Teachers’ competencies to effective support emotional intelligence development of deaf students in Secondary Schools in North Eastern, Kenya

Deaf students may not have exposure to rich emotional vocabulary in their first language, Kenyan sign language, which may result in difficulty in identifying their own and others’ emotions, thus hinder their social interactions and academic success. The main aim of this study was to assess teachers’ competencies in supporting the development of emotional intelligence in deaf students in secondary schools in North Eastern, Kenya. The study embraced a quantitative descriptive design approach and was based on the foundation of Bar-On model. The target population were teachers of secondary schools for the deaf in North-Eastern, Kenya. A sample size of 17 participants was selected through census sampling. Data was collected through a structured questionnaire with reliability coefficient 0.767 and analyzed descriptively. Findings revealed that the levels of participants’ competence in development of emotional intelligence of deaf students was moderate (M=3.45 and SD=0.275). Participants recorded high levels (M=4.35 and SD=0.493) of competencies in creating a supportive classroom environment that allows students to express their emotions. However, it came out that participants had low levels (M=1.41 and SD=0.712) of competencies in integrating activities on emotional intelligence into the curriculum. The paper recommends that teachers for deaf students be regularly provided with adequate training on skills and competencies to effectively support the development of emotional intelligence of their learners.