GLT1026

WRITING AT THE WORKPLACE

Progress Report
GROUP 1

Lecturer : Madam Nor Aafina binti Mohd Zamil

GROUP MEMBERS MATRICS NUMBER

NUR AMIRAH IZZATI BINTI SALLEH 22003420

INTAN ERLINA BINTI JAMALUDIN U2104160

UMI MAISAROH BINTI SHARIFFUDDIN 22003098

ZIDINE ARIANIE BINTI KARIADI U2105072

BUNESWARRY A/P THENDAYUTHABANI 22006493

TABLE OF CONTENTS

No. Contents Pages

1.0 Introduction 2

1.1 Statement of Problem 2

1.2 Background to the Problem 3

1.3 Possible Causes/Reasons 4

1.4 The Consequences 6

2.0 Data Collection 7

3.0 Work Allocation 7

4.0 Work Completed 8

5.0 Work Scheduled 9

6.0 Challenges/projections 10

7.0 Early Result 11

8.0 References 15

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1. Introduction

1.1 Statement of Problem

Sign language is the bridge that links us to the world of people with hearing loss or

verbal ability. Various hand, fingers, arm, head and facial expressions are used in gestures to

help the deaf and hearing impaired community to communicate with those around them and

vice versa.

To relate this back to our problem, most UM students are unaware of the significance of

learning sign language as it is often viewed with one eye. The ability to communicate with the

rest of the world through sign language is important to both communities as it demonstrates to

the deaf community that they are not being ignored and that they have the same rights as

anyone else. Although some students do have the interest to learn sign language yet somehow

they fear that maybe they are doing it wrong without guidance from an expert because some of

the gestures and expressions might be tricky to do.

Besides, several studies have found that hearing people who learn sign languages

perform better in tasks requiring spatial transformation abilities and furthermore enhances our

brain cognition, functionality and mental rotation skills. As a whole, UM students should learn

sign language in order to gain new experiences and also communicate with the hearing

impaired community to make sure that they don’t feel neglected.

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1.2 Background to the Problem

The choice of this issue was made after a vote among the few topics that had been

shortlisted. After some research, we find this topic fascinating, especially in relation to its

benefits. According to the University of Washington’s research, sign language is manual

communication commonly used by people who are deaf. Sign language is not universal; people

who are deaf from different countries speak different sign languages. Learning sign language

has become increasingly popular over the years as it encourages more social contact. For

instance, the most well-known American singer, Rihanna, who performed at the Super Bowl

with a sign language interpreter, received a lot of great feedback for her performance. People

also agreed that they enjoyed watching the interpreter perform as well during the show.

Furthermore, according to DEAF Inc, knowing sign language may be quite helpful in

dangerous situations, especially when you're trying to get the attention of close people without

speaking it out loud. If you feel threatened because a stranger is following you, you could use

the "help" sign to let someone around you know that you are in danger. People around you can

help you right away by taking the required action.

Besides, sign language can help to develop cognitive structure. The use of many

senses, including vision, touch, and proprioception, that are required while using sign language

can aid in the stimulation of cognitive growth. As stated by Sandra Waxman, who holds the

Louis W. Menk Chair in psychology at Northwestern's Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences,

when learning sign language, children as young as three and four months have an edge in

categorizing objects. This benefit outweighs the consequences of pointing at and staring at

items.

Last but not least, since sign language is mostly visual and allows for the connection of

certain meanings with particular signals, it can also aid in enhancing visual memory. Deaf

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individuals who use Sign Language have more detailed and precise long-term visual memories

than hearing people, according to a study from three UK universities (Northumbria University,

Heriot-Watt University, and University College London) that was just published in the journal

Nature. Therefore, early exposure to sign language aids in the intellectual, social, and emotional

development of language.

From these few benefits, we make the decision to learn deeper about this topic and

spread the knowledge to other people about the value of sign language since it directly benefits

us and others. According to Diane Mulligen, Deputy Director, Advocacy and Alliances for

Inclusive Development, CBM, people with impairments should participate actively in

communication and give ideas to develop their skills and capabilities. It's also amazing to see

the smiles on the faces of persons with disabilities when they converse with non-disabled

people who are skilled signers since they can communicate without being left out.

1.3 Possible Causes/Reasons

Sign language is considered one of the most important languages in the world. However,

not all people could understand the languages as the deaf hearing or hearing-loss communities

are only a small fraction compared to the able-bodied people in the whole world including

Malaysia. Just like spoken language, this hand sign language also varies according to the

languages they speak such as American sign language and Malay sign language. In Malaysia,

only certain schools and universities have the facilities to have students with special needs.

