Trainees

(arranged in alphabetical order)

ALL / Fiji / Hong Kong / Indonesia / Japan / Sri Lanka

Deaf

FURUKAWA Kaori

Ms. Kaori Furukawa is from Japan. She joined the APSL program in 2010. She has recently completed two diplomas in the APSL program and is now studying for three more diplomas.

Kaori Furukawa is from Japan. She graduated from two universities, Nagano University, where she studied education and social welfare, and Gunma University, where she majored in the special needs education. She has written a graduation thesis called “Identity as the Deaf Person.” This thesis has led her to understand the current state of the deaf education in Japan. Japan deaf education mainly focuses on oral-education. Therefore verbal language education is more deeply-rooted than sign language. This affects Deaf students’ communication ability and their Japanese proficiency. As of now, no evidence has shown that Japan has considered Japan Sign Language as a language. Therefore, she has come to The Chinese University of Hong Kong to study sigh linguistic and make a sign language dictionary. She wants to develop the sign language dictionary and make it available for teaching as soon as possible. Her goal is not to limit herself to Japan deaf education but to contribute to the development of deaf education throughout Asia.

IKEDA Masumi

Ms. Masumi Ikeda is from Japan. She joined the APSL program in 2010. She has recently completed two diplomas in the APSL program and is now studying for three more diplomas.

Ms. Masumi Ikeda graduated from the Matsuyama School for the Deaf. She worked in life insurance before she began to teach sign language in 2009. In 2010, she learned about the APSL program from the Nippon Foundation and the Japanese Federation of the Deaf. Currently, she is participating in APSL program which gives her the opportunity to learn how to plan and conduct sign language research. She enjoys being a part of this project very much. She is now learning basic computer skills, which relates to the production of sign language dictionaries. She hopes that her work will help deaf children and their parents, as well as people who want to learn sign language in the future.

IMAI Mika

Ms. Mika Imai is from Japa. She joined the APSL program in 2011. She is now studying for three diplomas in the APSL program.

Mika Imai is from Gunma, Japan. She was born in a Deaf family and studied at a Deaf primary school in Gunma. Later on, she went to Wako University, majoring in transcultural studies.

She took transcutural study because she was aware that there are only a few Deaf movies, and she wanted to increase the production of Deaf movies. She worked on a movie project about the use of natural sign language by Deaf children. This movie was made to gain awareness about sign language. The movie shows that sign language is a language, just like spoken language. Through this movie, both hearing and Deaf people were expected to accept and know the importance of sign language.

Mika came to Hong Kong and joined APSL program in June 2011. She is very excited to join the program. After receiving training in sign linguistic and Deaf studies at CSLDS, Mika hopes to teach and give training to people in the media industry about the importance of sign language for Deaf people and that Deaf people are communicators who have their own culture.

ISOBE Daigo

Mr. Diago Isobe is from Japan. He joined the APSL program in 2010. He has recently completed two diplomas in the APSL program and is now studying for three more diplomas.

Mr. Daigo Isobe is an advance level graduate of School for the Deaf at University of Tsukuba. After he had graduated in 1982, he became a sign language lecturer and also worked as a medical treatment clerical officer for 29 years in many different places. For the past five years, he was in charge of the sign language interpreter training course at the Kansai Sign Language College. In November 2010, he started his training in the Asia Pacific Sign Linguistics Research and Training Programme. His goal is to establish sign linguistic studies in Japan, improve the situations of deaf people throughout Asia, as well as contribute to the development of sigh language research through the study of sign linguistics.

ODAKA Mayumi

Ms. Odaka Mayumi is from Japan. She joined the APSL program in 2011. She is now studying for three diplomas in the APSL program.

Mayumi Odaka graduated from the Chiba Deaf School. After her high school graduation, she worked for the municipal government in Support of People with Disabilities Division, and also in Child Welfare Department. In April 2011, she decided to come to Hong Kong to study sign linguistics and take part in the sign linguistic research and training. Currently, there are a lot of volunteer interpreters, however, Japan needs interpreters who are professionally trained. Therefore, her decision to learn sign linguistics and sign language teaching is to help train future sign language interpreters.