr.5 and Tr.6 used a variety of materials and especially real objects during the teaching but never named all of them during the interview. This is similar to the evidence on the interviews regarding the first teachers. Tr.4 and Tr.3 emphasized the use of real objects and charts. They also reported to have used a projector at one time when it was functioning. All the teachers reported that

instructional/teaching learning materials were very essential for the teaching/learning processes. They also indicated lack of these materials; as highlighted by the extract above; as a serious problem.

Interviews with the head teachers revealed teaching/learning materials to be considered very crucial for teaching learning purposes. Htr.1 stated that,

“...the ministry of education has not supplied any instructional materials yet and we are just trying to improvise since we have none.”

He sounded very concerned that the parents were not even supporting in providing their children with any writing materials. He reported that materials were very critical for reading. Htr.1 reported, “once the child knew how to read first, and then writing would easily be picked”. His concern was that reading was very critical in upper classes. Htr.1 and Htr.2 all named the use of writing materials

45 typically found in ordinary schools. This included pictures, jigsaws, pencils, colors, paper, real objects and teacher-made instructional materials. Htr.1, who was in a school located within a city, was also emphatic on audio-visual equipment such as TV, and audio equipment such as radios and tapes. Htr.2, who was far from the city and in the rural area, only highlighted the commonly known and used materials such as pencils, sign-language books.Htr.2 stated,

“We used books like in the ordinary classes and we bought one sign language book which they are using”

I interpreted this to be an example of an influence of one‟s environment on one‟s performance and thinking.