Sign language education in pre-school: Prospective pre-school teachers’ views about the Turkish sign language course

Abstract

Pre-school education is significant in the education of deaf children. The pre-school teacher is a gateway to realising the inclusion of deaf children in schools. In this study we investigated prospective pre-school teachers’ opinions and thoughts about sign language in deaf children’s education. In this descriptive study we employed the qualitative research method: semi-structured interviews were conducted with 16 prospective pre-school teachers who took the elective sign language course in the fall semester of the 2018–2019 academic year. The main themes obtained from the interviews were as follows: “Quality in early childhood education”, “Innovative practices in teacher training”, “Inclusive education in the pre-school period”, “Effective teaching for deaf children” and “Sign language competence of teachers.” The research findings suggest that prospective teachers must learn sign language that would contribute to their professional competence and that they would actively use sign language in their future professional lives.