International Journal of Advanced Engineering Research and Science (IJAERS) [Vol-7, Issue-11, Nov- 2020] https://dx.doi.org/10.22161/ijaers.711.36 ISSN: 2349-6495(P) | 2456-1908(O) www.ijaers.com Page | 286 Brazilian Sign Language in Teaching degrees at the Universidade Federal do Maranhão/Brazil Thelma Helena Costa Chahini, Naysa Christine Serra Silva Programa de Pós-Graduação em Cultura e Sociedade, Universidade Federal do Maranhão, São Luís-MA, Brasil Received: 27 Sept 2020; Received in revised form: 13 Nov 2020; Accepted: 19 Nov 2020; Available online: 29 Nov 2020 ©2020 The Author(s). Published by AI Publications. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) Abstract— The primary goal of this article is to describe the context of the Brazilian sign language (Libras) in Teaching Degrees at Universidade Federal do Maranhão (Ufma). In this sense, we developed an exploratory research with a qualitative approach. Four professors who teach Libras for Teaching degrees and 98 students participated in this research. We collected the data through semi structured interviews with questions regarding the object investigated. Results revealed that, among the 17 teaching courses in the Dom Delgado campus, only five offered the Libras course for students. We observed the need for more clarification regarding the objectives of the Libras course, and considered its coursework inadequate for making students bilingual. Certain courses were offering the Libras course as optional instead of mandatory. Our findings correspond to the fact that good teacher qualification is extremely necessary to accomplish a bilingual education under the perspective of educational inclusion. Keywords— Bilingualism, Inclusive education, Teaching-learning, Teaching degrees, Brazilian Sign Language. I. INTRODUCTION Discussing the importance of the Brazilian Sign Language (Libras) in teacher’s education is necessary given that bilingual education pervades the instructor’s actions. This is the key character for acquiring new knowledge, sharing experiences, and developing a critical sense. Therefore, we infer that operationalizing inclusive education enables both deaf and hearing students to learn and improve Libras in the Teaching degrees, only if they have a sufficient and adequate course load, as well as qualified professors in Libras and Portuguese, respectively. By comprehending such statement, we begin to conceive bilingual education as a real and possible modality that provides deaf students with an effective, dynamic, attractive, instigating and inclusive educational routine. Studies by Skliar, Massone and Veinberg [1] signal that a bilingual and bicultural education must aim at creating a linguistic environment that enables deaf students to progress in terms of their cognitive abilities, guarantee the construction of a viable knowledge about the world and the opportunity for a qualitative and quantitative access to cultural and curricular information. As Brito [2] highlights, teaching must center on acquiring and developing the semantic system and concepts, since such a process facilitates deaf students’ learning. Therefore, it is possible to understand the Portuguese language particularities in consonance with the already acquired ones, in Libras. It is important to highlight that the professor has a crucial role for an effective bilingual education, since it is through its strategies that methodologies in both languages can be developed regarding the access to new knowledge. Such affirmatives demonstrate the need for learning the Brazilian Sign Language in teaching degrees, because it is during this primary education that future professors have their first experiences with the special education public, including deaf students. In the context of the bilingual education of the deaf person, through law nº 10.436 [3] of April 24 2002, the Brazilian Sign Language is officialized as the way of communication and expression in which the linguistic system of visual-motor nature, with its own grammatical structure, constitutes a linguistic system for transmitting ideas and facts, originating from the deaf people communities of Brazil. The Brazilian Sign Language is a visual-spatial language, which responds to the demand for deaf and hearing people using it for communicating, learning, and sharing experiences. Through this law, the Executive Power and public institutions must also use Libras as a way of communicating to answer the demands of Brazilian deaf people.