SIGN-EFL explores how English as a Foreign Language (EFL) is currently taught to Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing students (DHH) in different European countries and connects teachers and researchers across Europe to share good ideas and teaching methods for the EFL classroom with DHH students.

The project will run from December 2025 to December 2028. During this time, we will gradually publish our findings on this website.

SIGN-EFL is funded by:

About us

SIGN-EFL – Supporting Inclusive Guidance for Teaching English as a Foreign Language to Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Students is a cooperation partnership that brings together five universities and five schools from five countries: Czech Republic, France, Germany (coordination), Spain, and Sweden.

Aims

Our aims are:

Enhancing EFL teaching to DHH students.
Fostering a European exchange among EFL teachers to DHH students by facilitating supra-regional and transnational cooperation.
Transnationally sharing and scaling innovative and inclusive EFL teaching practices to DHH students.

Working Packages

The project is divided into 4 working packages:

Mapping policies on teaching EFL to DHH students in the participating countries by analyzing official documents and by conducting interviews with national experts.
Collecting and documenting teaching practices and challenges through teaching observations and focus group discussions.
Documenting good teaching practices and developing guidelines on EFL teaching for DHH students in mainstream settings and schools for the Deaf.
Fostering transnational knowledge transfer by establishing a collaborative network of teachers of English for DHH students and researchers, and by disseminating the results to schools, educational authorities, and policymakers. Project findings and resources will be made available through a dedicated website.