TEACHING VIETNAMESE LANGUAGE FOR HEARING-IMPAIRED CHILDREN AT PRIMARY SCHOOL LEVEL

The Vietnamese language curriculum at primary level clearly states the language proficiency requirements for each grade ranging from grade 1 to grade 2, 3, 4 and 5. However, those are requirements for students who can use four skills including listening, speaking, reading and writing. Teaching Vietnamese subject for students who suffer hearing impairment (especially deaf students) cannot achieve the program’s goals. Children who cannot hear often cannot speak and read aloud. Teaching Vietnamese letters to these children becomes extremely difficult. Vietnamese teachers must focus on helping the children develop their ability to recognize written words by sight in combination with visual means which can be encoded. Currently, students with hearing impairment are still studying Vietnamese according to the curriculum and textbooks of normal students. In order to reduce difficulties in learning to read and write for hearing-impaired students, in the short term, it is necessary to adjust the contents, and methods of teaching and evaluating the learning results to suit the way they learn to read, and write. After that, there is an urgent demand to compile specific programs and materials for those students with hearing impairment, helping them learn Vietnamese more effectively to expand their understanding as well as integrate into the community.