TEACHING STRATEGIES TO TEACH HEARING-IMPAIRED STUDENTS AT SPECIAL EDUCATION SCHOOL IN SARAWAK, MALAYSIA

Whatever teaching strategies adopted by the teacher, it has to be the one best suited for a specific target group of students, even if it will be a tall order for hearing-impaired students who have language and communication problems. With different hearing-impaired student abilities, the teacher is very much challenged and must be equipped with skills in order to successfully teach and accommodate the needs of all the students. A qualitative study was done in a special education school in Sarawak, Malaysia. Five teachers participated in the structured interview to answer the three objectives of this study. The objectives are to identify the teaching strategies used to teach hearing-impaired students, to determine the reasons for the choice of teaching strategies used to teach hearing-impaired students and to identify challenges in teaching hearing-impaired students. The study shows that there is lack of communication competence among students and also a lack of teaching competency to teach hearing-impaired students by the teachers. The teachers also expressed their worries about the social, academic, and emotional challenges that the students face.