With the deaf-hearing communities being the minority in the universities, the lack of

exposure to the community on a regular basis and lack of opportunity to learn it may have

caused normal people to not be aware of how beneficial it is to learn the language. This lack of

exposure to the community may make them think that this language is not as important as it

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should be. This makes them lack the motivation to learn the language thus not working hard to

learn it. However, learning the language can prove to be very beneficial to a person because

Another thing to note is that now is the era of technology. With many advanced technology

being created, you could find many resources to learn the sign language especially on social

media applications such as TikTok and Instagram. There are many content creators that do live

sessions to teach the viewers about sign language.

Learning sign language is a new experience for those interested in learning it because it

involves hand movements, and face expressions. Therefore, people might spend a lot of time to

be able to master the language and some might find it harder than the spoken language.

While learning it might be harder for people because it involves movement of hands other than

mouth, and some people might find it discouraging because of its levels of difficulties, research

has shown that sign language can be learned relatively quickly and easily.

Time constraints are one of the main factors why people could not dedicate themselves

to learning the language. Learning a language or even any other knowledge would consume a

lot of time and one must be committed to it. People may not be able to be committed to it due to

work, family, studies and other commitments.

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1.4 Possible Consequences

People who do not know how to use sign language will find it difficult to communicate

with those who are deaf or hard of hearing. This is because many people do not learn basic sign

language either from their parents or school. For instance, they don't know how to use hand

gestures, facial expressions, or body movements. However, the deaf community requires more

focus on individuals who speak through sign language. As a result, people will not understand

and have no idea how to respond when talking to those who are hearing impaired.

Also, people will not be aware of the deaf community. For example, people don't know

that a hearing impaired person uses some body language to ask for help, such as picking up

groceries or listening to an announcement. Without knowing basic sign language, some people

are puzzled and may not understand their hand signals. Besides, people may misinterpret and

miscommunicate them. As a result, people end up just watching and don't help at all.

The majority of people who do not know sign language rarely form bonds with the deaf

community because they communicate in a unique way through body movements, hand

gestures, and facial expressions which most people do not understand. Indeed, not everyone

can be patient when communicating with the deaf community, some feel burdened to be deaf-

friendly as they have to concentrate and always make sure to speak slowly so they can try to

lip-read.

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2. Data Collection

Survey : Questionnaires or interviews are conducted to collect data directly from individuals or

groups. Surveys can be conducted in person, over the phone, through mail or online.

Interviews: Directly interact with individuals or groups to gather data through structured, semi-

structured or unstructured interviews. Interviews can be conducted in person, over the phone or

through video calls.

3. Work Allocation

No. Person in Charge (PIC) Task

1 Buneswarry a/p Thendayuthabani Statement of Problem,

Work completed

2 Intan Erlina binti Jamaludin Background to the Problem,

Early results

3 Zidinie Arianie binti Kariadi Possible Causes/Reasons,

Work scheduled

4 Nur Amirah Izzati binti Salleh Possible Consequences,

Challenges

5 Umi Maisaroh binti Shariffuddin Data Gathering Methods,

Projections

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4. Work Completed

Task W5 W6 W7 W8 W9 W10

Submission of plan of research.

Consulting with the lecturer

regarding a progress report.. (Sign-
language workshop for students
who want to learn sign language).

Work allocation for sign-language

workshop progress report. (data
gathering methods, main causes,
consequences, etc.)

Discussion on creating questions for

a google form survey to gather
information to support research
proposals.

Distributing the google form surveys

in platforms such as WhatsApp,
telegram and Instagram.

Interviewing students in UM about

knowledge in sign-language.

Reviewing participants’ answers

who have answered the survey.

Discussion with group members

regarding presentation for research
proposal.

Work allocation among group

members for presentation slides.

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 Data collection and analysis.

5. Work Scheduled

TASK/ WEEK 10 11 12 13 14

Finishing the Progress Report and presentation

slides. The presentation slide would be presented
to the Project Supervisor for further discussions
and identifying any possible flaws that can be
avoided.

Revising the project plan based on the results of

the discussion with the Project Supervisor.

Identify the related authorities and organizations

for permissions or collaborations or sponsorship
to run the plan.. In order to do that, we planned to
start preparing a proposal and allocate the work to
the team members equally.

Finalizing the plan and contacting the authorities

that we would need collaboration, sponsorship
and permission from to run the program. After the
confirmation, we will book an appointment with the
related organizations to present our project plan.

A presentation and a proposal would be done

within the appointment date and time to the
related authorities to convince them to help us run
the project.

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6.0 Challenges/Projections

● Lack of communication between departments

This problem occurs because of existing commitments from each group member.
Moreover, we all took different courses so there are disagreements and time
discrepancies but we have solved this problem by increasing communication with each
other and often telling and taking note of each other's tasks via Whatsapp group. At the
same time, we have also made a schedule of meetings throughout the implementation of
this project.

