Developing and Documenting Sign Bilingual Best Practice in Schools Erasmus Project

Project Title

Developing and Documenting Sign Bilingual Best Practice in Schools

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for school education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2014

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Disabilities – special needs; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Pedagogy and didactics

Project Summary

Our careful analysis has shown that in Europe
– there is no focused knowledge on how and where the national sign languages are used in bilingual school education;
– there is no overview of bimodal bilingual education (= teaching with a spoken/written and a signed language) and specific settings;
– there is great need to support and encourage those teachers who already teach bilingually.
– Especially in Slovakia there is large interest in practical knowledge from those countries where there is more experience with bimodal bilingual education.
– In the German speaking countries there is great demand of structural concepts, teaching lessons, didactic manuals and teaching materials for teachers.

The strategic partnership “De-Sign Bilingual” is dedicated to these issues and aims at raising the scope and quality of sign bilingual school education of deaf/hard of hearing pupils. The project brings together five schools and four universities specialized in bimodal-bilingual education.

Activities
Within De-Sign Bilingual the following activities took place in the course of 24 months:
1. A group of 16 sign language competent hearing and Deaf school teachers from the 3 German speaking countries conducted 7 transnational project meetings. They sat in each others lessons, enjoyed further education by inviting guest speakers and developed 40 series of lesson plans plus teaching material for bimodal bilingual education in 10 school subjects.
2. The university partners conducted 9 transnational project meetings and collected data on Europe’s bimodal bilingual education:
a) They conducted an online survey in 39 European countries: 62 experts and 12 national associations of the Deaf contributed their knowledge about their national schools for Deaf/hard of hearing children. Data was on structure, practice and culture and included supporting and obstructive factors for the implementation of sign bilingual education. Based on the analysis they published an online map on the status of bimodal bilingual education in Europe.
b) Legal foundations (laws, curricula, teaching plans, …) were collected, analyzed and summarized for the online platform.
c) 60 schools from Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Slovakia responded in an online survey about the language education for deaf/hard of hearing pupils.
d) In a multistage process 8 good practice models of bimodal bilingual schools were elected, interviews conducted and the different models thus qualitatively described in great detail. The resulting insights were used to develop the “Bi-Bi Toolbox”.
3. All 9 partners together developed 15 tools for the implementation of bimodal bilingual education in schools.
4. On September 16, 2016 at the multilingual closing conference “Creating Bimodal Bilingual Good Practice in Schools in Europe“ the project results were presented to an audience of 220 teachers, headmasters, civil servants, researchers and other interested individuals from over 20 countries.

Results
1) The interactive map for 39 countries shows the status of bimodal bilingual education in Europe. It has been online since 9/2016, is accessible for free and in German, English and some national languages: www.univie.ac.at/map-designbilingual. The map can be amended and enlarged anytime.
2) Teaching material and tools for bimodal bilingual education is available for free from http://www.univie.ac.at/teach-designbilingual.
The platform can be extended by any registered user and is therefore a sustainable new resource. Tools are available in German and some in English and Slovak.
3) The Bi-Bi Toolbox is a tool for the reflexion and development of bimodal bilingual schooling to be used by headmasters or teachers. The comprehensive tool is available in German, English and Slovak plus partly in several sign languages. The Bi-Bi Toolbox can be downloaded for free www.univie.ac.at/teach-designbilingual > Menu Werkzeuge > file Bi-Bi Toolbox.
4) In-depth analyses of the data collected will be published in academic journals and books. A summary of the project results is available in German, English and Slovak from
www.univie.ac.at/designbilingual.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 278874,77 Eur

Project Coordinator

UNIVERSITAET WIEN & Country: AT

Project Partners

• Elbschule – Bildungszentrum Hören und Kommunikation
• Interkantonale Hochschule für Heilpädagogik Zürich
• HUMBOLDT-UNIVERSITAET ZU BERLIN
• Volksschule 1 Benediktinerschule Klagenfurt
• Ernst-Adolf-Eschke-Schule
• UNIVERZITA KOMENSKEHO V BRATISLAVE
• Bundesgymnasium, Bundesrealgymnasium u. Bundesoberstufenrealgymnasium XX, Brigittenauer Gymnasium, 1200 Wien, Karajangasse 14