Implementing Co-Enrollment in Preschool Education in China: A Case Study

This study aims to document the implementation of sign bilingualism and co-enrollment education in a kindergarten in Quzhou, Zhejiang Province, China, to identify the major characteristics of the programme, and to report findings of children's language in terms of vocabulary and surveys on the views and attitudes of the stakeholders of the programme, including deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) as well as hearing children and teachers. The results indicate that (a) both deaf and hearing teachers enjoy working in the Sign Bilingualism and Co-enrollment (SLCO) class and believe it is beneficial for their professional development; (b) parents of both DHH children and hearing children are happy to send their children to the SLCO class; (c) the teachers and parents agree that the SLCO programme is helpful for the overall development of not only the DHH children but also the hearing children. They believe that such an environment benefits the children's language and communication skills and the development of self-confidence and social cognition; (d) both the teachers and parents believe that the DHH children and their hearing peers get along well with each other in the SLCO class and also enjoy learning sign language. Furthermore, they all agree that the SLCO programme is promising and should be continued in the current school and implemented in more schools.