Letter to the Editor

Abstract

Letter to the Editor "How do you do it?" Mr. Max Wilhite's letter of March, 1997, (ASL to English Literacy. (142)1, 5.) raises important questions about the ASL to English literacy issue, one that has interested me since I was a reading teacher at the Maryland School for the deaf. My students, though proficient in ASL, had difficulty reading and writing English and I felt as frustrated as Mr. Wilhite. Now that I'm a teacher-educator, I find myself turning to deaf students in our graduate programs and asking, "How do you do it?" These students have learned English to get through undergraduate and graduate school successfully. I asked them to address Mr. Wilhite's concerns (Mr. Wilhite's questions appear in italics.) How would ASL help my son in college while he studied Organic Medicinal Chemistry. My point being, what is the sign for "organic, " "medicinal, " or for "chemistry"? One doctoral student (fifth generation deaf) says he learns new vocabulary through fingerspelling. English words that do not have sign language equivalents can be fingerspelled, then explained using familiar signs the child knows. Another deaf graduate student (also from a deaf family) says that even hearing children have difficulty with big words and need someone to explain in words the child knows. A deaf colleague of mine who earned a B.S. in Chemistry at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf offers another solution. He says in class the interpreter and the deaf student "negotiate" on a sign to use for that particular scientific word. First the word is fingerspelled, a sign is agreed upon, then for the remainder of the semester that particular sign is used. I asked a panel of deaf adults how they learned words like "plethora, " "minuscule , " "oblivious, " and "tenuous. " As with the chemistry words above, deaf graduate students suggest that the teacher or parent use both fingerspelling and a simple explanation of the word. Another student, a CODA (hearing child of deaf parents) says that teachers can use classifiers to explain words like "plethora" and "minuscule ." A deaf doctoral student in a psycholinguistics seminar added that parents mistakenly believe there must be a one-to-one correspondence between every manual sign and print word. In any language translation, meanings are translated, not individual words. Sometimes you have one sign for several English words and vice versa. And just because a deaf child knows an initialized sign for a word, it does not necessarily mean the child will understand that word, says one hearing doctoral student, a 20-year veteran reading teacher of deaf children . She concurs with her deaf classmates that the child needs an explanation of the word in signs he or she already knows. Another deaf graduate student says he learns advanced vocabulary through context clues. Other deaf students say their parents encouraged early reading, took them to the library regularly, and modeled reading at home. Last fall my son was due for his 3-year assessment... He was deficient in verb conjugation, pronouns, naming body parts, articles, "to be" verbs, and contractions . None of these exist in ASL. Several deaf graduate students point out that while ASL grammar is different from English grammar, it does express verb tenses, pronouns, and articles using its own lexicon and syntax (Valli & Lucas, 1995). Further, the concept "to be" and contractions can be expressed in other ways in ASL. Also, both the parent and teacher must learn the grammar of both languages to explain them to the deaf child. One deaf graduate student suggests that parents and teachers be taught ASL grammar by certified teachers who are knowledgeable about ASL linguistics. He says that hearing people taking classes in ASL can be misinformed by teachers who only have superficial knowledge of ASL. He also points out that it's important for parents to know about Deaf culture. ASL grammar won't allow me to label the names of cars on my street, the food in my refrigerator, or the names of trees in my yard... to differentiate between old and elderly.... As in the science words above, the deaf graduate students advise parents and teachers to use fingerspelling followed by explanations in signs...