Unlocking the Curriculum
Johnson et al.
first language of the children and as the primary language of instruction, should
be employed both to impart information and to talk about English. While it may
be useful to use special signs to talk about English structures and to represent
those aspects of English in signing, such systematic English signing should not
be used for the transmission of content or the conduct of interpersonal
communication in the classroom. English will be taught as a second language
and methods of English instruction will take advantage of the first language
competence the children already have. As grade level increases, the acquisition
of information through reading becomes more critical and English will become
increasingly important as a vehicle of instruction. Classroom discourse,
however, will continue to be in ASL.
Some readers might misinterpret our focus on ASL discourse as a neglect of
English. It is not our intention to diminish the value of learning English for deaf
people. It is an undeniable fact that proficient English is necessary to economic
survival in the United States. Of more direct relevance to this paper, however,
is the fact that in each successive year of school, a larger proportion of the
curricular content is located in books and other reading material. Thus, if our
goal of at-grade-level curriculum is to be met, children will need to have
increasingly higher levels of proficiency in the reading and writing of English
in order to succeed.
Our goal is children who are bilingual in ASL, and English. Thus, proficiency
in English is one of our primary objectives. We contend simply that both the
learning of English and access to the curriculum may be speeded and enhanced
by establishing ASL as the first language.
Both languages should be respected, valued, and used by all adults in the
program and the specific utility of each should be a topic of open discussion.
The importance of English literacy in the adult life of deaf people in the United
States should be a topic included in both the language and the social studies
curricula.
o The learning of a spoken language (English) for a deaf person is a process
of learning a second language through literacy (reading and writing).
Erting (1982) and Sacks (1988) both emphasize that the essential adaptations
that deaf people must make to succeed in a world designed by and for hearing
people are visual. The learning of English for a deaf child is no exception. It is
primarily a visual (as opposed to auditory) experience. This is true whether the
child learns English through the lipreading of English speech, through a signed
code for English, or through literacy. De Bentancor (1986) has shown, for
example, that for deaf children learning Spanish through oral methods, the
coding of lipreading is visual, rather than auditory or phonological.
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