New Zealand’s first bilingual deaf unit

LEARNING SIGNS: Daniel Williams, 10, and deaf teacher of the deaf David Buchanan at Palmerston North’s Winchester School, where what is believed to be New Zealand’s first official “bilingual” deaf unit attached to a primary school will be opened next week. The unit teaches both New Zealand sign language and English.

It offers children the same education programme as that of the Kelston and Van Asch Deaf Education Centres in Auckland and Christchurch respectively.

Mr Buchanan, who will head the unit, is one of six deaf teachers teaching the deaf in New Zealand. He said all six were fluent in New Zealand sign language and believed deaf children learned how to read and write English best if they were taught through that language.

The unit has been designed to take up to seven children aged five to 12. It will be opened by Education Minister Wyatt Creech next Thursday.

Until now, deaf children living in Manawatu have boarded in Christchurch to learn New Zealand sign language.

“It’s a new era for deaf education,” Mr Buchanan said.

The unit is not to be confused with the one attached to St Joseph’s in Feilding which teaches signed English — a coded form of English for the deaf that Mr Buchanan says has not been successful for some deaf pupils.

Photo caption: LEARNING SIGNS: Daniel Williams, 10, and deaf teacher of the deaf David Buchanan at Palmerston North’s Winchester School.