Bilingualism AN AWARENESS-RAISING MEDIA MEETING WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF AL AMAL
On Thursday, May 1, 2025, Al Amal School for the Deaf, affiliated with Sharjah City for Humanitarian Services (SCHS), organized the media meeting “Bilingualism” As part of its celebration of the 50th Arab Deaf Week under the slogan (The feasibility of using artificial intelligence in educating and rehabilitating the deaf). The event aims at highlighting the importance of bilingualism for deaf and hard of hearing people for community communication.
The meeting, which was hosted by the SCHS’s Ajad Training Center, was moderated by Ms. Shuaa Fakhouri, a development expert at the Sharjah Private Education Authority, and the following persons spoke in it: Ms. Rabab Abdel Wahab, head of the SCHS’s Assistive Technologies Center, Dr. Amani Shaaban, psychologist at Al Amal School for the Deaf, Mr. Ahmed Hashem, speech and language specialist at Al Amal Kindergarten for the Deaf, and Mr. Wael Samir, a sign language expert and translator at SCHS.
The speakers covered a range of topics, including the definition of bilingualism, the difficulties deaf people face in learning and communicating, the challenges faced by sign language interpreters in their daily work, and how society and the media can help break down barriers facing deaf people. The meeting was attended by deaf students, parents, specialists, media professionals, and interested parties.
The meeting also covered the nature of the impact of learning one's native sign language on verbal skill acquisition, the findings of research studies on bilingualism for deaf individuals and its effects on verbal language learning, and "bilingualism" from the standpoint of scientific study. The impact of bilingualism on cognition, the findings of scientific studies demonstrating that learning sign language does not impede the acquisition of spoken language, and the reasonable question of whether there were differences in verbal language skills before and after employing a bilingual methodology were all covered in the meeting.
The experience of Al Amal School for the Deaf was presented to the meeting, covering topics such as the school's role in creating a comprehensive educational and rehabilitation environment for the deaf, the effects of bilingualism on deaf people's social and psychological skills, the psychological significance of effective communication and sign language comprehension, and the role of society in promoting and fostering social interaction with deaf people.
In addition to discussing the idea of universal design for learning and connecting it to the idea of learning sign language, the speakers then talked about the impact of technology in education and how it improved the education of deaf and hard of hearing individuals at Al Amal School for the Deaf.
The audience was given the opportunity to ask questions and discuss the concepts that had been brought up at the conclusion of the meeting.