Teachers trained to handle special needs students
Today, teachers from all over the country participated in a workshop aimed at helping them educate students with special needs. News 5’s Ann-Marie Williams was at the training exercise in Belize City this morning.
Ann-Marie Williams, Reporting
Teachers have a daunting task trying to educate regular children, let alone those with special needs. Today, over thirty teachers gathered at the City Centre in Belize City to strengthen their skills and methodologies for teaching deaf children. Eleanor Castillo, herself a special education teacher, is co-ordinating today’s event.
Eleanor Castillo, Workshop Co-ordinator
“We saw the need for teachers to be sensitised and to become more aware about strategies for teaching persons who are deaf. We have children all over the country, who are attending primary schools where the teachers don’t know what to do with them. because of the languages differences, they use sign and the teachers don’t know how to work with those children in their classrooms. So, we saw that need and we said we need to get those teachers to be able to bring them up to date, to get them more current to working with persons who are deaf.”
Children who are deaf find it especially challenging to learn if they are enrolled in a school, which does not have a trained teacher for the deaf on staff. In some cases, it could mean relocation.
Eleanor Castillo
“In some instances that is what happens. The parents either decide to send the child to the Cayo Deaf Institute in Listowel, or sometimes in very rare cases, the whole family will relocate to Belize City and come to the Academy for the Deaf. In other instances, which is more common, the children go to school in their area and personnel from the Ministry of Education, or specifically the Special Education Unit, go to the school and provide services. They help the teachers to make modifications to the practices in the school.”
Here in Belize to assist with modifications to the practice in the schools is facilitator Dr. Jean Wandel, a teacher for the deaf in the USA.
Dr. Jean Wandel, Facilitator
“The children who are deaf don’t have any language at all. They have no idea how words go together, they can’t communicate with their parents or with their teachers. And so specific step by step strategies are important.”
Wandel also gave participants tips for dealing with children who haven’t been exposed to language.
Dr. Jean Wandel
“If the children come without any language at all, I would suggest that they learn Belize sign language, and then from there move into English. And I would encourage the parents to learn Belize sign language, so that they can communicate with their children. Sign language in some ways is easier than English, because it’s concept base and for instance, the sign for banana is peeling a banana. So in some ways, sign language is easier than an oral language. In other ways it’s more difficult.”
The two-day workshop, which ends today, has a practical component where teachers learn to make visual aids, ideal for use in teaching the deaf. Ann-Marie Williams for News 5.
