Why Is English Difficult For Deaf Students?

The nature in American sign language is to create signs to add to deaf people signs for communicating. Deaf education is the same as the hearing education because it incorporates the

     ASL is essentially the offspring of native new world sign languages and French Sign Language. LSF merged with the indigenous sign languages when it was brought to the United States in 1817 by Laurent Clerc, a Deaf Frenchman who opened the first American school for the Deaf in Hartford, Connecticut. Grammatically, ASL is far removed from English. One common misconception is that ASL is simply silent English; a means of representing English with the hands. Codes such as this do exist, but they are rough hybrids of English grammar and ASL hand

deaf: working for the rights of all deaf people in this country, including education of deaf children.

To fully understand why this is a popular debate, we must first explore Deaf culture. Dr. Beth Sonnenstrahl Benedict from the Hands and Voices organization states that “The American Deaf community values American Sign Language as the core of a culturally Deaf identity” (Benedict par 1). Language is a crucial aspect of a culture, and American Sign Language unifies the Deaf community. Although it is often dismissed as a language, ASL has its own unique sentence structure and vocabulary that make it different from English or any other foreign language. Many believe that allowing a deaf child to learn sign language is essential to them embracing their deafness as well as building

By researching this topic, I intend to correct the extremely common misconception that ASL is just “English for Deaf people”, which I also believed before taking multiple classes on the subject.

ASL is more than a language; it is a miracle. I find myself often perplexed by the difficulty that must have come with making a language solely from hands. It is amazing that there was a nationwide speaking of the hands for the deaf community and anyone who is interested to learn can join in easily, but only if they can hoop over some of the languages major challenges. In the article “Why is Learning American Sign Language a Challenge?” by Professor Mike Kent, he discusses the top 5 ASL challenges he has come across.

Sheppard’s sole purpose for this article was to explain the process of recruiting interpreters, providing training, appropriate translations, their roles during contentment’s, and how data is collected from a Deaf community. Sheppard describes how she went about seeking qualified interpreters, even the connection between the interpreters wanting nothing to do with the research study until she used American Sign Language to communicate with the qualified interpreters. She also made sure to provide training for these interpreters to guarantee they were prepared to conduct interviews, provide informed consent, and provide proper translations for the subjects in question. She did take note of the issues that came about throughout her research, such as the informed consents and the use of signs that were too elaborate for some Deaf individuals to interpret. Her end conclusion was simply to explain the importance and value that interpreters have on the research and cultural world when in context with the Deaf

The use of psychological therapy or what is sometimes referred to as “talk-therapy” has proven to be effective in helping many people cope with life issues. For most hearing people, once the decision to seek help is made, it is a simple matter of showing up to a therapy appointment or walking into a clinic and asking for help. However, for the Deaf culture finding accessible and Deaf-friendly services can be a challenge producing little results. Currently this issue is addressed through the use of interpreters who facilitate communication between a hearing professional and Deaf person. Therefore, the benefits and challenges in using interpretation for a Deaf person seeking counseling were reviewed. The goal was to examine what role an

In the past literature has been regarded as a body of literary work in a printed form. However, Deaf Lit is done primarily through sign language, but also in written English. ASL literature is done in sign language only. ASL storytelling is the telling of stories to amuse, entertain and educate. They often portray the Deaf person as the hero and ridicule the hearing person. They also take popular English-based stories and translate them to ASL. ASL poetry and songs have been translated from English to ASL and also through sign play, which is rhyme patterns through repetition in the areas of hand shape, location, movement, palm orientation, and non-manual signals. Deaf humor is grouped into four categories: Deaf-experience humor, Deaf culture

Derived from French Sign Language, ASL has grammar that differs greatly from American English or even British English. The close relationship between ASL and FSL is because of the first school for the deaf opened in the United States. The school was founded by a Frenchman whose native language was French Sign Language. (Tabak) Now many schools for the deaf have been opened throughout the United States, yet the connections between ASL and FSL remain strong. Undoubtedly, ASL is a singular language and like any two separate languages, a language barrier can result between hearing English speaking parents and their deaf children.

Interpreting is a necessity for many deaf and hard of hearing children in schools. Interpreters translate the lesson from english to however the deaf child communicates. Deaf children often rely on interpreters to understand the lesson that everyone else can easily understand. Interpreters use a .variety of methods to convey the lesson, such as ASL, Cued Speech, and Oral interpretation. There is a high demand for ASL interpreters, especially in the learning environment.

Sign language is a language which primarily uses physical communication to communicate meaning, as opposed to spoken languages. This can involve combining hand shapes, placement and movement of the hands, arms, and body to show a speaker's thoughts. Sign language doesn’t only use signs to communicate. It uses facial expressions as a main way to communicate. For example, a well constructed question must be accompanied by the correct eyebrow position. When a person is asking questions related to who, what, where, when, and why, then the eyebrows are kept down. If the question is regarding a yes or no situation, the eyebrows are kept up. Sign languages were established, and are the center of deaf cultures around the world. Although signing is used generally by the deaf, it is also used by people who can hear but cannot physically speak (Mute), those who have trouble with spoken language due to some other disability, and people who wish to communicate with those mentioned above. A common misconception about sign language is that it is the same throughout the entire world. Sign language varies from country to country. Most of the countries have their own sign language or share a certain sign language but, with a different lingo. For example, American Sign Language uses one hand to finger spell while British Sign Language uses two hands.

Leah Nicole Murphy-Swiller (2014) investigates input quality within deaf education settings using American Sign Language (ASL). She hypothesizes that deaf participants learning language through slightly different modalities will differ in their ASL receptive skills and their comprehension of English grammar knowledge, even after educational instruction. This is done by comparing approximately one hundred and forty-nine 4 and 5-year-old deaf children at schools in 26 states across the United States of America. The deaf children are divided into three groups: those with ASL as their first language (L1), English as their L1, and those who spoke a sign-supported English. These groups are compared to a control group of same-aged hearing peers.

The debate over whether or not deaf education should put more stress on teaching deaf students sign or speech has been going on for years. Fittingly, the start of the 1970’s seemed to have introduced a middle ground between oralism and manualism called Total Communication. The idea behind Total Communication was to combine all modes of communication, exposing children to “speech, speechreading, auditory training, fingerspelling, and signs” (Schlesinger, 208). Even if successfully practiced, I don’t believe deaf students would end up successfully bilingual and bicultural because the endless number of methods used in Total Communication would never allow the student to fully grasp or become fluent in any one of those modes of communication.

Ling states that after the parents have accepted their child’s deafness and they have accepted to work constructively with the child, they can do more for their children than any professional (Ling, 6).