● Coordination costs

Cost is one of the challenges in implementing this project. This is because this project
requires people who are skilled in teaching sign language. To overcome this problem,
we have already looked for some sponsors who will sponsor part of the funding for
implementing this project. We have also promoted the company and their products
throughout the project.

● Number of attendees

There may be fewer students participating in this workshop. This is due to, they rarely
have difficulty in communicating with deaf people and they think learning sign language
is not a requirement. Thus, we come out with various alternatives to encourage people
to join this sign language workshop. We have distributed posters on the three main
platforms of social media such as Instagram, Telegram and Whatsapp, and offered free
mini safety kits to those who joined and registered to our workshop.

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7.0 Early result
● Survey
As the date of May 24, 2023, we have about 26 respondents in total.

From this survey, there are 23.1% of the respondents have encountered a problem with people
who have hearing problems before, while 26.9% of them were not really sure whether they
encounter this issue before or not. However, it still about half of the respondents had never
gone through any problem with a disability hearing people which is a good sign that they still
can understand them despite of they did not know any sign language.

Despite 1 person who does not agree, another 96.2% which represents 25 respondents agree
that sign language is important to learn. This is because learning sign language can upgrade
your value just like when you learn any other language.

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We also asked about their interest in learning sign language and their reasons. The survey
shows a good result with 73.1% of the interested in learning them and the rest still in dilemma.
However, nobody is opposed to learning them. Their reasons also show positive feedback and
mostly, they find this session interesting, knowledgeable and good experience to communicate
with the hearing disability community.

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 ● Interview
We had interviewed 2 people for now.

1) Dhiya Sarah, 20 years old, Faculty of Science

Dhiya Sarah from the Faculty of Science agreed that sign language should be
one of the "must learn" languages. It is because she has faced problems with someone
who has a hearing disability at the market. It is very hard for her to overcome the problem,
and the person is a cashier. After doing the survey that we made via Google Forms, she
was very excited to join this workshop and set goals for herself.

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2) Fatin Aqilah, 20 years old, Faculty of Science

Fatin Aqilah, a Physics student from the Faculty of Science, stated sign
language has to be an elective language, just like Arabic, Mandarin, or German. She
thinks that in that way, it will make things easier for anyone when meeting the hearing
impaired. At the same time, this will make people with hearing problems feel valued and
not left out when they want to socialize with normal people.

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15
8.0 References
Coles, A. (2021, March 12). The simple hand signal that lets people know you’re

in danger - and other ways to ask for help. Sky News; Sky.

https://news.sky.com/story/the-simple-hand-signal-that-lets-people-know-

youre-in-danger-and-other-ways-to-ask-for-help-12243563

Ferreiro, E. (2022, September 21). Sign Language Enhances Visual Memory.

Unusualverse; Unusualverse. https://www.unusualverse.com/2022/09/sign-

language-enchances-visual-memory.html

Infants link language and cognition, whether the language is spoken or a sign

language. (2021). Northwestern.edu; Northwestern.

https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2021/september/infants-link-language-

and-cognition-whether-the-language-is-spoken-or-a-sign-language/

#:~:text=For%203%2D%20and%204%2Dmonth,to%20and%20gazing%20at

%20objects.

Newton, V. E., & Shah, S. R. (2013). Improving communication with patients with

a hearing impairment. Community Eye Health, 26(81), 6–7.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3678307/

OC. (2023). An Exhilarating ASL Performance of Rihanna’s Super Bowl Halftime Show.

Open Culture. https://www.openculture.com/2023/02/an-exhilarating-asl-

performance-of-rihannas-super-bowl-halftime-show.html

The Benefits of Learning ASL as a First Responder | DEAF, Inc. (2022).

Deafinconline.org. https://www.deafinconline.org/post/the-benefits-of-

learning-asl-as-a-first-responder#:~:text=Learning%20sign%20language

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 %20can%20help%20reduce%20fears%20all%20around&text=When%20you

%20go%20into%20a,of%20the%20lack%20of%20communication.

What is sign language? | AccessComputing. (2023). Washington.edu.

https://www.washington.edu/accesscomputing/what-sign-

language#:~:text=Sign%20language%20is%20manual

%20communication,gesture%20is%20called%20a%20sign.

9 Benefits of Learning American Sign Language in Your Senior Years. (2022,

January 20). Confident Living. https://confident-living.org/blog/9-benefits-of-

learning-american-sign-language-in-your-senior-years/#:~:text=Learning

%20any%20new%20language%20will,%2C%20spatial%20awareness%2C

%20and%20more.

“danger” American Sign Language (ASL). (2023). Lifeprint.com.

https://www.lifeprint.com/asl101/pages-signs/d/danger.htm

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