On the need for Polish language lessons for hearing-impaired students

Abstract

Hearing impaired students begin their studies with different levels of communication skills in the Polish language. As former students of various secondary schools, they know different means of interacting with the environment and speech is not always their preferred mode of communication. The decision to continue their education at university level obliges them to improve their speaking and writing skills in the native language. This is necessary for independent study, i.e. taking exams and writing theses. This paper will provide a description of the most common difficulties encountered by hearing impaired students in constructing accurate texts in Polish. It will also describe the methods used in Polish language classroom that can help to overcome these difficulties and to improve the communication skills in Polish.