As the second phase of the Nippon Foundation-founded research project, this program is intended to last for 6 years during which a series of sub-degree programs will be launched, aiming to provide centralized training in sign linguistics and sign language teaching to deaf and hard of hearing students in the Asia Pacific region.
The program will benefit up to 4 Asian countries at the Certificate/Diploma level, among which 2 Asian countries will proceed to the Higher Diploma level, leading to the possibility of tertiary education.
In addition to the establishment of sign language research and training in the Asia Pacific region, this program will maintain the spirit of Phase I – the training has the goal of publishing dictionaries and teaching/learning materials based on specific sign languages in the Asia Pacific region.
The second phase of the program has the following goals:
While in keeping with the original spirit of the Practical Dictionaries project in Phase I, the program in Phase II also attempts to couch the research and training of sign linguistics within the context of high school education for the deaf researchers and postgraduate education for Asian students of linguistics. Through partnering with Asian tertiary institutions, government bodies and deaf associations, the program in this phase has the goal of generating teams of professionally trained sign language researchers, deaf or hearing, to support the establishment of sign linguistics research and training in different tertiary institutions in the Asia Pacific region.
1st Cohort (2007-2012) Deaf and hearing trainees from Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Hong Kong |
2nd Cohort (2010-2015) Deaf trainees from Fiji, Japan and Hong Kong |
In this second phase, a series of sub-degree programmes jointly offered by CSLDS and the School of Continuing and Professional Studies of CUHK are launched to provide centralized formal training in sign language research and sign language teaching to Deaf students at CSLDS. These programmes cover topics including sign linguistics, applied sign linguistics, deaf studies, English literacy skills and IT applications. For details of the programmes, see here.
During this phase, Fiji and Japan are benefiting from the Programme at the Diploma level, while Sri Lanka and Indonesia have already proceeded to the Higher Diploma level.
The deaf and hearing junior researchers collaborate closely with the instructors at CSLDS in conducting cross-linguistic research on Asia-Pacific sign languages. The findings of which will be documented in a database called ‘Asian SignBank’. At the university level, the sign linguists of CSLDS will be collaborating closely with the linguists of the Asian universities and the deaf associations in conducting researchers on Asia-Pacific Sign Languages.