BILINGUAL ALPHABETISATION OF DEAF CHILDREN AND PROGRESS ASSESSMENT: A PROTOTYPE OF A WEB SYSTEM BASED ON A PHONIC METHODOLOGY.

Globalization, supported by computer technology and mechanisms of long distance communication, is responsible for increasingly smaller obstacles in communication across countries and cultures. However, the communication obstacles faced by deaf people are yet to be eliminated, one effective way of doing it being through leaning Portuguese. In order to support this process and assess the students language acquisition, Fernando Capovilla develop a set of eleven tests through which the level of Libras (Brazilian Sign Language) and Portuguese knowledge of deaf students can be measured with some precision. In the present paper, we will describe a web prototype of these tests based on the aforementioned methodology. The test system we propose here could potentially be used by deaf people across the country. We will also discuss the challenges entailed by the project, as well as the solution we put together, for which both key concepts of Human-Computer Interaction and certain contextual constraints were of paramount importance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]