Our careful analysis has shown that - in Europe we lack focused knowledge about the use of national sign languages in education; - in Europe there is no overview available on forms of sign bilingual education; - there is pressing need to support teachers who work bilingually with a signed language by enabling them professional development; - in the 3 German-speaking countries there is a great demand for concepts, lesson plans, didactic manuals and methodological guides for teachers. Some of these aspects are known in some regional or national contexts but they are scarcely documented and are not internationally accessible knowledge. The strategic partnership De-Sign Bilingual unites 5 specialized schools and 4 universities and aims at creating the following results: a) Develop and implement sign bilingual teaching concepts and materials. b) Enable international and cross-regional cooperation of ley actors in sign bilingual pedagogy and make them sustainable; c) Make local knowledge and competences available nationally and internationally; d) Create a map of sign bilingual practice in Europe (28 countries); e) Document the most innovative models of sign bilingual practice in Europe, describe them in a way that is relevant for educators and teachers and make that information available in a book in order to start systematic, transnational transfer of knowledge in the area of European Deaf education; f) Organize a conference in order to make project results available to teachers, school authorities, ministries of education and researchers. Activities of De-Sign Bilingual: 1) Within the strategic partnership “De-Sign Bilingual” a select group of sign language competent (Deaf and hearing) teachers from the 3 German-speaking countries will participate in transnational work meetings. In the course of 2 years seven such meetings will be held in the cities of participating schools in order to reflect on, discuss and create bilingual teaching concepts, materials and lesson plans. The results of the teachers’ working groups (lesson plans, didactic and methodical concepts) will be made freely available on the website www.gehoerlos-lernen.at. In each participating school there will be one teacher/multiplier who relates the creative work processes as well as results to the remaining members of the educational staff in small workshops and information events. 2) Survey, documentation and publication of „Sign Bilingual Practice in Europe“. In work package 2 we will create instruments for a survey on sign bilingual practice in 28 EU member states without having to travel to all countries to collect data. The survey will be a cooperation between all 9 partners, i.e. academic as well as school educators. Academic partners are responsible for the dissemination of the questionnaire, the data collection and the analysis as well as publication. Data will come directly from schools/teachers and will be systematically analysed by academic standards and with academic means in order to create a Map of Sign Bilingual Practice in Europe. 3) Qualitative survey and documentation of „European Sign Bilingual Best Practice“. The third activity will focus on examples of European sign bilingual best practice: they will be qualitatively researched, analysed and described. Prior to publication the results will be discussed with the participating teachers (see activity 1), then they will be triangulated with the quantitative data (see work package 2) and with existing scholarly publications. The results will be published in 2 books (in German and English). 4) Dissemination. The results of the 2-year-strategic partnership will be made available to the public/to colleagues/to researchers/to key players in several ways: There will be multipliers in all participating schools, plus 2 book publications and a campaign on the open access platform www.gehoerlos-lernen.at. Finally, results and resources will be disseminated through a closing conference on "Creating Sign Bilingual Best Practice in Schools". For national educational systems bilingual competencies and materials mean that inclusion becomes feasible. Through professionalization of teachers who work with a sign language the quality of education will be improved significantly. For key players, supranational institutions and European players (commission and parliament) the Intellectual Outputs of this strategic partnership will support informed decisions and evidence-based policymaking.
Our careful analysis has shown that in Europe - there is no focused knowledge on how and where the national sign languages are used in bilingual school education; - there is no overview of bimodal bilingual education (= teaching with a spoken/written and a signed language) and specific settings; - there is great need to support and encourage those teachers who already teach bilingually. - Especially in Slovakia there is large interest in practical knowledge from those countries where there is more experience with bimodal bilingual education. - In the German speaking countries there is great demand of structural concepts, teaching lessons, didactic manuals and teaching materials for teachers. The strategic partnership "De-Sign Bilingual" is dedicated to these issues and aims at raising the scope and quality of sign bilingual school education of deaf/hard of hearing pupils. The project brings together five schools and four universities specialized in bimodal-bilingual education. Activities Within De-Sign Bilingual the following activities took place in the course of 24 months: 1. A group of 16 sign language competent hearing and Deaf school teachers from the 3 German speaking countries conducted 7 transnational project meetings. They sat in each others lessons, enjoyed further education by inviting guest speakers and developed 40 series of lesson plans plus teaching material for bimodal bilingual education in 10 school subjects. 2. The university partners conducted 9 transnational project meetings and collected data on Europe’s bimodal bilingual education: a) They conducted an online survey in 39 European countries: 62 experts and 12 national associations of the Deaf contributed their knowledge about their national schools for Deaf/hard of hearing children. Data was on structure, practice and culture and included supporting and obstructive factors for the implementation of sign bilingual education. Based on the analysis they published an online map on the status of bimodal bilingual education in Europe. b) Legal foundations (laws, curricula, teaching plans, …) were collected, analyzed and summarized for the online platform. c) 60 schools from Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Slovakia responded in an online survey about the language education for deaf/hard of hearing pupils. d) In a multistage process 8 good practice models of bimodal bilingual schools were elected, interviews conducted and the different models thus qualitatively described in great detail. The resulting insights were used to develop the “Bi-Bi Toolbox”. 3. All 9 partners together developed 15 tools for the implementation of bimodal bilingual education in schools. 4. On September 16, 2016 at the multilingual closing conference "Creating Bimodal Bilingual Good Practice in Schools in Europe“ the project results were presented to an audience of 220 teachers, headmasters, civil servants, researchers and other interested individuals from over 20 countries. Results 1) The interactive map for 39 countries shows the status of bimodal bilingual education in Europe. It has been online since 9/2016, is accessible for free and in German, English and some national languages: www.univie.ac.at/map-designbilingual. The map can be amended and enlarged anytime. 2) Teaching material and tools for bimodal bilingual education is available for free from http://www.univie.ac.at/teach-designbilingual. The platform can be extended by any registered user and is therefore a sustainable new resource. Tools are available in German and some in English and Slovak. 3) The Bi-Bi Toolbox is a tool for the reflexion and development of bimodal bilingual schooling to be used by headmasters or teachers. The comprehensive tool is available in German, English and Slovak plus partly in several sign languages. The Bi-Bi Toolbox can be downloaded for free www.univie.ac.at/teach-designbilingual > Menu Werkzeuge > file Bi-Bi Toolbox. 4) In-depth analyses of the data collected will be published in academic journals and books. A summary of the project results is available in German, English and Slovak from www.univie.ac.at/designbilingual.