Working with Deaf Children

Sign Bilingual Policy into Practice

Pamela Knight, Ruth Swanwick

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781134136735
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

This book is essential and accessible reading for all teachers and professionals who are working with sign bilingual deaf children. It considers the background and theory underpinning current developments in sign bilingual education and the implications for policy and developing classroom practice. Practical teaching strategies are suggested and evaluated. The authors draw on their own experience of working in sign bilingual settings as well as current good practice and relevant research.

This book is the first UK book that describes sign bilingual education (beyond policy). It is also the first book to support sign bilingual practice dealing with current educational issues. The authors draw together relevant research and practice in sign bilingual education and present practical strategies for teachers.

Part I
Background to Bilingualism

there does not exist a universally accepted definition of bilingualism … bilingualism can be viewed as a continuum that includes people who may vary considerably in their linguistic knowledge, fluency and age at which they acquire each language.

(Parasnis 1996: 4)

Chapter 1
An Introduction to Bilingualism

Introduction

This chapter, and indeed the whole book, aims to explore the growth and development of sign bilingual policy and practice within the wider context of bilingualism. The issues to be covered will be particularly relevant for teachers working in sign bilingual settings or developing sign bilingual practice. This book is based on the assumption that all deaf pupils gain some benefit from the use of sign language in their education, to some degree. The degree depends upon their linguistic needs and preferences. All teachers of deaf children should feel confident working within a sign bilingual or total communication teaching environment and be able to communicate effectively with deaf pupils and adults. In the context of this book, deaf childrens education is therefore addressed entirely from a bilingual perspective, as it is considered that this framework is inclusive of the needs of all deaf children, whatever their preferred language or level of hearing loss.

The starting point for this chapter is a common understanding of bilingualism in general and of specific terminology and definitions relating to this area. This will lead into discussions of sign bilingualism within the deaf educational context. To set the scene, this chapter introduces general bilingual issues and highlights their relevance to deafness and sign bilingualism.

Sign bilingualism within the wider bilingual context

Bilingualism, that is the use of two languages, is an integral part of human behaviour. With increasing contact and movement between cultures on a global scale, bilinguals already outnumber monolinguals and it is expected that this trend will continue in the twenty-first century. The word bilingual describes individuals who have varying degrees of proficiency and can interchangeably use two or more languages to varying degrees. It is within this broad definition that deaf people who use sign language and English have begun to be accepted as part of the wider bilingual community. This has driven the development of appropriate educational provision for bilingual deaf children.

Up until now the theoretical model which has been used to understand sign bilingualism and plan sign bilingual education has been based on research into bilingualism in two spoken languages. The major principles include a focus on the childrens development of their home or first language and the transferability of skills between a first and second language. Sign bilingual education has also drawn upon the more recent positive view of bilingualism in general, particularly the advantages of being bilingual. This does provide a starting point, but sign bilingualism presents a number of separate issues which need to be explored beyond this ‘best fit’ framework.

In most examples of bilingualism, the individuals two languages have a spoken and a written form, sometimes referred to as modality. Usually, the primary mode of each language is the spoken form, and the learning of the spoken form of the second language will at one level reflect the processes involved in the learning of the spoken form of the first language. Bilingual learners learning to speak their second language are therefore learning a new language within a modality with which they are already familiar. These bilingual learners also have the support of the spoken form of the second language in their learning of its written form. In sign bilingualism there is no common modality since the primary form of each language differs (speech and sign) and so to learn a spoken language in addition to a signed language requires engaging with an unfamiliar modality. Also, British Sign Language (BSL) has no established written form, and so deaf children approach literacy learning with no prior experience of reading and writing in their first language.

Deaf students are not ESL students. The majority do not have a true first language upon entrance into school as do most ESL students. ESL students typically focus on learning one additional language whereas Deaf students must learn two.

(Livingston 1997: 13)

The issues resulting from this different bilingual experience are mainly concerned with the early access that deaf children have to the two languages of sign language and English, the different nature of the two languages they are developing and the implications of these two factors for English literacy development. So research into hearing bilingual learning and experience provides a framework for us to consider sign bilingualism, but the differences between deaf and hearing bilingualism must be recognised.

Definitions of bilingualism

There is an array of definitions of ‘bilingual’ which range from a native-like competence’ in two languages to a minimal proficiency in a second language’. Many definitions are in fact problematic, either because the terms are not clearly defined (what does native-like mean?) or because they only refer to one aspect of bilingualism (such as proficiency) and ignore social and cultural issues. Linguists now agree that to try to define bilingualism as a phenomenon in isolation is meaningless since language does not exist outside the function it serves. Bilingualism is therefore entirely relative to each individual. Individual bilingualism will vary according to individual knowledge and use of each language, the extent to which individuals alternate between their two languages and the different ways in which one language influences the use of the other.

A more useful way to define individual bilingualism is to draw up a description or bilingual profile which considers individual language skills, cultural identities and routes to bilingualism.

Individual language skills

A bilingual person is rarely equally fluent in both languages. They usually speak one language better than the other or use the two languages for different purposes in different situations. A description which takes these factors into account will therefore be more complex but more realistic. We need to know what levels of skill the individual has in speaking, reading and writing in both languages and when, with whom and for what communicative purpose does the individual use either language?

