North Eastern Regional Institute of Education, National Council for Education and Research Training
North East Sign Languages : SignBank
Welcome, to NERIE Web App known as NESL
What does this web app have? It has signs collected from the deaf people from different parts of North East region. Hence, you’ll see in the videos deaf signers’ representing the different states in the North East. Why NERIE institute developed this web app. It is trying to help teachers teaching the deaf children in the different states in the North East region. There are many deaf children studying in different schools, Government schools, NGOs. Teachers tell me they have a problem with sign language in education. It is difficult to teach they couldn’t finds the signs and they don’t know. This office is trying to help the teachers to develop this sign bank. This web app can be accessed using the internet. Teachers can simply go to the internet and type the word they are looking for and they immediately get the words. This NESL Sign Bank has different words, taken from different subject areas. This NESL web app provides support to the teachers teaching deaf children, for the purpose of promoting inclusive schools. This web app besides the word list in science, it also has a grammar in Sign Language. It also has knowledge about deaf people here in the North East, the population, the deaf community here in the region. Other than these, this web app also contains research information about this programme. Teachers can use it as educational supporting material to teach deaf children in schools. The development of this web app is not completed, we are still continuing to work and collect more signs from deaf people across the states in the North East. It’s a continuous process. You can see in the website there’s a feedback column. You can send your comments if the sign are wrong. We are happy if you send us your comments and help us to make this web app the best the better one, to empower def community here in the North East region.
North-East Regional Institute of Education is one of the constituent units of NCERT which was set up at Shillong the capital state of Meghalaya to cater to the educational needs of North-Eastern States, which include Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura on the lines of NCERT’s mandate. The institute aspires to emerge as a leader in the field of school education in the North-Eastern Region by playing the role of a pro-active organization. The vision of NERIE is to facilitate development of human resource in the region so that the States are able to provide quality inputs in all cotemporary and emerging fields of school education. NERIE has strength of 18 faculty members working in different fields of education and with more than 50 staff members (including contractual staffs, etc.,) working as a team for the variety of endeavors that NERIE undertakes to fulfill the mandates set forth by NCERT as a whole.
Prof. B. Barthakur took the charge of the Principal, North East Regional Institute of Education (NERIE), Shillong on 3rd July, 2017. Prof. Barthakur, M.Sc and Ph.D in Botany from Guwahati University, Assam and has over 30 years of teaching and research experiences. He started his teaching carrier from D.R College, Golaghat, Assam. Besides participating in several national and international conferences, seminars and symposiums, he has also been a member of various scientific bodies and has actively contributed in reviewing manuscripts submitted to a few reputed journals. He has been actively involved in several research projects funded by UGC, Ministry of Environment and Forest, Defense Research Development Organisation (DRDO), NCERT etc. Prof. Barthakur has more than 50 research papers in reputed national and international journals to his credentials. Before joining NERIE, Dr. Barthakur was serving as a Professor of Botany, Regional Institute of Education, Ajmer, which is another unit of NCERT.
This research entitled “Documentation of Sign Language for School Education in the North East (NE) Region is a two year research-cum-documentation (a PAC approved programme of NERIE) initiated since January, 2017, by the coordinator Dr. Melissa G.Wallang. Data collection was conducted from Sign language native signers from the state of Meghalaya. Approximately only 2000 words have been recorded at NERIE studio. More data was collected from the native signers through field visits to the different schools located in the region. The major goal of this research is to provide support to teachers and to strengthen educational materials and resources in the education of d/Deaf/hearing impaired children and to provide relevant linguistic information to teachers particularly language teachers. The documented Sign language can be used as educational reference material. Further, it has been documented in two modes, i.e in Web App mode and in a DVD-ROM using modern applications and available suitable multi-media software. A computer assistant and junior project fellow was recruited for the purpose of this study.
The term NESL (North East Sign Language) adopted here refers to the collection of signs commonly used by the deaf community across the North eastern (NE) region. Based from the research, signs included in this Web-App covers several areas which are classified into different semantic categories i.e. basic words, question words, kinship terms, colour terms, food items, locations, professions, educational terms (of various subject areas), etc. Besides, these words, alphabets in English both single-handed and double-handed fingerspellings and numerals are also included. A sign may vary from one state to another, and this is a common phenomenon all over the country. These are variations at different levels of language which is common even in spoken languages. To handle such variations, the Web-App takes care iting a sign which is commonly used by deaf communities in the region and in most cases, if variation do exists; the sign which is different is also incorporated. For example, if the sign for the English word ‘TEACH’ vary from one state to another; this variation is also included by indicating the sign and its respective states TEACH (Mizoram).
Asst. Professor
NERIE-NCERT
Computer Assistant cum Developer
NERIE-NCERT
Junior Project Fellow
NERIE-NCERT
NERIE-NCERT
NERIE-NCERT
Fernando Speech & Hearing Centre, Barapani, Shillong