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Several people advised me to check out the Gallaudet University web site. Lots of links and fascinating.
Tips for working with the deaf were sent in by Ron Addelman, who wrote:
"I am trained to work with the deaf for work I do at the Citizens' Advice bureau. Amongst other ideas I learnt are:
Finger Spelling. If you can't sign, and few hearing people can, learn to finger spell. It helps communication and many deaf people understand it. There are videos and books which teach this and it is very easy to learn. It is slow, but, at least, it helps you to communicate if all else fails. Of course, the deaf pupils have to be able to read, and not all deaf people can, as we usually learn to read with the aid of speech.
Distractions. You mention visual distractions. You are right. I'm afraid this extends to the teacher's appearance. Brightly-coloured clothing distracts from your mouth, which deaf pupils will usually be watching carefully. the same applies to large, eye-catching, dangly earrings and, in the case of men, of course, beards, which mask the lips.
Lip reading. If the pupils can read your lips, do not exaggerate your mouth movements. This distorts the appearance of words and sounds, which they are trained to recognise in ordinary speakers.
Seating. Where they sit in the room, of course, is important. They should be near the front and where the light does not hide your face. Where you stand also matters.
Speech. If they can speak or approximate speech, this can cause you difficulties, but it really is worth the effort to understand them, as they will be very proud if they are able to communicate this way. Some deaf people, though, reject this method of communication.
Buddies. Some pupils "adopt" deaf pupils and will help you to understand them.
Loudness. If they are very deaf, speaking loudly doesn't help and actually distorts the way your lips form the sounds.
Their language. It would be great if you could learn a bit of sign language, even if it's only "Hello". It would show to them that you are willing to learn their language a little too.
Games. Find lots of reading and writing games. The fact that they are primary pupils, so long as they are old enough, makes them quite at ease with learning through play. (Of course, this should last until they are adults, as for all of us!)."
David Wilson sent in a lot of information, and it is well worth following some of his links and web site addresses: "Here are a few references from my Bibliography of Modern Foreign Languages and Special Needs.
Cawthorne, I. and Chambers, G. (1993) "The special needs of the deaf foreign language learner", Language Learning Journal 7, pp.47-49.
Cornwall County Audiology Service (1994) "Languages for the hearing impaired", in McLagan, P. (ed.) Steps to learning: modern languages for pupils with special educational needs, London: Centre for information on Language Teaching and Research, pp. 49-51.
Fawkes, S. (1996) "Language development: issues arising from the teaching of deaf children", CILT Languages and Special Educational Needs Bulletin 8, pp.4-5.
Kennedy, Z. M. and Cohn, E. R. (1992) "Mainstreaming hearing-impaired students into a foreign language class", Die Unterrichtspraxis/ TeachingGerman 25 (1), pp.164-165.
MacAulay, M. (1997) Empower '97: International Conference on Deaf Education. Workshop 3: "Foreign language learning and deaf children"
Pocock, C. J. (1992) "Some factors involved in the successful study of a modern foreign language", Journal of the British Association of Teachers of the Deaf 16 (3), pp. 57-69.
Shelley, M. (1997) "Teaching languages at a distance: helping visually- and aurally-impaired students", CILT Languages and Special Educational Needs Bulletin 9, p.8.
Stefánsdóttir, V. (1999) "New approaches in teaching deaf students"
Special needs lore dictates that you start with the child, not the subject. Play to the deaf student's strengths and be grateful they (usually) lack the SEN baggage of disaffection and low intelligence. A place to begin might be the World Wide Web, which has loads of authentic resources in the target language for every level and age. They're mostly text- and graphics-based, not sound files, so the disability will rarely impede comprehension. Corresponding by email with a target-language-speaking pupil (also deaf?) in a school abroad is another possibility.
Fourthly, I have an initial and in-service teacher-training site, Applying New Technologies Appropriately to Modern Foreign Languages, dedicated to MFL and SEN at secondary school level. You will find a case study there of hearing impairment and MFL with problem solving activities leading to several external websites relating to MFL and HI. One of them is the MFL department of the world's only university for the deaf. please give me some feedback about how useful or otherwise you find this case study."
