Teaching and Learning for the Deaf in Thailand: Problems, Models and Bilingual Teaching Methods

Abstract

This article aims to study learning problems of Thai Deaf students, teaching approaches, and bilingual teaching methods in Thai context. Recently, there are several teaching approaches for Thai Deaf student which are utilized differently, depending on educational institutions, especially in both higher education and school system. As the author has reviewed the studies in Deaf education and Thai sign language analysis together with experience in field at Ratchasuda College, Mahidol University it appears that there are two major teaching approaches for deaf students in Thailand: 1) Total Communication with the emphasis on Oral Method and Auditory-Based Approach 2) Bilingual Education. For Bilingual Education, the Thai sign language is deployed as a mother tongue and Standard Thai as a second language. In addition, this approach plays an essential role for learning management for these particular students. Ratchasuda College, Mahidol University is the first institute that starts using bilingual-bicultural Education (Bi-Bi Education) approach to support learning skills for deaf students with belief that the approach does not only encourage the learning skills, but also it encourages the students to explore the society of typical people with linguistic and cultural diversity.