Mayflower Primary School has been adjusting its teaching and even canteen operations to cater for six Primary 1 pupils with hearing loss who joined this year. The entire school community spent the past few months preparing for their arrival.
All six deaf pupils are in the same class, studying and learning alongside their peers. It is only during mother tongue lessons that they go to a separate classroom to learn sign language.
Besides that, they attend all other lessons, such as English, mathematics, physical education, social studies, drama, arts and craft and even music classes.
For all lessons, the mainstream teacher wears a microphone that transmits and amplifies sound into the pupils’ hearing devices, while a specialised teacher, who is present at every lesson, also teaches and signs along.
"Like any new programme, it takes time for everyone to adapt to a new way of doing things,” English teacher Elaine Lim told Channel NewsAsia. “At the start, the pupils with hearing loss had to be reminded not to look at me when I was teaching, but to look at the teacher who was doing the signing during the lesson instead.
“Students and teachers in this class have also started using sign language to greet each other. Even though most of them have not learnt a lot of sign language, they use their own gestures to communicate with one another.”
Mayflower Primary will be offering sign language enrichment classes for those keen to learn after school. So far, 30 teachers have already signed up, and students of all levels have also indicated interest, the school said.
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