As English increasingly becomes the international
language, many ministerial and educational organisations
have identified the need to improve the
competence of Thai students in speaking English.
While there is significant research devoted to developing
software tools to support the teaching of
English as a second language, they are mostly
concerned with adult learners. This project focuses
on addressing the need to improve the teaching of
English as a second language to primary school
children with hearing impairments. This paper presents
the development of an educational software
tool referred to as the Total Communication with
Animation Dictionary (TCAD), which supports learners
in the acquisition and retention of new English
lexical knowledge and is based on the theoretical
approaches of Total Communication and situated
learning. A series of experiments was undertaken to
evaluate the effectiveness of the TCAD in improving
vocabulary acquisition and retention. Early results
are promising with increased learner engagement
and performance compared with traditional
approaches.