HEARING-IMPAIRED students aiming to continue their education after primary school say they face a bundle of difficulties trying to keep up with other students in their studies, mostly because of communication barriers.

Ma Aye Thinzar Tun, a 22-year-old deaf girl who is planning to attend university later this year, said sign language works well when exchanging ideas with other hearing-impaired students but does not help in communication with other students.

“Communication among fellow hearing-impaired students and with others is quite different because it’s like we’re using a completely different language from them,” she told The Myanmar Times using handwritten notes.

Ma Lae Lae Lwin, a deaf student majoring Myanmar, said she faced some obstacles in communicating with classmates at first.

“I have to write down everything I want to say but it’s becoming easier for me over time,” she said

Ma Maw Shay Myar, a first-year mathematics student in the Yangon Distance Education program, said she also relied on pen and paper for communicating with others

“My friends who are not hearing-impaired don’t have any idea about how to use sign language so we sometimes write down our conversations,” she said.
She said she faced special difficulties while studying for the matriculation examination.

“Teachers teach us by speaking but we can’t hear them so I had to copy notes from friends who can hear,” she said. “But I got extra help from teachers and friends who know sign language so I was really grateful to them.”

Ma Maw Shay Myar said subjects that contain a lot of vocabulary are especially hard for deaf students.

“For example, history and geography require a large amount of verbal instruction so they’re really hard to learn. But mathematics is much easier,” she said.

Ma Aye Thinzar Tun said these considerations were what prompted her to pick physics as her first priority at university. However, she was unhappy to learn that she had been placed in the geography major instead.

For students like Ma Aye Thinzar Tun who want to change their major subjects, Mary Chapman School for the Deaf in Dagon township offers help by submitting petition letters to the Higher Education Department under the Ministry of Education, said the school’s principal, Daw Margaret Kyaw Mya.

“At first I was informed that I would study history but I petitioned and was able to change to mathematics,” said Ma Maw Shay Myar.

Ma Aye Thinzar Tun said the lives of the hearing-impaired would be enhanced by understanding from her neighbours, more assistance from her family and more help from her teachers, a sentiment echoed by Ma Maw Shay Myar.

“The main thing that would help is if more people could communicate using sign language. It would be really good for us. I think everyone should learn some sign language,” she said.

However, she said the sign language that she and her friends use differs in some respects from the standardised sign language dictionary released in December 2007 as a joint effort by the Mandalay School for the Deaf, Mary Chapman School for the Deaf and various deaf clubs around the country.

“The dictionary was jointly compiled by the major schools for the deaf in Myanmar so I think it will become the standard,” she said.