On the experience of training law enforcement officers in Russian sign language within the system of the additional vocational education

Due to lack of interpreters of Russian sign language and necessity to socialize deaf and hearing-impaired people and legally protect them the state program “Accessible environment” provides teaching basics of Russian sign language to police officers of certain ranks. When organizing and first implementing the training at short-term advanced training courses for law enforcement officers the instructors faced the problem of preparing didactic material necessary for development of the learners' skills of communication with deaf and hearing-impaired people. The focus is made on mastering signs - important units of sign language which denote concepts and are reproduced using hands and mimics and dactyl, that is dactyl sings designating separate letters of the national alphabet and reproduced using fingers. The teaching experience made it possible to develop some pedagogical principles of organization of learning conducive to comprehension of the learning material and achieving the goals of professional advanced educational programme of teaching Russian sign language to the officers.