ASL: Access, Benefits, and Quality
Rosen
literacy skills in ASL, which completes the bridging process concerning ASL and English. For an in-depth discussion on sign language and reading and how a transition to English literacy is best achieved, readers are referred to Supalla et al.( 2017). These scholars have proposed that a special written form of ASL that is hybridized with English will help systematize the teaching process with deaf children. The much needed comparative analysis lessons for ASL and English are contingent on these children having read in ASL and being able to bridge it to English.
Hearing students
The benefits of ASL for hearing students are predicated on the students’ perceptual processing strategies to learn and use languages. Students vary in their perceptual processing schemata( Dunn, 1983) and preferred modalities for coding and processing information( McDonald, Teder-Sälejärvi, & Ward, 2001). Some students rely on visual processing strategies to learn languages, while other students rely on auditory processing strategies to learn languages, and still others rely on kinesthetic processing strategies( Barbe & Swassing, 1979). Rosen( 2015) conducted a study of the perceptual processing schematas of speaking and hearing students of ASL. The students were asked about their perceptual processing schemata and how these affect their learning of ASL. It was found that students varied in their perceptual processing schemata. When they first learned signs and grammar, some of the students reported that they thought in pictures and images, other students reported that they thought in actions, and a few of the students depended on English translations. The bulk of the student responses demonstrated a preference for visual processing strategies. Apparently, ASL appeals to speaking and hearing students who largely rely on visual processing strategies to learn.
There are multiple motivations for hearing students to learn ASL. In the same study by Rosen( 2015) on high school students who take ASL for foreign language credit, it was found that more than half of the students take sign language because they want to learn about deaf people and want to work with deaf people in the future, and / or that they want to teach the language in the future. Half of the students take ASL because they need to communicate with family and friends. For some hearing students, learning ASL will help students learn English better. About a third of the students take ASL because they failed other spoken foreign languages, which may be associated with their learning styles, as discussed earlier. This last finding suggests that ASL provides the students opportunities for completing the higher education degree by meeting a foreign language requirement for graduation that they might not meet otherwise.
One particular motivation among hearing students for learning ASL has to do with deaf students themselves, according to Rosen’ s 2015 study. In regular public schools where deaf students attend alongside hearing students, some hearing students have chosen ASL to communicate with their deaf classmates. This helps bolster communication between the students, and prevents mainstreamed deaf students from feeling isolated at their schools. For the hearing students, classes in ASL focus their awareness on deaf community and culture. Applying that knowledge through signing with deaf students appears to be fulfilling for the hearing students.
Finally, the extra-curricular uses of ASL as a foreign language by students of ASL demands attention. Rosen( 2015) found certain interpersonal situations and social contexts that fostered the use of ASL in daily life. The interpersonal situations were created by the learners to use ASL instead of spoken English when they wanted to bond, tell secrets, express themselves with other learners and avoid having other people overhear their conversations. There were also social contexts that made it difficult for the learners to use spoken English and forced them to use visual-
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