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A study of understanding of the Sign Language

Abstract

The purpose of this case study was to determine the level of understanding of the sign language [Kod Tangan Bahasa Malaysia (KTBM)] among hearing impaired students at a school in Penang. This study involved 40 hearing impaired secondary students as respondents. All respondents had been chosen by cluster sampling technique from form four (year 10) students. An achievement test was used to examine the respondents level of understanding KTBM signs and relating them to the words which are being signed. The internal reliability using alpha cronbach was 0.90. The data collected in this study were analyzed using percentage. The results of this study showed that 49.5 percent of the respondents were able to understand the KTBM signs which had been signed to them and were able to write the words which represented by the KTBM correctly. The finding of this study showed that the hearing impaired students performed poorly in understanding words with prefixes, suffixes as well as abstract words.

INTRODUCTION In the process of giving education, communication is very important. Without effective communication, one cannot receive education and gain information effectively. In Malaysia the deaf students go to special schools for the deaf for their formal education. However, in their schooling, they still have to follow the normal curriculum as their normal hearing peers do. In order to follow the process of teaching and learning effectively, deaf students need effective communication method which can enable them to understand what is being taught. Education system in Malaysia uses Kod Tangan Bahasa Melayu (KTBM) as its communication method for the deaf students. Kod Tangan Bahasa Malaysia Kod Tangan Bahasa Malaysia (KTBM) is a sign language that is being used by deaf students and special education teachers who is teaching the deaf students. A sign language is a language as other language being spoken in the world. A sign language is a language which uses manual communication instead of sound to convey meaning - simultaneously combining hand shapes, orientation and movement of the hands, arms or body, and facial expressions to express fluidly a speaker's thoughts. KTBM involves hand sign language, body gestures, and facial expression (Malaysian Ministry of Education, 1985). According to Saleena Yahya Isa (1981) and Malaysian Ministry of Education (1985), when KTBM is transform into written Malay language, it will have no different from the original language in term of its sentence structure and semantic. However, in a study conducted by Hasnah Udin (1988), she found that deaf students are poor in relating the KBTM signed with its meaning. This finding seems to tell us that the deaf students did not really understand the signs they signed. Problems Statement Even though the education for the deaf students has been introduced in Malaysia since 1954, the academic achievement of the deaf students are still poor especially in Bahasa Melayu. Based on the 2006 and 2007 Penilaian Menengah Rendah (PMR) (equivalent to Year 9) results (refer Table 1), it is clearly seen that the Bahasa Melayu results for both year are poor. From the tables, we can see that the number of students who passed their Bahasa Melayu in both exams are less than 50%. In 2006, only 16 (42.11%) of the deaf students passed their Bahasa Melayu and in 2007, the performance of the deaf students in language subjects are still poor with only 10 deaf students (47.62%) managed to passed their PMR Bahasa Melayu. Referring to spelling skills, Studies by Arita Zainuddinn (1996) and Shahrul Arbaiah Othman (2001) also found that spelling is the most mistakes made by the deaf students.

Table 1:

Bahasa Melayu result in PMR 2006 and 2007

Subject

Bahasa Malaysia Research Objectives

2006 Number of Number of candidate candidate pass 38 16

% 42.11

2007 Number of Number of candidate candidate pass 21 10

% 47.62

The research objective for this study is: i. To determine the percentage of correct word written by the deaf students when the word is signed to them.

Research Questions i. What is the percentage of correct word written by the deaf students when the word is signed to them?

Research Methodology This study involved 40 deaf students from a school in Malaysia through a cluster sampling technique (Refer to Table 1). This study used achievement test to answer its research question. Data which has been gathered has been analyzed descriptively to find out the percentage of achievement of the respondents. All words in the instrument used in this study have been chosen from Bahasa Malaysia syllabus which the respondents have learnt. A pilot study has been carried out to find the internal validity of the instrument used. Before the pilot test, the instrument had been send to Bahasa Malaysia experienced teachers for face validation. Some amendments have been made to the instrument. After all the corrections have been made according to the experts comments, the instrument has been tested to five hearing deaf students. All respondents which involved in the pilot test are excluded from the actual study. The alpha cronbach value for the instrument used in this study is 0.87. Table 1: Respondents according to gender Gender f % Female 14 35 Male 26 65 N 40 Data Analysis Data for this study has been gathered through correct and wrong answers given by the respondents. For every correct answer, 1 mark was given, and for every wrong answer 0 mark

was given. Later, the marks were converted into percentage to answer the research question of this study. Instrument The instrument used for this study involved observational method in order to get the percentage of correct word written by the deaf students when words are given to them. This test has been carried out with respondents on individual basis. 10 words from three word categories have been tested in this test. The word categories are adjective, noun, and words with prefixes (refer Table 2). The words that were used in this test are as displayed in Table 3. Table 2: Number of Items 1 5 4 N=10 Table 3: Item 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 N = 10 Research Findings The finding for this study can be seen in Table 4 below. From the table, it can be seen that for the word under the category noun, the word keluarga (family) and padang (field), 28 respondents (70%) successfully write the words correctly when the words have been signed. For words jiran (neighbour) and negeri (state), 24 respondents (60%) managed to successfully write the words correctly when they are signed. For the name of the month September, 29 respondents (72.5%) managed to successfully write the word correctly when is has been signed. Categories of Word Used in the Study Word Category Adjective Noun Prefixes words

