HER HIGHNESS SHEIKHA JAMEELA HONORS PARTICIPANTS IN THE TRAINING COURSE TO DEVELOP THE SKILLS OF THE TEACHERS OF THE DEAF
Her Highness Sheikha Jameela bint Mohammed Al Qasimi, Director General of Sharjah City for Humanitarian Services (SCHS), has praised the efforts of teachers and specialists who participated in the training course to develop their skills in teaching deaf and hard of hearing persons. SCHS organized this training course, which enabled teachers and specialists from developing their skills in correspondence with the best international practices, in collaboration with Kentalis International Foundation.
This happened when the Director General of SCHS honored 20 teachers and specialists, who managed to pass the training course successfully in special ceremony on Thursday, January 9, 2020. Her Highness Sheikha Jameela delivered the graduation certificates to participants in the presence of the two trainers (Ink Williams) and (Marek Folsog) who received honoring as well.
She said, “Offering services to persons with disabilities in correspondence to SCHS’s leadership is a priority. Therefore, SCHS strives to consolidate the relationships of cooperation with local, regional, and international bodies”.
“Developing the capabilities of teachers of deaf students provides an opportunity for them to improve the quality of education. SCHS cares very much to offer the services to persons with disabilities on the hands of the best teachers, trainers, and specialists. Therefore, SCHS continues enhancing the skills of its staff in every area of life”, added Her Highness Sheikha Jameela.
She asked the teachers who participated in and benefited from the course to transfer their expertise to their colleagues in SCHS various sections and branches.
She directed her sincerest thanks to Kentalis International Dutch Foundation and the two trainers (Ink Williams) and (Marek Folsog), who did their best in developing the skills of teachers and offered new educational skills.
For their part, the two trainers Ink and Marek were so happy to cooperate with SCHS in developing the skills of its teachers throughout a new strategy based on choosing the right word, which does not need affixes and depend on the meaning not on the construction.
They said, “The second element of the new strategy depends on choosing a fun way to teach and use drawings, pictures and graphics. The third element depends on giving the student an opportunity to understand the word and its uses. After that, the teacher must give examples from real life. After making sure of it, the teacher should put the word with its illustration on the wall or blackboard. The fourth element depends on repeating the word during activities and role-playing for 5 minutes every day for two weeks”.
Here, the two trainers pointed out that the teacher must not present more than 15 words in a week. Then, the teacher must teach new words. The fifth element of the new strategy depends on making evaluation throughout asking direct and provocative questions using pictures and situations to know how much the student learned.
The two trainers focused on the importance of using pictures and signs in teaching students with hearing impairment. Notably, Kentalis International was founded 225 years ago. It has a distinctive educational and entertaining system for deaf and hard of hearing people and people with language learning challenges. It offers training courses in various countries around the world.
The two trainers praised the techniques used to teach deaf students inside Al Amal School and Kindergarten for the Deaf such as smart blackboards and advanced educational methods. They confirmed that they benefited from this experience and that the participating teachers interacted with the course details positively.
For their part, participating teachers emphasized the useful information learned from the in-depth explanation of the new vocabulary and ways to teach it to students in order to use it in classrooms and life in general. They directed their sincerest thanks to Her Highness Sheikha Jameela bint Mohammed Al Qasimi, who has been and remains the main supporter of all meaningful work that is useful for persons with disabilities and the development of the cadres working with them. Special thanks went to Kentalis International Foundation and the two trainers Ink and Marek.