Communications – Signing and oralism
Ephphatha School believes in teaching sign language and hence the importance they place on preschool preparation for pupils starting at the school. All teachers use sign language but none are formally qualified as most of this training has been done on the job by teachers who are more proficient in signing. In 1992 Ephphatha School started to do more to develop a signing vocabulary and produced a booklet of 83 commonly used words in Burundi, which can only be seen as a start because this was not followed up by any further publications. The teachers in Ephphatha do not discourage oralism nor do they force signing all the time. There is willingness among the teachers and the head teacher at Ephphatha to learn oralism/lip reading from CESDA teachers and to teach CESDA teachers their signing skills.
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