List of Words Used in the Study Word keluarga (family) jiran (neighbor) padang (field) negeri (state) September usang (old) kemajuan (improvement) ternampak (see) bercerrita (telling story) meminjam (borrow)

For the adjective word usang (old), only 5 respondents (12.5%) successfully write the word when it is signed. For word with prefixes, the word kemajuan (improvement), 16 respondents (40%) managed to successfully write the word correctly when is has been signed. When signing the word ternampak (see), only 10 respondents (25%) managed to write the word successfully. For word bercerita (telling story), 12 respondents (30%) successfully write the word correctly. Finally, for the word meminjam (borrow), only 8 respondents (20%) managed to write the word correctly. Item 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Table 4: Word category Noun Noun Noun Noun Noun Adjective Prefixes Prefixes Prefixes Prefixes Results According to Word Category Word Correct Sign keluarga (family) 28 jiran (neighbor) 24 padang (field) 28 negeri (state) 24 September 29 usang (old) 5 kemajuan (improvement) 16 ternampak (see) 10 bercerita (telling story) 12 meminjam (borrow) 8 N = 40 Percents 70 60 70 60 72.5 12.5 40 25 30 20

Discussion Result from this study shows that the word September which is the month of the year has the highest percentage of correct word spelled with 72.5 percent of the respondents managed to successfully write the word correctly when the word is signed. This can be may be due to the reason that the respondents are familiar with the name of the months. 29 respondents (72.5%) managed to successfully write the word keluarga (family) and padang (field) correctly when they are signed. These words are familiar among deaf students as they themselves have family and always spend time playing on the field in their school. For the word jiran (neighbour) and negeri (state), 24 out of 40 respondents (60%) managed to write the words correctly when they are signed. Nearly half of the respondents failed to write the words correctly may be because they seldom use the words in their daily life or in their writing exercise. For the adjective word usang (old), only 5 respondents (12.5%) successfully write the word correctly. This poor performance is due to the word usang (old) is raly being used by the deaf students even though the word is being taught to them. For the prefixes words, the word kemajuan (improvement) has the highest score which has 40% of the respondents successfully write the word correctly; followed by the word bercerita (telling story) where 12 respondents (30%) managed to successfully write the word. The word kemajuan has the highest percentage of correct respond due to the basic word maju which is familiar with the students especially because the word appears in the lyric of Negaraku which they sing during every school assembly. The adjective word bercerita has only 30 % of correct response because the basic word cerita is seldom use by the deaf students. They normally use the word cakap (tell) rather

all other words which describe telling. Finally the words ternampak (see) and meminjam (borrow) which display the least number of respondents spelled the words correctly are the words that rarely used by the deaf students. For word ternampak, only 10 respondents (25%) managed to successfully write the word correctly. the deaf students normally use the word basic word nampak. This prefixes word need addition of ter in front of the basic word nampat. Same explanation goes to the word meminjam where only 8 respondents (20%) of the respondents successfully write the word correctly.This is because the deaf students normally used the basic word pinjam (borrow) rather than adding the prefixes. me. However, for this word, the deaf students need to restructure the spelling of the basic word pinjam by deleting the first alphabet in the word pinjam which is p and replace it with alphabet m. When adding the prefixes me + m + injam, the basic word pinjam becomes meminjam. Conclusion Overall finding of this study shows that the deaf students are still poor in their writing skills. They are also found to be poor in understanding the word that has been signed and relating it to the correct spelling. This research finding also supports the finding by Aznan Che Ahmad and Mohd Zuri Ghani (2011), who found that the deaf students are still weak in their signing skills which include understanding what the sign refers to. According to Abdullah Yusoff (1999), it is important to overcome the weakness of the hearing impaired students in the aspects of reading and understanding what they read, understanding abstract words, language grammar as well as prefixes and suffixes in order to help them having good writing skills. As a conclusion, the finding of this study shows that there are still hearing impaired students who are unable to relate the sign with its meaning. This weakness affects their academic performance as they need to sit for normal examination and need to have a good academic qualification in order to have a good job.

References Abdullah Yusoff. (1999). Strategik pengajaran bacaan dan kefahaman. Kuala Lumpu: Bahasa dan Pustaka. Arita Zainuddin. (1996). Kajian penggunaan ejaan, tanda baca dan huruf besar di kalangan pelajar cacat pendengaran di sekolah menengah. Latihan ilmiah. Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. Aznan Che Ahmad and Mohd Zuri Ghani. (2011) Understanding Kod Tangan Bahasa Malaysia (KTBM) among hearing impaired students. Paper presented at Dewan

International Association of Technology, Education and Development (IATED), Valencia, Spain Hasnah Udin, (1988). Bimbingan kanak-kanak luar biasa. Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka. Malaysian Ministry of Education, (1985). Komunikasi Seluruh Bahasa Malayu Kod Tangan: Jilid 1. Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka. Saleena Yahya Isa. (1981). Bahasa Malaysia Kod Tangan. Jurnal Dewan Bahasa, 33-47. Shahrul Arbaiah Othman. (2001). Implikasi penggunaan Kod Tangan Bahasa Melayu terhadap pencapaian perbendaharaan kata dan ejaan di kalangan pelajar bermasalah pendengaran tingkatan 2 di Kuala Lumpur. Kertas Projek Sarjana. Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. Writz, C., Gardner, R., Weber, K. and Bullara, D. (1996). Using self-correction to improve the spelling performance of low-achieving third graders. Remedial and Special Education Journal, 17(1): 45-58. 25(8):

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