Mediation strategies for the tale and retelling stories for deaf

Abstract

The aim of this study was to describe strategies on mediation activities for tales and retelling stories for deaf students. The participants were two deaf students and their teachers in a kindergarten and at an elementary school in an inland city of São Paulo State. The tales to be worked with have been planned and agreed among the teachers and the researcher. The stories have been adapted by the Picture Communication Symbols (Mayer-Johnson, 2004) and puppets have been used, as well as role playing and presentation of signals in Libras. Continuous recording have been applied and the activities developed in the classroom have been filmed. The data records have been added to the filming data. Triangulation and content analysis have also been done. The following categories and subcategories of analysis were identified: 1- Student participation: deaf students, hearing students; 2- participation of teachers: teacher from kindergarten, elementary school teacher; 3- mode of communication of deaf students: hearing orally, visuospatial, bimodality; 4- communication strategies of mediation: oral language, bimodal communication; 5- resources supported in graphic systems: additional and alternative communication and other resources. Mediation strategies and adopted resources promote better interaction and better participation from both listeners and deaf students within the scheduled activities. However, teaching sign language to students with deafness is considered quite important and also the insertion of the Sign Language interpreter into the context of the classroom.