ASL is not English

2010-01-18T17:04:00.010-05:00

I must first assert that although I am in no way advocating the removal of deaf students from being covered under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), students whose native “tongue” is American Sign Language (ASL) should also be covered under the umbrella of English as a Second Language (ESL). This is possible by looking at the “disability” and the language as two separate entities, just as a disabled immigrant student would be included in both programs.

Although the subject of approaching ASL from the guise of ESL may be hard to comprehend at first glance, after a more critical study of how ASL falls into the linguistics world. Utilizing What Rosina Lippi-Green refers to as the “linguistics facts of life,” you can see that ASL should be approached the same as other languages. If the word “spoken” is removed from her definitions, the definitions would apply to ASL the same as they apply to any spoken languages (10).

When looked at through the lens of a Marxist-based critique, this commercial serves but one purpose, the widening of a company’s potential customer base. Although this may be true, it is my opinion that Apple is attempting to use the resources at their disposal to incorporate all entities in society, in an attempt to foster the use of native “tongues” in order to bridge linguistic and cultural gaps that may hinder understanding, appreciation and inclusion of individuals with “alternative” linguistics and thusly cultures.

Although Apple could have used various other methods to demonstrate this point, a few examples would have been; singing in English with subtitles or vice versa, or the use of a song with a hybrid use of language, such as Ricky Martin’s “Jaleo,” the commercial would have not had the desired result. If the commercial had been done with subtitles, the Marxist argument would have been a legitimate claim, without successful contestation. In the case of using a hybrid song, stands to support the Marxist claim and/or (depending on artist and song) alienate members of one or both of the linguistic groups.

This is a commercial representation of the ideas purposed by Eugene E. Garcia. This commercial demonstrates what Garcia points out as what “…will meet the challenge of diversity successfully” (93). This is an audio-visual representation of what he states are the two necessary presuppositions. First being the honoring of diversity in order to honor our complex society, and second is providing unity, by embracing diversity.

Works Cited

Garcia, Eugene E. "Treating Linguistic and Cultural Linguistic and Cultural Diversity as a Resource: The Research Response to the Challenges Inherent in the Improving America’s School Act and California’s Proposition 227." Language Ideologies: Critical Perspectives on the Official English Movement I (2000): 90-113.

Lippi-Green, Rosina. English with an Accent: Language, Ideology and Discrimination in the United States. New York: Routledge, 1997.

The need to include a diverse population in the postsecondary educational process has, by design, unintentionally overlooked a group of Americans. The necessity of affording deaf students with coverage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), limits their accessibility, in many institutions, to English as a Second Language (ESL) courses. This issue can be remedied by addressing deafness and the students’ native “tongue” of American Sign Language (ASL), as being two separate entities. Although this subject was addressed by Douglas R Magrath, almost, twenty-five years ago, the amount of research in the public arena is minimal, at best.

Although it may be founded on English, ASL is as much a dialect of English as English is a dialect of Latin. ASL “is a fully developed linguistic system with a ‘phonology’ and syntax” (497). This difference from and connection to English is, possibly, one of the most difficult barriers in the education of deaf students, specifically in the composition classroom. One of the biggest is the structure of sentences. Most sentences in ASL can be placed in either Subject-Verb-Object order or Object-Subject-Verb order. The latter ordering calls for a “topic marker” and thusly leads to two issues when writing in English. First is the sentence order and second is the use of a pronoun and the noun being “substituted,” being placed side by side.

This solution requires a close scrutiny of the pedagogy of the ESL classroom and what, if any, modifications would be required to incorporate instruction that would benefit deaf students, while not detracting from L2 students. Magrath was pointing out the research of Jana Stanton when he stated that, “Proven ESL techniques such as dialogue journals and sentence combining have been shown to be successful with both deaf and hearing ESL students” (498).

Works Cited
Magrath, Douglas R. "ESL and Deaf Education: Mutual Needs." Foreign Language. Vol. 18 No. 6. December 1985. 497-99.

I have struggled to find a way to verbalize the thought that American Sign Language (ASL) and being deaf should be treated as two separate entities. It was an article by Diane Rodriguez that got me thinking about my claim of treating a deaf student the same as an English Language Learner (ELL) with a disability. In her article “Meeting the Needs of English Language Learners with Disabilities in Urban Settings” she addresses the issue of ELL students that have “documented” disabilities. Although she addresses this issue from the lens of K-12 education in the urban setting, her theories can easily be applied to the postsecondary education of ELL students with disabilities.

Rodriguez points out the fact that an ELL student may have some of the comprehension issues in English that are traditionally recognized as being associated with the issues of students with documented learning disabilities (454). This association in students whose primary language is ASL is often overlooked due to the fact that educators, unfamiliar with ASL and the deaf community, often mistakenly assume that ASL is just a different dialect of English. Although it is true deaf students who communicate in ASL may have a better grasp than their hearing ELL counterparts, this comprehension is at the most simplistic level.

