My thesis is about the current knowledge of teachers of hearing impaired children for communication using sign language. I have been interested in the sphere of hearing impaired people for a long time and I would like to contribute my dissertation to improve the quality of education of hearing impaired children.

My dissertation has a few aims. The main aim is to describe actual erudition of hearing impaired children’s teachers in communication using sign language. Another aim is to analyse current study programs focused on leading incoming teachers of hearing impaired children (especially in possibilities of theoretical and practical sign language studies). Additional aim is to make analysis of existent and moderate learning materials (CD-ROMs, textbooks and coursebooks, dictionaries, video cassettes etc.). After evaluating the results, the most suitable learning materials will be proposed, and will subsequently be realised.

I chose this subject matter because in the last thirteen years there are very significant and important changes in the education of hearing impaired children. For example until 1989 using sign language was prohibited in education in Czechoslovakia. Children had been strictly educated by the oral/aural method (the term oral approach is used too). Now, more communication and educational systems in Czech schools for the hearing impaired are being applied. They are:

• Total communication
• Bilingual approach
• Oral approach

Sign language is an integral and important part of two of them – total communication and bilingual approach. Seventeen schools apply educational systems using sign language (there are twenty-five schools in all). But there is fair anxiety, whether teachers really know sign language. It isn’t easy to learn sign language, because sign language is quite an independent linguistic system, fully different from the spoken language (in our case – Czech language). Sign language has its own grammar, specific characters and satisfies all conditions of independent language.

Testing the communication ability of teachers in sign language is very severe and difficult. Therefore I will be finding actual erudition of teachers in sign language. After graduation of special study programs and sign language courses, including theoretical and practical knowledge of sign language, we can presume that the teacher is able to communicate in sign language. But research will addict in other school staff as well (educators, char women, cooks etc.), because application of total communication and the bilingual approach requires using sign language by every one, who is in contact with hearing impaired children.

From analyses that have already been made, much knowledge has resulted, which may be applied to the creation of new practical learning materials.