Apprentissage institutionnel d'une troisième langue par les apprenants sourds. Discussion autour d'une approche bilingue dans l'enseignement d'une langue vivante

Abstract

Ivani Fusellier-Souza : Academic learning of a third language by young deaf students. Discussion around a bilingual approach in teaching oral languages to deaf people In this article, we support the idea that the teaching of oral and written languages to young deaf students affected by profound hearing loss should be inspired by educational strategies and by methodological techniques akin to the pedagogy of second language teaching. Sign languages are deaf people's natural way of communicating; consequently we presume that the more sign languages are mastered, the more teaching of written modality of oral languages is successful. Our assumption is founded on the fact that a third written language (in this particular case: English) taught to young deaf students as a foreign language is assimilated more easily than a second language (French) taught as if it was a mother language. We remind, nevertheless, that this hypothesis is best applied to children who have reached the stage of the abstract reasoning.