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Part of
Understanding Deafness, Language and Cognitive Development: Essays in honour of Bencie Woll
Edited by Gary Morgan
[Trends in Language Acquisition Research 25] 2020
► pp. 183–204

Chapter 10
Educating bilingual and multilingual deaf children in the 21st century

This chapter offers an overview of sign bilingual education and some of the complex issues and challenges that impacted the evolution of sign bilingual practices in Europe, Australia and Asia. One such challenge is the promotion of inclusive education in recent years, which triggers a new thinking of partnering sign bilingualism with co-enrolment education for deaf and hearing children. The chapter ends with a summary of factors surrounding the future development of sign bilingual education, from the perspective of empirical research and pedagogy.

Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The evolution of sign bilingual education in three continents
    • 2.1UK
    • 2.2Australia
    • 2.3Asia
  • 3.Sign bilingual education in practice – Issues and challenges
  • 4.Emerging developments in deaf education
    • 4.1Co-enrollment as a new form of sign bilingual education in mainstream education
    • 4.2Increasing diversity in deaf children’s linguistic repertoire
    • 4.3Perception of language interaction as a natural outcome of bilingual development
  • 5.Sign bilingual education in the future
    • 5.1Educational environment
      • Professional training in sign bilingual education
    • 5.2Involvement of deaf ToDs
    • 5.3Sign language and parents
    • 5.4The nature of sign-supported speech in sign bilingual programmes
    • 5.5International movement towards promoting the linguistic status of sign language and its role in deaf children’s education
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgment
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 26 February 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/tilar.25.10tan
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