ABSTRACT
A number mathematics educators interested in sign languages is growing. More and more scientists start to think about and make suggestions for mathematics lessons of the deaf students claiming to bring new and innovative teaching approaches by considering sign language as an essential mode of teaching and communication. However the idea to use sign language in mathematical teaching has a long and complex history. Sign languages were indeed neglected and forbidden at many schools for the Deaf all around the world. But at the beginning of the Deaf pedagogy and foundation of schools for the Deaf, there were great teachers and scientists who emphasized the importance of sign language in Deaf education. We will exemplarily present the work of Viktor Ivanovich Fleri, which was published in 1835. Viktor Ivanovich Fleri was a famous Russian teacher and head of the one of the first schools for the deaf children, who was born in France. Fleri was also one of the first scientist in the field of Deaf education. His theoretical contributions and empirical studies belong to the foundations of deaf pedagogy. Despite of the views and opinions wide spread in his time, Fleri was deeply convinced that using signed numbers deaf people can achieve the same or even better results in arithmetic compared to their hearing peers. He was certain that they can be high achievers in Geometry and Algebra. His book contains one of the first documentations of mathematical signs, examples for notations of signed large numbers and didactical recommendations on how to use them to introduce deaf children to arithmetic. Mathematical signs presented in his book were not invented by Fleri but derived from counting system used by the Deaf community. We will take a closer look at the signs for natural numbers and counting operations from 1835. We will then compare them to the modern mathematical signs used in German, Ukrainian and Russian sign languages and make some suggestions about how we can use old numbers Fleri and his didactical recommendations not only to teach number concepts but to bridge teaching of Deaf History and mathematics. By doing this, we aim to give scientists and teachers some ideas how they can create possibilities to strengthen cultural identity of deaf students on the one side ant to initiate problem-solving learning environments where deaf and hearing students can learn together by translating signed large numbers into well-known symbolic representations with Arabic numerals.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Флери, Виктор Иванович (2021). Глухонемые, рассматриваемые в отношении к их состоянию и к способам образования, самым свойственным их природе. Санкт-Петербург: Политех-Пресс (Любить. Учить. Верить: история сурдопедагогики).
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