O olhar do intérprete educacional sobre o professor e as aulas de biologia

Abstract

The advent of school inclusion brought the presence of deaf students to regular schools. In order to maintain quality, some measures had to be taken, such as the regularization of the profession of the educational interpreter, the professional responsible for mediating communication between deaf and hearing people. However, the Brazilian Sign Language, Libras, is very recent in our country, and several specific terms from the academic world are still not dictionized or are being created. Biology is one of those areas that, in addition to being full of specific terminology, has non-visible or even microscopic contents. Considering that the interpreter has a generalist training, we aim to find out what are the main difficulties they face when interpreting, as well as the strategies and resources they use to overcome them, together with professionals who work in high school. In this qualitative and exploratory study, we interviewed and analyzed the discourse of two educational interpreters regarding their practice during biology classes. The interviews were carried out at the Federal University of São Carlos. The analyzes were built through the presentation of excerpts from the interview, with theoretical basis in studies on deafness and education. The results indicate difficulties in relation to the partnership with the regent teacher, with the necessary adaptations for deaf students and also with regard to the lack of specific lexicon in sign language. Given the findings, we highlight some possible strategies, but we emphasize the urgent need for further research, involving deaf people and biologists, so that the area of biology can be studied in depth. Only with a refined linguistic repertoire in specific areas will deaf people have equal opportunities and access to knowledge as hearing individuals.