Deaf teachers in basic education: reflections on training, practices and use of libras evaluation instruments

• Grant number: 24/05480-5
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: September 01, 2024
• End date: August 31, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Education - Specific topics in Education
• Principal Investigator: Lara Ferreira dos Santos
• Grantee: Lara Ferreira dos Santos
• Host Institution: Centro de Educação e Ciências Humanas (CECH). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Brazilian current legislation guides the offer of Bilingual Education for deaf individuals as a teaching modality; the professional responsible for teaching Libras in this context should be a deaf teacher. However, their initial training has been shown to be inadequate, and there is no in-depth discussion about the curriculum of Libras in schools, which results in a more instinctive teaching approach without parameters on what and how to teach deaf children at each educational stage. Therefore, this research aims - based on the offering of a continuing education course for deaf teachers working in public schools with inclusive and/or bilingual services for deaf individuals, in the state of São Paulo, using the narrative evaluation instrument - NarVal Libras production (Montes, Lacerda, 2022) - to present, discuss, analyze practices - and subsequently analyze and evaluate the training processes of these professionals. The methodological procedures include: 1) offering an online continuing education course for deaf teachers in the State of São Paulo; 2) two group interviews (at the beginning and end of the course); 3) recording of meetings and interviews for later analysis. The analysis will be based on the theories proposed by Vigotski (2008) and Bakhtin (2009). The research is justified by the lack of studies on these professionals, by the relevance of the investigation in the public education context for deaf individuals, and by the urgency of discussions on teaching/curriculum of Libras in schools. It is expected to find evidence of current challenges in teaching Libras in the school setting, as well as to provide reflections that transform their daily practices, enabling the creation of collective knowledge and discussion on the need for a curriculum for teaching Libras. (AU)