Project Deaf Language Awareness is aimed to rise deaf adults general language awareness. In the project course partnership of 4 organization from Poland, Austria, Portugal and Italy will develop 18 e-courses in 4 written/sign languages. During process of e-courses production deaf adults will be invite to test products and give their opinion key aspects like utility, accessibility, attractiveness and compatibility. At the beginning of 2021 all 18 e-courses will be free accessible at the project webpage. For those who would like to implement e-courses in their nationa written/sign language partnership will prepare working material in English (e-courses content and scenarios). In the first half of the 2021 4 national Deaf Language Awareness Month will take place. During this time a set of different activities will be held to encourage deaf adult to take e-courses. General language awareness is a basic factor affecting life-long national writtern language learning among deaf adults. Good comand of national written languge is a basic factor affecting social inclusion of deaf people in the area of job, social services, culture and eductaion.
The Deaf Language Awareness project aims to increase the language awareness of deaf people. Language awareness is one of the factors influencing the learning of languages and foreign languages. The same is among deaf adults. Good knowledge of the written language supports the inclusion of deaf citizens in work, cultural services, and education. As part of the project, a partnership of 4 organizations from Poland, Austria, Portugal, and Italy developed 18 e-courses in 4 speech/sign language courses, a total of 72 language courses. Topics of e-courses are related to language knowledge and language processes: 1. What is a language? 2. Why do we need a language? 3. Language and speech 4. What is learning? 5. Learning strategies 6. What is language acquisition? 7. What is bilingualism? 8. What does the brain have to do with language? 9. What are bilingualism, multilingualism, and multilingualism from a social perspective? 10. Language evolution 11. Language families 12. Figurative language 13. Language translation/interpretation 14. How do languages describe objects? 15. How do languages describe activities and states? 16. How do languages describe features? 17. What are function words in languages? 18. What is grammar? Deaf specialists have worked in the e-course production process both as interpreters and as persons performing the tests. All courses are available free of charge, without registration, on the project website: www.deaflanguage.eu For all those who would like to implement e-courses in their country, partners share e-courses source files from the Articulate Story 3 program and the original course content in English. In the second part of 2021, multiplier events took place in each partner's country. Over 300 participants attended these events (live and online): deaf adults, deaf teachers, hearing teachers of the deaf, sign language interpreters, researchers, and specialists of sign language development.