4.3 The second innovation: The Natural Auditory Oral Approach (NAOA), Cued Speech and
4.3.6 Implementation of NAOA
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At the Aquarius School, intensive parental involvement was crucial to the programme. The spoken language at school matched the home language: English. Deaf learners were in an exclusively oral environment with no exposure to Sign Language. Parents at Aquarius School were from middle to upper-middle-class backgrounds and were able to meet the cost of the resources required to support the programme.
Our context did not lend itself to meeting the criteria at the Aquarius School. We knew that we would have to implement the programme in our own unique way, and engage with different contextual influences. Providing an inclusive environment that included hearing learners would be impossible. In terms of the Department of Education, we were categorised as a special school for the Deaf. Because our school is a residential school, as previously discussed, parental involvement is minimal due to the far rural contexts from which parents had to travel. The majority of the parents came from poor socio-economic backgrounds. Transport costs to and from the school were exorbitant. Since Hilltop School is a residential establishment, teachers and housemothers play the role of surrogate mothers. The housemothers were first-language isiZulu speakers with very limited proficiency in English. In the case of our parents, their home language was also isiZulu, with very limited English proficiency.
I encouraged my staff and tried to instil in them the thinking that ‘nothing was impossible’. We had to commit as a team to seeking creative ways of responding to the contextual influences on the project. I also stressed that we were in this as partners, and that our leadership of this project had to be a shared activity. I wanted them to understand and believe that we were joint change agents and risk takers. Drawing from Wenger (1998), I wanted us to enter the new initiative as a
‘community of practice’. I wanted to create a secure space in which we could draw on each other’s strengths and help one another. I thought of Hargreaves and Fullan’s (1998) contention that leadership is about crafting safe spaces in which creativity can flourish and where “efforts are coordinated and new directions set by learning, information gathering and dialogue rather than through administrative regulation and hierarchical control” (p. 285).
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Eleven learners formed the new Grade 0, NAOA class. Their ages ranged from three to six years old. They were assessed and results showed that they had moderate to profound hearing loss.
Seven learners had no identifiable language or means of communication. Two learners had a basic vocabulary of Sign Language. These learners had Deaf parents.
NAOA promotes a normal and natural way of language development.
Figure 63. The Natural Auditory Oral Approach (NAOA) (www.elzeno.com) Figure 63 depicts the fundamental argument of NAOA, which is that language is ‘caught and not taught’ in a language-rich learning environment. NAOA consists of three essential components:
the natural (yellow frame), the auditory (green) and the oral (purple).The premise is that hearing children attain language naturally or spontaneously through everyday interactions. Deaf children can imitate this natural language acquisition through the use of auditory devices(green box). As a result of audiological intervention and exposure to daily interactions in a language-enriched environment, Deaf children can learn to use expressive oral language without signs (purple box).
In keeping with the principles of NAOA, all learners were fitted with digital hearing aids to ensure the maximisation of their residual hearing. An FM system was used to amplify sound.
Since NAOA emphasises one-on-one interaction between learner and teacher in order to promote language development, teachers carefully designed individual conversation sessions with
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a focus on learners being able to ‘pick up’ the unspoken rules of conversation, for example turn- taking, eye contact and natural pauses in conversations. Figures 64–71 show NAOA in progress.
Figure 64. Grade 0 learners after acquiring hearing aids.
Figure 65. Grade 0 learners with their teacher and teacher’s aid.
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Figure 66. Programming a learner’s digital hearing aid.
Figure 67. Programming a learner’s digital hearing aid.
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Figure 68. Connecting receivers to the hearing aids.
Figure 69. Campus S transmitter and receivers.
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Figure 70. Learners after fitting the FM system.
Figure 71. Teacher utilising the FM system in a one-on-one setting.
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Books, props and activities were used to enrich these language conversations. Despite the fact that NAOA recognises facial expression, body language and natural gestures, the emphasis is on listening — a principle based on the premise that all children learn through listening. Teachers therefore encouraged learners ‘to listen’ rather than ‘to look’.
One of the key principles in NAOA is the provision of a language-enabling environment, in order to facilitate language acquisition. In this regard, teachers used natural daily interactions such as eating, dressing and playing, as well as entertainment and literacy activities that exposed learners to a variety of oral vocabulary. It was believed that these activities would provide opportunities for learners to experience language. Turan (2010) explains that natural daily interactions provide children with the context for language development and communication skills. It is further contended that the amount of talk within the context of activities has a powerful effect on language development (Hart & Risley, 1995).
Sign Language in any form was prohibited. This was in keeping with the NAOA belief that the introduction of Sign Language or sign-assisted communication will seriously interfere with the development of speech and language if the spoken language has not yet been well established.
Our intention was to introduce Sign Language in the third year of the programme. We envisaged that most learners would have acquired some degree of English after the first three years.
However, this did not materialise because we were unable to separate learners from their signing peers. Thus, learners were exposed to Sign Language in the hostels and playgrounds. I will discuss the issue of Sign Language in this programme in section 4.3.8.