Just like children the world over, students at Miriam College's Southeast Asian Institute for the Deaf (MC-SAID) in Quezon City in Manila, the Philippines, learn by playing.

The children at MC-SAID can be seen running and shouting, teasing one another, paying attention to their teachers and eagerly answering questions.

At MC-SAID, however, the students use sign language to 'speak'. To make communication smoother and more intelligible, they also employ lip movements, facial expressions and bodily gestures.

One girl, Maan, an 8th grade student at MC-SAID, was asked who her greatest inspiration was. She answered through sign, which an interpreter translated as 'her teachers'.

As the children are deaf, they cannot rely on a single mode of communication such as speech.

For this reason, to ensure the effectiveness of the students' language development and competence, MC-SAID has a curriculum that embraces what linguists call multiple modalities such as child-devised gestures, formal sign language, speech reading, finger spelling, amplification of residual hearing, reading and writing.

Comprehensive: MC-SAID has a curriculum that embraces what linguists call multiple modalities including child-devised gestures. Setiono Sugiharto

Established in 1974 as a model school for the education of deaf students and as a teacher-training center for deaf education in the Philippines and Southeast Asian, MC-SAID is dedicated to the total development of deaf children.

The teachers and administrators of the institute regard every child as holding the same right to education, regardless of their physical abilities or disabilities.

Equal opportunity for disabled children has been the main principle of the school, said Exequiel Fransisco, an assistant to the president of MC-SAID.

Fransisco said that the institute emphasized academic achievement; quality education; social, cultural and vocational competence; and moral values.

'Armed with academic, social and vocational competence and moral principles, we are able to produce qualified graduates,' Fransisco said.

One of the school's alumni has even been employed the Malacañang Palace, the official residence and office of the president of the Philippines.

'Another graduate of MC-SAID was also the first deaf student to graduate magna cum laude from the University of the Philippines, one of the nation's top universities,' Fransisco said.

Interactive: The MC-SAID's four non-hearing teachers can form a better rapport with students, according the institute. Setiono Sugiharto Currently, MC-SAID employs three classroom teachers who are deaf. It was a poignant moment watching deaf teachers assist their deaf students in grasping lessons in classroom. One of those teachers, Jing Cadiz, has been teaching fourth -grade students at the institute for three years.

Speaking through a sign-language interpreter, Cadiz said that teaching deaf children had been a rewarding and fulfilling experience.

Cadiz said that her greatest challenge was how to make the students effectively understand what they were learning. 'As the children here aren't auditory learners, lessons are always taught through visualization tools, such as pictures. To help them understand how plants grow, for example, we asked them to go outside of the classroom and to directly observe the plants.'

The principal of the institute, Carolyn C. Ui, said that MC-SAID's deaf teachers had been more effective than their hearing staff in working with the students.

Ui said that the deaf teachers were more sympathetic, patient, and aware of their own physical limitations.

MC-SAID trains students from the pre-school to high-school levels using a curriculum that is little different from traditional schools.

There are, of course, extra classes in subjects such as speech and auditory training, rhythm and sign language.

The institute also offers an integrated family communication program for the student's parents to learn and use sign language.

The program, offered at the beginner, intermediate and advanced levels, aims at heightening the awareness of the importance of communication between parents and children.

'With this program, we hope that communication between parents and children can be enhanced, and that the miscommunication that often takes between them can be minimized,' Ui said.