Publisher's Synopsis
Hearing is one of the important factors which decide the 'quality' of our life. Taxing impairment
has adverse effects on leading a 'quality' life in the affected individuals. If not attended in time, it
comes in the way of the individual utilizing one's own potentials to the maximum. It may be in
terms of speech and language development, educational achievement, vocational placement.
The occurrence of other disabilities in combination with diminished hearing creates additional
learning problems, which significantly add to the complexity of educating the student who is
deaf. The three additional disabilities most often reported in children who are deaf are learning
disabilities, intellectual disabilities, and emotional/behavioral disabilities.
The person observed the difference in Hearing Impaired students' communication among
themselves and with normal people. The hearing impaired students are diffident in
communication with normal people, but feel free and comfortable with the Hearing Impaired
students. The researcher himself tried various forms of dramatics for providing H.I. Students the
opportunity of expression that would give them confidence. He got the opportunity of trying the
drama as project work for Diploma in Special Education University of Pune. It was written for
normal children. However the play was to be presented by hearing impaired girls from
Integration Units. They through their gestures and body language established communication
with the audience effectively, as if they presented the dialogues in normal Marathi. This
experience brought to the notice a very special endeavor of hearing impaired students. It was a
very notable experience of sharing drama practices and improvisation with these H.I. students
having a moderate loss.
Improvisation activities facilitate the sort of language behavior that ought to cause fluency,
and if it's accepted that the learners want to find out language so as to form themselves
understood within the language, then, improvisation does indeed, further this end.
One of the best advantages to be gained from the utilization of drama, songs and games is
that students become more confident in their use of language by experiencing the language in
operation. Improvisation encourages adaptability, fluency, and communicative competence.
It puts language into context, and by giving learners experience of success in real-life
situations it should arm them confidently for tackling the planet outside the classroom4.
Improvisation encourages students to mobilize their vocabulary, answer grammatical and
syntactical accuracy, and develop cultural and social awareness, and gain confidence and
fluency. Through constant repetition of words and phrases, they become conversant in them
and are ready to say them with increasing fluency by encouraging self- expression; drama,
especially, motivates students to use language confidently and creatively5. Improvisation
enables the students to flex their emotional, mental also as physical muscles during a safe
and controlled setting. the students will develop an increasing facility to satisfy changing and
unknown stimuli with immediate responses. Improvisation activities give the scholar several
avenues to self-awareness.
