Events

Visiting Lecturer: Prof. Beppie van den Bogaerde

Date: 21/10/2014 - 24/10/2014

Prof. Beppie van den Bogaerde of the University of Amsterdam and the Hogeschool Utrecht University of Applied Sciences came to Hong Kong to visit the Centre for Sign Linguistics and Deaf Studies and the sign language co-enrollment program as well as give a number of presentations related to her work in the fields of sign linguistics research and interpreter training.

For her first presentation, Prof. Bogaerde spoke at a linguistics seminar for CUHK’s Department of Linguistics and Modern Languages. The title of her presentation was Bimodal Bilingual Kodas Code-blend instead of Code-switch. Later, she gave a public presentation entitled Training for Sign Language Teachers and Sign Language Interpreters in the Netherlands, in which she discussed her work in adapting the Common European Framework of Reference to Sign Language of the Netherlands (CEFR). Prof. Bogaerde also had a chance to visit our three sign language co-enrollment kindergarten classes and discussed their rationale and implementation with the deaf and hearing teachers as well as the principal.

In addition to her school visit and presentations offered at the university, Prof. Bogaerde gave two in-house presentations at the CSLDS for our APSL students and staff. During her presentation, she spoke in detail on her work developing the CEFR for Sign Language of the Netherlands. She also guided students in discussion on how assessments used in sign language classes can be adapted to the CEFR.

After her in-house presentations, one of our APSL students, Aaron, had this to say: “Seeing Beppie’s presentation made me realize how much time it really takes to train interpreters to a high level. Also, the idea of designing sign language courses according to a framework like the CEFR was really new to me, but I think it is very logical to use this in sign language teaching and assessment.” We believe all our students gained a lot from this experience.