Schooling in ASL

Berkeley Review of Education, 2013

Deaf people have long held the belief that American Sign Language (ASL) plays a significant role in the academic development of deaf children. Despite this, the education of deaf children has historically been exclusive of ASL and constructed as an English-only, deficit-based pedagogy. Newer research, however, finds a strong correlation between ASL fluency and English literacy, supporting Deaf people's belief. This article describes efforts at the University of California, San Diego to develop and field-test a teacher preparation program that combines best practices in bilingual education and deaf education. The training curriculum designed for this program incorporates cultural practices from the Deaf community into the training of teachers of deaf children, a paradigmatic shift from traditional deaf education pedagogy based on a deficit model to a socio-cultural view of deaf children and their schooling. This shift represents a significant new direction in addressing the chronic poor performance of schools in educating deaf and hardof-hearing children who as a group are severely undereducated. This article also provides background and rationale for the recent approval of ASL authorization on the Multiple Subjects teaching credential in California.

American Annals of the Deaf, 2007

Odyssey: New Directions in Deaf Education, 2018

Visual Anthropology Review, 1999

1998

Department of Education, Grant #R203A70030-97. The purpose of the Star Schools project is to implement and test a proposed bilingual/ESL model for deaf students acquiring and learning two languages, American Sign Language (ASL) and English. In addition, the project will design an effective system of staff development within deaf residential schools to guide teachers in the use of effective instruction to maximize deaf students' affective, cognitive, social, ASL proficiency, English literacy acquisition and academic achievement through the use of two languages: ASL and English. This report summarizes research on the implementation of staff development for teachers of deaf children. Today, schools for deaf children and youth in the nation are in the process of change. Many, dissatisfied with traditional ways of teaching, have sought opportunities to reexamine current pedagogical practices. One change has been the adoption of ASL-English bilingual programs in deaf residential schools across the country. As yet, however, published standards, curriculum guidelines, and effective strategies available for teachers to use this approach are very limited. Further, many teachers for the deaf receive little or no training in the process of teaching deaf children bilingually (Strong, 1995). The challenge for the deaf education field is to implement and test a proposed bilingual/ESL model by focusing on how bilingual education can be effective for deaf students. We have chosen the title Critical Pedagogy in Deaf Education: Bilingual Methodology and Staff Development because our aim is to promote an approach to teaching and learning in which teachers and students reflect critically on classroom practice with the objective of improving student learning. Using this approach, the Star Schools project teachers "name" or recognize their beliefs about language learning and teaching, "reflect" critically on them, and then "act" on these beliefs in the classroom. In the same way, students are encouraged to practice and test the validity of the knowledge they acquire in the classroom using their own contexts and experiences and thereby empowering themselves by taking ownership of their education. The theoretical background for the project model is based on bilingual and English as a Second Language (ESL) principles, theories of first (L1) and second (L2) language acquisition, Whole Language practices, ASL signacy development, and English literacy development for deaf students. This model supports classroom instruction that incorporates ASL, English, and Deaf culture. In this report, we describe and discuss the findings of the first year of our five-year longitudinal project using this model. 7 adminstrators, participating teachers, an educational research team, an advisory board, and additional reviewers. They have provided thoughtful reactions and insightful suggestions to improve the quality of the Star Schools First Year Report. Although they are not responsible for the contents of the report, their contributions are gratefully acknowledged:

2007

This paper discusses the use of American Sign Language (ASL) in an English-as-a-Second-Language approach to teaching reading and writing skills to deaf students. The paper posels and answers the following theoretical and practical questions: (1) What is the nature of first language reading? (2) What is the nature of second language reading? (3) What is the relationship between reading and writing? (4) Is inner speech (i.e., phonological coding) important for reading comprehension? (5) What role can ASL play in the teaching of literacy skills? (6) I. the use of only ASL sufficient for the development of reading and writing? Three models of the reading process, namely, the text-based, reader-based, and interactive approaches, are described. Interactive social-cognitive theories are then applied to second language reading. The interrelatedness of reading and writing is noted, and evidence of the importance of speech coding for reading comprehension is cited. The paper recommends that ASL be used to teach English literacy skills within the framework of a bilingual minority-language immersion program. ASL's use in teaching cultural components, emerging literacy skills, advanced literacy skills, vocabulary, and comprehension is examined in detail. (48 references) (JDD)

Sociolinguistics in deaf communities, 1995

English-only educators of deaf students embody the complexity of dis positions that view the use of and teaching of ASL as a social, economi cal, and educational disadvantage. Such beliefs lead to a devaluation of ASL and the Deaf community and favor English-only groups (Nover & Ruiz 1992, 1994). This ASL-as-problem orientation has been present in

Perspectiva, 2006

de Quadros**. de abril a julho de 2006 pela Internet. RobectJ. Hoffmeister, Ph.D. established and is the Directorof the first progcarn in DeafStudies of the United States. He is a hearing from Deafparents and he always was aware of the need of seeing Deaf with "Deaflens", as he refecs to aterro used by Bcn Baba0\. This paint makes a huge difference among other prograrns established around the world. The Deaf way is different. Sensible to that difference, Robert Hoffmeister keeps workingin DeafStudies that include alI the arcas that are studying related aspects to DEAF WüRLO.