Heather Rendall wrote:
"I enjoyed immensely Oliver Sachs "Seeing voices" for what it revealed about languages per se, rather than the Deaf and foreign languages. It is a difficult book to read -the footnotes are often longer than the text in my edition!- but there is much to recommend a close study of both."
Hillary McColl wrote:
"Just one thing I would say in advance and that is that deaf children who use sign have an enormous advantage which I think ought to be exploited by the educational system. Although national sign languages are different, they have certain features in common which makes it much easier for a competent signer to learn a foreign sign language than it is for us oral speakers. Why not, if they normally communicate through sign, let them learn the British Sign Language instead of (or alongside) English? This is one reason why Deaf people are such enthusiastic travellers -they can manage to communicate wherever they go. Where deaf children are denied the opportunity to enhance their signing skills, we are denying them all this. There are lots of materials, including CDs, which children could use on their own. They might enjoy, for example, working with BSL story tapes and working out the stories for themselves. I can point you to sources if need be."
I asked Hillary some questions, these were her replies:
Q: What I have gleaned from the teachers is that they have had some sign language training, but I was confused by their explanations. They are under the impression that Portuguese sign language is different to the British version (...)
A: That is correct.
Q: Justifying this by explaining that some words are spelled and of course the spelling in the different languages would be different.
A: Finger spelling is not sign language. It is a way of communicating with deaf people but it spells out the oral language of the hearing community. Sign language, the language of the deaf community, doesn't have "spelling", since it doesn't use oral words with letters. Finger spelling, therefore is a device which allows signers to communicate with non-signers in English, Portuguese, or whatever, It's a code, like Braille, rather than a language. Sign languages are true languages in their own right, with their own vocabulary and grammar, not to be confused with finger spelling. Visual vocabulary, grammar and word-formation are unique to sign languages and a fascinating subject to explore!
Q: From other messages I have been told that there are two basic forms, the BSL and the ASL, however I've also followed www links which talk of all sorts of signing methods. (...)
A: British Sign Language is used in Britain (unsurprisingly). American Sign Language is different because it is based on French Sign Language, the first one introduced there by French colonists. (The US University for the Deaf is called Gallaudet.) The sign language used on Martha's Vineyard, however, is closer to BSL, since it was originally settled by pilgrims from Kent. I don't know how many true sign languages there are in the world, but there must be about as many as there are oral languages. The World Federation of the Deaf would know, if you want to contact them. There are also various sign systems derived from sign languages which have been devised from sign languages by hearing teachers to create a "bridge" between sign language and oral language. The systems use signs derived from the national sign language but organise them in ways which reflect the oral rules of word order and grammar -so a sort of pidgin sign! (SE= signed English; SSE= sign supported English. Some deaf people have been forced to learn these at school but forbidden to learn the true language.)
Q: I would very much like to see what kind of resources the teachers/children could use, so please do send any information you think would be suitable.
A: I have been working with a firm called Miniflashcard Language Games (now MLG Publishing) to create highly visual materials for language learning. Some of these are now being used by teachers of the deaf not only to teach foreign languages but also to teach English as if it were a foreign language to users of BSL. (...)
Some interesting things have happened (recently) for example, almost all televised programmes for schools are now subtitled, for the benefit of deaf children, so if you can get any children's programmes from the UK channels, you should, in theory, be able to get subtitles with them (if you can get teletext or its equivalent, you should be able to get subtitles -always page 888 for terrestrial channels, don't know the satellite. If you want to record them, though, you will need special equipment to "capture" them.). Until very recently MFL programmes were not subtitled because BBC etc. didn't know that deaf children studied foreign languages. BBC has recently changed its policy and in future MFL programmes will be subtitled in the foreign language. I think it is still too early to see the effects, but worth watching out for.
Emma Arthur wrote:
"I mentioned that I had used computers with deaf students at secondary school and had really good results. Here is a summary of what I did. I used the computer programme, Storyboard, to create a cloze text. the type of text depended on what we had been working on, e.g. a book review, a poem, instructions, etc. Two students would then work on the text to find the missing words. Each letter in the word is indicated by a little black square so this provides a good clue. It is very interesting to watch deaf children "discussing" this using sign language. They really enjoyed this activity. (I always made sure that the vocabulary had already been covered.) I could have carried out the same type of activity with upper primary but I would have used the programme All My Words by Crick Software."
