Umang Education and Research Centre for the Hearing Impaired
We supported Umang to develop a language acquisition toolkit and training course for teachers, community based rehabilitation workers, parents and other stakeholders.
The Umang Education and Research Centre for the Hearing Impaired is a school run by the Shrimad Rajchandra Seva Kendra, a secular and charitable trust, which came into being in December 2004. The Centre provides services free of cost to around 75 deaf children through its day programme and resource centre.
Project aim
To work together to with a variety of different stakeholders involved in the development of deaf children:
- Children - Umang will develop its creative preprimary programme that aims to develop visual and auditory discrimination skills, language fluency and provides opportunities and practice in critical thinking skills.
- Teachers - Umang will work with teachers to help them develop a thorough knowledge of the language acquisition process and will develop a toolkit and training course of instruction material to help make learning more meaningful and joyful for children.
- Parents - Umang will continue to work with parents to help them overcome feelings of inadequacy and guilt and develop their ability to become partners in their child's education.
Project Activities
The main activity of the project is the preparation of good quality instruction material games, cards and pictures, which are being developed keeping in mind the needs of the young child.
These instruction tools can be used:
- In any language as they provide the visual framework for discussion, conversation and reading
- Irrespective of the age of the target children, depending on the disability and language levels of the children
- To enrich all kinds of programmes in both rural and urban areas
The instruction kits consists of:
- Verb Cards - two sets containing 50 verbs, showing the progression from past to present to future
- Sequence Stories - three sets, containing 20 stories each. Each story consists of three, four or five pictures of simple easy to understand situations. Some of the stories will be open-ended ones for children to invent the end to the story
- Conversation Starters - three sets, each one containing 20 stimulation cards. Each picture depicts a situation involving two or more characters and provide children with the opportunity to make up their own stories or discuss a specific topic.
- Large Format Pictures - three sets, each one containing 20 large format pictures around a particular theme. The themes include festivals, places of interest, seasons, etc.
- Game Kit - this helps to develop thinking skills such as matching, classifying, associating, perceiving patterns, understanding relationships and problem solving
- Learning to Listen - An Auditory Training Software Package
- A manual - explaining how to use the tools and giving examples of different uses.
The project will develop 1000 copies of the toolkit which will be distributed to special and inclusive schools, preschools and parent groups throughout the state of Gujarat. Training courses in how to use the manuals and materials will be delivered at the same time.
Umang teacher at work
In the future it is hoped that the materials could be reproduced and used more widely and that a training video could be developed demonstrating good practice in using the toolkit for others.
It is also suggested that the material could be offered to other NGOs in the field of primary education and also to the Government for the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan scheme and the Integrated Child Development Services to be used in the 40,000 odd balwadis (community pre-school workers) run by them.
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