Language Barriers in Deaf-Centred Classroom: Perspectives from Malaysian Deaf Adults

Abstract

Effective communication is important for Deaf students to receive their education. In Malaysia, Deaf students may face ineffective communication with their teachers in Deaf-centred classrooms in both mainstream and special schools from Standard 1 until they graduated as their native language, Malaysian Sign Language (BIM) was not recognised as a language of instruction. This article investigates the communication efficacy between hearing teachers and Deaf students. The data were collected from Deaf adults who graduated from schools and analysed from a constructivist point of view using an interpretative phenomenological epistemology. Grounded theory and constant comparative analysis were applied on the data in order to reveal to what level they accomplished effective communication. The findings revealed that Deaf adults had learning struggles in their classroom because they lacked effective communication with teachers, which led to a conclusion that BIM should be used as the language of instruction.