Inclusive education for deaf students: literacy practices and South African sign language

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies on 16 July 2012, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.2989/16073614.2012.693707.This article considers the feasibility of inclusive education for Deaf students in a mainstream Further Education and Training (FET) classroom through the use of a South African Sign Language interpreter. It revisits the centrality of language in Deaf students' education and reports on progressive policy changes in the areas of language, education and disability in South Africa. The article surveys classroom discourse and literacy practices in a mainstream FET classroom, focusing particularly on students' acquisition of text literacy skills in Business English. Drawing on theoretical frameworks from the New Literacy Studies, Critical Discourse Analysis and the Social Model of Disability, the article argues that there is definitely potential for establishing inclusive education for Deaf students in a mainstream classroom. It however highlights that there are many difficulties and challenges around providing fully inclusive education for Deaf students. It was found that the signed interpretations in this classroom frequently represent an impoverished form of language while some types of pedagogic practice impede the interpreter's signing. The article concludes that interpreters and teachers need to be trained in forms of language and pedagogy that would benefit all students in class, including Deaf students

Ka-band vector reflectometer based on simple phase-shifter design

An automated handheld simple vector reflectometer design for complex-reflection-coefficient measurements at 35.5 GHz (Ka-band, 26.540 GHz) is presented. The proposed reflectometer is based on a standing-wave voltage measuring device and an electronically controlled and custom-designed millimeter-wave phase shifter. The phase shifter consists of p-i-n diode-loaded subresonant slots cut into the wall of a Ka-band waveguide. This paper describes the design of the phase shifter and the overall reflectometer. A comparison of the measurement results, for several loads, using this reflectometer and an Agilent E8364B performance network analyzer is also presented showing the measurement accuracy of the proposed reflectometer. Finally, the utility of this reflectometer for imaging complex composite structures, incorporating a high-resolution synthetic aperture imaging technique, is also demonstrated