Special Education Teachers Professional Training

MyBIM conducted Special Education Teachers (Hearing) Professional Training Series 1 at Hotel Shangri-La, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah from 27 to 29 September 2019.

Malaysian Sign Language and Deaf Studies Association (MyBIM) was invited by Sabah Society for the Deaf (SSD) in conjunction with the Sabah State Education and Innovation Ministry to conduct a 3-days Intensive Training Course entitled “Special Education Teachers (Hearing) Professional Training Series 1” at Hotel Shangri-La, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah from 27 to 29 September 2019.

Ms. Jessica Mak, Mr. Anthony Chong, and Mr. James Chua, along with the skilled interpreters Ms. Lucy Lim and Mr. Paul Gan, collaboratively co-conducted this comprehensive workshop aimed at training special education teachers in Sabah on nine Deaf-related topics. Over the course of three enriching days, approximately 97 dedicated teachers from various special education schools, polytechnics, and institutes attended this workshop. Participants included educators from Deaf primary, secondary & vocational schools as well as those from NGO-run institutions, with many attendees traveling from different states to be part of this valuable learning experience.

Heartfelt welcome

On 27th September, in the early afternoon, Ms. Regina Wong of SSD warmly welcomed all the participants and explained the workshop objectives & rules, introducing the workshop hosts to the participants and vice versa. Ms. Jessica gave a short introduction about MyBIM. Mr. Anthony then started the workshop with “Deaf Culture”, which touched upon Deaf Culture in the Malaysian context, including Deaf traditions, literature and the Deaf Community. Dinner followed, allowing the participants to get to know each other better.

28th September was a full day where the participants learnt more about: Deaf People, Dual Identities; Introduction to Malaysian Sign Language (BIM); Language Assessment; Cognitive Development in Deaf Students; Educational Interventions; and Transitional Education. To break up the heavy schedule throughout the day, the co-hosts included a short introduction to Visual Gesture Communication (VGC) and included several games where the participants used VGC in game activities. Many participants enjoyed flexing their creativity during the VGC games without using their existing BIM and KTBM (Manually Coded Malay).

Language Learning Approach, where participants creatively drew up language lessons

The last day of the program, held on 29th September, featured two engaging topics: the Language Learning Approach, where participants creatively drew up language lessons using shape-codes, and BIM Translation, which focused on incorporating BIM techniques in teaching English, Bahasa Malay, and Geography. Additionally, a panel discussion took place during which the co-hosts addressed numerous interesting questions raised by attendees about various teaching challenges and experiences encountered within Deaf education environments.

After a hearty lunch, the co-hosts and participants came back to the ballroom to have a “graduation” session officiated by Assistant Education and Innovation Minister Jenifer Lasimbang and took group photos with the co-hosts, interpreters and SSD. The co-hosts and interpreters had a sumptuous farewell dinner with SSD before returning to Kuala Lumpur the next morning.

Overall, Ms. Regina with the help of SSD organised this special training very well. MyBIM’s Training Course was an opportunity to share about Deaf education issues and trends, and the training participants enjoyed the course very much. Many of them opened up about their struggles being teachers of Deaf students and found the training course useful to apply in their educational settings; they also requested for a longer, more intensive follow-up training course in the future. MyBIM hopes to introduce such course in the future, and also set up a training workshop model to be replicated across Malaysian states.