Mr Philemon Akach (pictured), a senior lecturer in the Department of Afro-Asiatic Studies, Sign Language and Language Practice at the University of the Free State (UFS), will visit Ghana from 14 to 21 February 2009 to train deaf people in that country in using South African Sign Language (SASL) multi-media grammar teaching materials in the teaching of Ghanaian Sign Language (GSL). Ghana intends to use these materials as reference in its teaching of GSL - the material can only be used as a guide, since sign language is not universal. Mr Akach has been instrumental in the development of GSL since the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) sent him on a fact-finding mission regarding the education of deaf children in Ghana in 1993. Since then, he has trained interpreters as well as parents and teachers of deaf children in Ghana. He has also guided the GSL Dictionary Project.
Photo: Supplied