Project with deaf young people seeks to create mathematical terms in Libras

Deaf high school students participated for two weeks in an unprecedented project by the State University of Campinas (Unicamp) which consisted of a workshop to create a vocabulary of mathematics in Libras. The objective of Math+Libras was to promote and enrich the vocabulary of mathematical terms that do not exist or are not disseminated in the Brazilian Sign Language (Libras), thus reducing difficulties in the learning process of the deaf community in the country. In all, 14 students from five states (São Paulo, Paraná, Pernambuco, Rio de Janeiro and Pará) participated. Three students from private schools and 11 from public schools stayed until today (27) at the Unicamp campus, in Campinas, in the interior of São Paulo. The project is completely free of charge and Unicamp covered the cost of accommodation and meals. The participants spent every day studying and solving various mathematical problems in Libras, generating situations that favored the development of vocabulary. Videos were recorded that will serve as a record for the dissemination of the new signals. “They start spelling and after spelling a few times they start making signs. They spent two weeks studying mathematics all day and every day new signals appeared”, explained one of those responsible for the project and professor at the Institute for Mathematics, Statistics and Scientific Computing (IMECC), Marcelo Firer. According to Firer, the project arose from the difficulty of young deaf people in learning the discipline due to the lack of signs in Libras for mathematical terms. The goal was to create scenarios where they point out the lack of signs, uniquely in a classroom of young deaf people facing the same types of challenges. “Besides the aspect of the initiative to point out ways for a public policy, Unicamp does not have the capacity to face this problem. What the university did was to look for a path that would indicate how the issue could be faced, and that was very successful. What we have now is talking to the Departments of Education and educational foundations so that meetings like this take place in more areas and states”, pointed out the professor.

Agência Brasil