The Estonaian Association of Teachers of Hearing Impaired Children

A new exciting feature of interactive 360-degree photos is now available for testing in the international online dictionary of sign languages  – Spreadthesign (https://spreadthesign.com/). It includes more than 350 browsable photos with about 4000 new words added to the dictionary by 13 partner countries.

The photos are related to different professions and working spaces and able to get acquainted to quite a specific and complicated professional vocabulary in order to ease the communication and learning process for everyone invoved. Also a number of everyday life related pictures can be found. For a more easy and fast search the material has been categorized into 15 main topics, which also include several subtopics.

The Spreadthesign dictionary was initiated in 2006 by Thomas Lydell from Sweden, the Estonian team joined with the work in 2011. All work with the dictionary is project-based, the new 360-feature has been developed within 3 years with the support of the Erasmus+ programme.

The 360-feature can be tested out here: https://spreadthesign.com/et.ee/photosphere/

For more information about the dictionary visit our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/spreadthesignofficial or read from the KLÕPS website section “projects”.  

KLÕPS is happy to be one of the cooperation partners for this campaign together with The Estonian Deaf Union and the Estonian Association of Parents of Hearing Impaired Children.

In the end of the last year KLÕPS released a new e-book meant for learning the basics of the Estonian Sign Language. The target group of the book is the hearing impaired pre-schoolers and their parents and the aim is to ease the aquisition of the language and communication skills needed for everyday conversations.

The book is a follow-up to the book released in 2018 ( https://read.bookcreator.com/laSFKxrMRvaSZ6DPSKrlBdgT4SL2/69wVGx9zRaKxSW2AFgLMnQ) and focuses mainly on the vocabulary and subjects essential at the kindergarten level.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The book was financed by the Tallinn Social and Healthcare Unit and it can be found on the following web address: https://read.bookcreator.com/1bF5TkrAo7_25m1MLZE1kkHbh64jiTVisEapfs-RHls/J7JiJKBaRYuABdP0qD7Pmw

 

 

Media releases:

https://eestielu.goodnews.ee/tasuta-e-raamat-aitab-peredel-viipekeeleoskust-arendada/

http://podcast.kuku.postimees.ee/podcast/intervjuu-raili-loit-uus-viipekeele-oppimise-e-raamat/

https://raamatud.postimees.ee/6875065/uus-viipekeele-e-raamat-aitab-peredel-viipekeele-oskust-arendada?fbclid=IwAR20mVMax92hnAwjsYUwamCrlR6qfttDCzmwUZf2HrLQN_1jTT1IiF5vmRk

https://uudised.tv3.ee/et/eesti/uudis/2020/01/17/ilmus-uus-viipekeele-e-raamat/

 

 

On September 26th-28th, the 25th congress of the European Federation of Associations of Teachers of the Deaf (FEAPDA) took place in Skopje, the capital of North-Macedonia. The topic of the congress was “Preparing deaf learners for life and independence” and it attracted participants from 16 different countries from all over Europe, including Estonia.

Alison Weaver, the president of FEAPDA, holding a speech 

A moment from the congress

During the congress days, the representatives of FEAPDA also had a chance to meet Stevo Pendarovski, the president of North-Macedonia. From KLÕPS, Raili Loit attended the reception.

The representatives of FEAPDA at the presidental reception

After the congress there was also held a FEAPDA council meeting, where the changes to the organisation`s constitution were approved and the decision about the next congress was made. The next congress will take place in Tallinn, Estonia in 2021.

The abstracts of all the presentations are accessible on the FEAPDA website, where you can also find a photo gallery of the event: https://www.feapdacongress2019.org/ 

 

 

On October 8th-10th, the Spreadthesign partners from 14 different countries had a work meeting in Slovakia, Prešov. The main focus was on discussing the 360-degrees feature in our dictionary, but we also had some time to get to know about the Slovakian history, culture and Deaf education.

From KLÕPS, Kadri Hein-Loik, Mari-Liis Ungerson and Raili Loit attended the meeting and hold presentations about the work progress within the Estonian team, mapping of the 360-degree pictures and documenting the work.

The meeting was very productive and interesting and as always, it was heartwarming to see and talk to everyone again!

KLÕPS as an organisation has been a partner of Spreadthesign since 2015, but most of the Estonian team members have been involved in the work since 2012 already.

A group photo from the meeting

A new e-book for learning basic signs in Estonian Sign Language has been published. The book is meant for small Deaf children and their parents to improve and ease the communication in everyday situations. It includes a vocabulary for simple everyday activities, equipped with thematical audio and video files.

The book can be found (via Google Chrome brauser) at: https://read.bookcreator.com/laSFKxrMRvaSZ6DPSKrlBdgT4SL2/69wVGx9zRaKxSW2AFgLMnQ

Thank you for the support to Tallinna Sotsiaal- ja Tervishoiuamet!

On the 6th of October KLÕPS attended the FEAPDA council meeting for the first time as a member of the organisation. Besides Estonia, member organisations from Great Britain, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Germany and Macedonia were also present at the meeting. The meeting was busy and fruitful, it was inspiring to meet our colleagues from other parts of Europe.

The next meeting will take place in September 2019 in Macedonia, where also the next FEAPDA congress will be held.

Looking forward to new meetings and cooperation.

A moment from the council meeting

We are happy to announce, that our work on the Spreadthesign dictionary (https://www.spreadthesign.com/) will keep on going, as our application for an Erasmus+ project has been approved. The new feature in the dictionary will be the interactive 360° pictures, which will make sign language learning much more exciting and handy.

Our team has been working with Spreadthesign dictionary since 2011, when Estonia joined the project, KLÕPS has been a partner in the project since 2015.

The new year started out for us with positive and long awaited news – our association became a member of FEAPDA, The European Federation of Associations of Teachers of the Deaf.

The negotiations for joining FEAPEDA began already last autumn, but at that time the association was in the middle of reorganizing their membership policy and it was not clear yet if or on what conditions KLÕPS could become a member. At the end of last year though it was clear, that our organisation is welcome to join FEAPEDA and so we did (since January 2018).

FEAPDA is an all-European associations of Teachers of the Deaf, founded in 1969. The aim of FEAPDA is to represent and support Teachers of the Deaf by sharing good practice principally through organising a congress hosted by one of the member countries. As in Estonia all the development of the mentioned field is basically lying on the initiative of individuals and/or very small organisations and all the education of the teachers of the Deaf is unorganised on a state level, then becoming a member of FEAPDA is of very important value for us in order to be aware of the general trends in Deaf education in Europe and through that to be able to raise the quality of teaching in our country as well.

Besides KLÕPS, the members of FEAPDA include professional organisations from Austria, Belgium, Germany, Luxenbourg, Macedonia, Netherlands, Slovenia and Great Britain.

For more information about FEAPDA, please visit http://www.feapda.eu/