By: Joseph A. Kamanda
With growing concerns rapidly gaining momentum for the development of the middle-level manpower of People With Disabilities – PWDs, rights groups and have added their voices to loud and popular calls for the integration of both American and tactile sign languages in Sierra Leone’s curriculum at all levels.
The call is crucial as American and tactile sign languages should be a core educational component, directly targeting learners and people with disabilities at all stages in learning centres across Sierra Leone.
As a self-directed project-based learning, tactile sign languages are designed with special attention dedicated to learners with disabilities such as visual impairments those who struggle with classroom settings. It is thus needful for it to be incorporated into classrooms in Sierra Leone to aid learners.
Speaking to a fervent disability right advocates in the United States, Chief Executive Officer, Adama Team Foundation-US,UK and SL, Dr. Adama Vandy Konneh, clearly underscored the significance of both American and tactile sign languages in Sierra Leone’s classrooms.
“To create a more inclusive learning environment, it’s essential to incorporate both American and Tactile sign languages into the classroom.
She disclosed American and tactile sing languages will not only help to mainstream the learning experience, but also encourage more people to learn how to communicate with students of all abilities. Dr. Adama Vandy Konneh therefore all of government through the line ministries of education to incorporate American and tactile sign languages encourage more inclusive education.
What is Tactile Sign Language-Education?
Tactile sign language education, or hands-on learning, is super important in its incorporation into Sierra Leone’s classrooms for couple of reasons and benefits. It can serve as a great methodology to engage learners with Disabilities, by ways of helping them retain information and get positive learning outcomes.
In a country with limited resources like Sierra Leone, tactile sign language – education can also serves as a cost-effective way of providing quality education to beneficiaries, as it enhances better memory formations and long term retention to foster deeper understanding of learners, through problem-solving abilities.
Tactile sign languages – education also create an environment for hands-on learning approach wherein individuals learn best through physical engagement – by touching, moving, and manipulating objects.
Also known as kinesthetic learning, tactile education involves “learning by doing,” which can rapidly develop memory preservation and understanding compared to solely auditory or visual learning methodologies.
In Sierra Leone, tactile sign languages – education could be particularly useful in diverse subjects and courses at schools and at tertiary levels, with the fullest self-reliant empowerments to people with disabilities.
Considering the level of challenges with the issues of people with disabilities, tactile sign languages – education appear as immense deal in Sierra Leone. It is all about hands-on learning, wherein learners touch, feel, and physically experience things for themselves rather than the abstracts learning theory.
Sierra Leone should thus integrate tactile sign languages-education style as a core component of the country’s learning strategy to significantly improve learning outcomes, enhance inclusion for children with disabilities, and provide practical, life-applicable skills, chiefly in resource limited learning environments. Hence the urgent need for tactile sign learning-education policy.
By integrating it into the curriculums will minimize the rate of dropouts of people with disabilities from schools and at tertiary levels, and promote inclusive education.
The facts that the approach is important in resource drought countries because of its cost-effective ways of providing quality educational services, Sierra Leone’s would-be tactile sign language skills can thus serve as a game-changer for several reasons.
Tactile sign languages make learning fun, through hands – on activities. It transforms complex concepts into more engaging and interactive for learners. This makes learning a fun by incorporating interactive methods like games and hands-on activities, fostering a positive and creative environment, and connecting learning to real-life experiences. Tactile sign languages-learning backed by the appropriate political will, be the right way towards mitigating disability challenges in Sierra Leone’s education sector.
Making learning a game is when lessons are turned into games by way of adding a timer, a point system, or friendly competition and encourage more learners.
Getting hands-on approaches, one hand use scientific experiments in laboratories, art projects, or cooking in home-sciences to make abstract concepts tangible to learners as the case maybe at a given educational level.
Incorporation of movement is when physical activities such as dancing, hopping, or acting to lessons to keep learners engaged through fun. Fun in tactile sign languages-education also offers choice and freedom to allow learners make small choices about their tasks which gives them the freedom to explore their interests to boost engagements.
The use of digital tools can integrate technology like educational apps, on either hand-held devices such as tablets, laptops and desktop computers, whiteboards, or virtual learning circles, making learning more interactive.
In Sierra Leone for instance, many tactile sign language activities can be created using locally available or recycled materials (e.g., crafting toys from plastic bands, using natural materials for texture hunts). This makes it a sustainable and cost-effective approach to improving education quality without significant reliance on expensive infrastructure or digital technology.
Entertainments play key roles in facilitating tactile education, the encouragement of collaboration among learners by tutors via group projects and study sessions with peers; allow social learning and different perspectives of learners.
Connection to the real world through storytelling and examples shows how a subject is relevant to learners’ lives, making it more meaningful, whiles the creation of a positive environment provides a supportive atmosphere with laughter and encouragement reduces anxiety and makes learners more confident and eager to participate in tactile sign languages.
Moreover, connection to real-life contexts, learners in Sierra Leone often learn implicitly through participation in household livelihoods like farming, fishing, and trading. Formal tactile sign languages-education are built upon existing cultural and practical experiences, making classroom lessons more relevant to daily lives and future career paths of learners that is why it is crucial to introduce it in the educational curriculum.
Another key reason is that it’s a game-changer, is that tactile sign languages develops practical skills from which learners learn by doing; an approach that also prepares them for the workforce and everyday life.
By way of providing educational services for very large classes either at all stages, tactile sign languages – education reaches diverse learners. And can also target different learning styles and abilities which is why it should be incorporation into Sierra Leone’s curriculum.
Some other areas where tactile sign languages-education can shine in Sierra Leone include; agriculture, where in Hands-on farming and gardening can teach students valuable skills and promote food security.
Additionally, tactile education empowers technical skills in such a way that practical training in areas like carpentry, mechanics, and electrical work can equip students for jobs.
With these highlighted significance of tactile education, it is therefore crucial to the Government of Sierra Leone, the line Ministries of Higher and Technical and Basic and Senior Secondary Education in collaboration with their line sister agencies to develop or initiate a policy review that makes provision for tactile education at all levels of learning, considering disabilities not as inability.
