Recently I saw a teacher teaching a class of deaf who knew little or no sign language. The teacher found out what they did know by asking them questions. These were deaf who were beginners in both the Bible and sign language. Before teaching, they sang. They sang “Wonderful Grace of Jesus.” The teacher knew these were beginning deaf but sang a song too hard for them to understand. Start where they are. Start at the beginning of their knowledge and increase it. Build their understanding by starting at what they know and add to what they do not know.
- Start at the beginning of their language knowledge. You might need to teach them a language. Use cards with pictures. Start with simple nouns like boy, girl, house. Later add action verbs. Teach simple verbs like: eat, run, walk. Then put the nouns and verbs in simple sentences. Boy eat. Girl run. Then add adjectives. Happy boy eat. Continue building the language until they can clearly understand normal conversation.
- Start at the beginning of Bible knowledge. Use Bible story pictures. Start at the very beginning of the Bible: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” Start at the beginning and teach from there. Do not get into more difficult Bible teachings until they understand the simple basic teachings of the Bible. If they do not understand basic stories and teachings of the Bible, they will not understand the more difficult teachings. Start at the beginning of their Bible knowledge and increase it.
Find out what they know and start from there to add to their understanding.
