THE PORTUGUESE SIGN LANGUAGE CURRICULUM

past, present and future

Abstract

The Portuguese Sign Language (hereinafter LGP) is linked to deaf education in Portugal for decades. Its genesis can be found in the first institutes in Lisbon and Porto in the 19th century, in which a considerable number of deaf children and young people had gathered and developed signed communication systems. During the 19th century, the methodologies used in deaf education were based on signed systems and the manual alphabet. With the advent of oralist methodologies introduced in Portugal, these signed communication systems were banned from the classroom, although deaf students continued to develop their sign communication clandestinely. The LGP was only rescued in the 80s and 90s of the 20th century as a result of the studies carried out by the University of Lisbon in partnership with the Portuguese Association of the Deaf, and of the first attempts to implement bilingual education for deaf students, which resulted in the need to teach LGP as a first language to deaf students and the construction of an LGP curriculum. Only with the publication of the Decree-Law 3/2008, which regulates bilingual education for deaf students for the first time in its Article 23, the first national LGP curriculum is published (DGIDC, 2008). In 2018, two new Decree-Laws (54/2018 and 55/2018) were published that revoke the previous Decree-Law and promote a curriculum review of all school subjects. In order to understand the effectiveness of the 2008 LGP curriculum, we carried out an exploratory study. We interviewed four deaf LGP teachers, whose results point to a proposal to reformulate the LGP curriculum, respecting the legislation published in 2018 and meeting the reality of the current deaf school population.