Deaf students, especially at hearing schools, have had classroom instructions translated from English to ASL through an ADA mandated interpreter. This form of instruction does not address the sociocultural and linguistic characteristics of deaf students which, as Rodriguez points out, prevent them from “making adequate progress” (453).

I would recommend this article to a scholar interested in the subject of ELL or Special Education. Even if an educator has a specialization in English as a Second Language (ESL) or Special Education, as Rodriguez points out, it is not uncommon for students to be improperly identified as disabled when they are in fact not. Although Rodriguez’s article is a great piece of literature on the subject of educating ELL students with disabilities, I feel she failed to cover a few groups of students that fall within her studied realm. She covered L2 students in depth but seemed to give little to no consideration to L1.5 students. For my purposes, as with much of the literature, I had to infer what information had carry over to deaf students.

Works Cited
Rodriguez, Diane. "Meeting the Needs of English Language Lerners with Disabilities in Urban Settings." Urban Education. Vol. 44. 8 Jun 2009. 452-464.

The literature on my chosen research seems to be sporadic, at best. I searched the Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education starting with the most recent issue (January 2010) and failed to find any theoretical articles involving the use of ESL pedagogy as a method for instructing deaf students until the Winter 1999 issue. I am currently undertaking an empirical case study to determine if this model has been accepted, at my institution. I am currently approaching this subject from the viewpoint that postsecondary institutions, for the most part, have not embraced this idea.

The research in the field of successful instruction of composition to deaf students is minimal, at best. Since sound theory is founded on research, composition scholars have relied on a patchwork mentality of theories on the education of deaf students. I agree with Mayer and Akamatsu when they state that there is no right, wrong or best way to educate deaf children (p. 6). Additionally they are correct in stating, “[I]f this approach to educating deaf children is to be seen as appropriate for larger numbers of students, its tenets and theoretical foundations must be able to withstand close examination” (p.6).

Mayer and Akamatsu decry the bilingual approach to educating deaf students. Much of their contention seems to be with the deductive reasoning of theories, as incomplete and/or selective. Although I will agree with the claims that the subject should not be approached from an overgeneralization that ESL is the most productive way to educate deaf students, I assert that of the means, currently, available this creates the least change to the academic landscape while providing high success rates.

The bilingual approach, in my opinion, is not the definitive answer to educating deaf students, but rather as an appropriate interim means while more research is conducted. This approach should be seen as a work in progress and subject to revision as more research is done on the subject. Magrath eluded to the fact that the ESL systems are already in place and therefor the bilingual model would place the least strain on the system. He implied that the bilingual model only requires educating ESL instructors on practices while introducing deaf students into the classroom and not establishing new, untested, systems in the academy. It is my claim that using the bilingual model would allow the academy to keep already established systems in place, while allowing more research to be conducted.

Magrath, Douglas R. "ESL and Deaf Education: Mutual Needs." Foreign Language. Vol. 18 No. 6. December 1985. 497-99.
Mayer, Connie and C. Tane Akamatsu. "Bilingual-Bicultural Models of Literacy Education for Deaf Students: Considering the Claims." Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education. Vol. 4. 1. 1 March 1999.

The crux of Mayer’s argument is to that the differences between hearing ELL students and deaf students, whose L1 is ASL, who are treated as ELL. She also looks at the pedagogical implications and ramifications of treating ASL students as ELL. Although she makes a solid theoretical argument for her claim, her theory seems to be supported by disconnected suppositions or unrelated parallels. Additionally this article, by design or accident, pokes holes in current theory without providing a possible substitute or remedy for the errors identified in the field.

Mayer’s essay attempts to dispute the use of L2 pedagogy to educate deaf students, by comparing the quantifiable results of ELL and deaf students being educated using L2 pedagogy. She states, “the evidence does not indicate that most hearing ESL learners struggle to achieve age-appropriate literacy levels in the same way as their deaf counterparts do” (326). The fact that deaf students do not achieve the same age-appropriate literacy as hearing ELL students does not disprove that deaf students in ESL are benefited better than deaf students that are mainstreamed or in special education classes.

This article uses quotes from educators that feel that deaf students being relegated to remedial courses as opposed to ESL courses are used to support her argument that ESL pedagogy should not be used. She quotes two educators that are claiming that remedial education does not suffice and ESL may be an option. Mayer quotes one of the educators at a community college who stated:

“At least [10 deaf students], if not more, do not have ‘college level’ reading and writing skills because of their deafness and ASL being their first language. Placing them in our regular remedial English and reading classes are marginal in terms of success and leaves me wondering if ESL classes are a realistic option to consider.”

Mayer’s argument seems to hinge solely on the basis that results of deaf students being taught in ESL classes do not “mirror the situation of hearing second language learners.” One key aspect that is overlooked in this article is a comparison of deaf students in ESL classes and deaf students in mainstream and/or remedial courses. The treatment of deaf students as ELL is not to educate the students at the level of hearing ELL but rather to provide a, possibly, better alternative to educating deaf students.

Works Cited
Mayer, Connie. "Issues in Second Language Education with Learners who are Deaf." International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism. Vol. 12. May 2009. 325-334.

ASL & ESL

ASL is not English