Individual cultural identity

All languages exist within and are central to a cultural context. They are the vehicle for communicating shared experiences, values and beliefs of a group. A bilingual person has to interact with both cultures and so may also be bicultural to some degree, although this will vary between individuals. We might ask how familiar is the individual with both cultures and to what extent do they identify with them. Conversely, the extent to which the individual is identified by the speakers of both languages as part of their culture is also important.

Individual routes to bilingualism

Each individual child’s experience of language learning, and external factors which influence this process, will shape their bilingualism and biculturalism. This accounts for the differences between bilingual individuals and helps us to understand how differing circumstances can affect the nature and type of individual bilingualism. The background and contextual information would include the circumstances in which the individual has learnt or is learning two languages and the environmental factors influencing the individuals continued development and support of both languages.

Measuring bilingualism

Measures of bilingualism are problematic since comparing language competence in two languages requires measures of language competence in each language which are comparable. One approach which avoids this problem of directly comparing the behaviour in one language with that in another involves comparing each of the bilingual persons languages with native speaker standards. By doing this we assess competence in both languages compared to that of a native speaker. This gives us one indication of the balance of their bilingualism. Exactly what types of measures are appropriate to find this sum of two monolingual behaviours is also a controversial issue since there is no one agreed test to measure language competence.

Looking at the two languages separately does give us some useful information, but we also need to understand more about each individuals bilingual behaviours, such as ways in which they move between and mix their two languages. To capture the state of individual bilinguality at present largely involves description of groups or individuals, since there are no adequate measures and existing procedures need refining. Nevertheless there is still a drive to develop effective measures and linguists would argue that to use what is available, although crude, is preferable to rejecting the notion of evaluation and measurement altogether.

For deaf pupils and the measurement of sign bilingual proficiency these problems also apply. With regard to the separate assessment of both languages there are now some measures for assessing deaf childrens BSL development, although these are fairly limited in their scope. Practitioners are currently also concerned with the appropriate assessment of English abilities since school standards are designed for English first language users and many deaf pupils are learning English as an additional language with an emphasis on literacy skills. As with other bilingual children, the development of effective profiling systems seems to be a useful way forward. A full profile of a child’s sign bilingualism would consider the interaction between the child’s two languages and how the child manipulates two languages and three modalities (spoken, written and signed) as well as their separate abilities in either sign language or English. Later chapters in this book will illustrate the fact that deaf children’s sign bilingual language ability amounts to more than the sum of their separate skills in BSL and English and should be assessed in a way which recognises their skills within, between and across the language domains.

Bilingual language development

Within the study of bilingual language development, one of the key questions is the extent to which bilingual language development is different from monolingual language development. A second is whether or not the stages of bilingual language development coincide with monolingual language development. Although there have been numerous case studies of individual bilingual children, firm conclusions cannot always be drawn about general bilingual development from these. An analysis of the research available suggests that some aspects of bilingual language development closely follow a monolingual pattern. In terms of language production, bilingual children produce their first word at the same time as monolingual children. The development of grammatical structures has also been found, in general, to be parallel, although in some studies bilingual children have been found to acquire certain grammatical structures in advance of monolinguals.

In summary, bilingual language development is not delayed compared to monolingual language development and there is no developmental or linguistic disadvantage; however, there are some characteristics of linguistic behaviour which are specific to the bilingual speaker.

Characteristics of bilingual language development

Children in a bilingual environment develop perceptual skills which enable them to tune in to the different sounds of two languages (phonology), and discriminate between them from as young as four to eight months. This development of two phonological systems facilitates the individuals ability to discriminate between two languages from an early age and to keep them separate. Other specific behaviours of bilingual speakers include language mixing, language switching and translation.

Language mixing and language switching are communication strategies where bilingual individuals optimise their communication efficiency by calling on the whole range of their repertoire. Language switching is defined as the alternate use of two languages within the same utterance or conversation, and it occurs in the speech of children and adults. It begins to happen when the bilingual child becomes aware of speaking two different languages, and it is often a necessary part of social interaction among bilinguals. Reasons for language switching are multi-faceted. One often-made assumption is that bilingual speakers move into the language where they are able to express themselves more adequately. This may be the explanation in some instances, but code-switching is also an indication of the linguistic flexibility of individuals as they adapt their language and knowledge and resources to the context and audience.

Language mixing is the insertion of single words or phrases from one language into an utterance (usually a sentence) in the other. In addition to words and phrases, the sounds or grammatical structures of one language may be mixed into an utterance in the other language. Mixing may occur where the speaker only knows the item they need in one of their languages or where there is no appropriate equivalent in the language being used. All bilingual children go through a stage of mixing which usually diminishes as they get older. Language mixing is not a sign that they are unable to cope with two languages but is part and parcel of the rich experience of becoming familiar with two languages and two cultures.

Parallels with bilingualism and deafness

In the sign bilingual context a very particular example of language mixing exists since it is possible to sign and speak at the same time. Although there are many examples of how hearing bilingual children mix material from both spoken languages, only one modality is involved. For deaf individuals, contact between English and sign language results in features from a visual-gestural language and a spoken language being mixed, resulting in what is known as contact sign. This currently used term describes the use of sign language which includes elements of both BSL and English as a result of contact and interaction between deaf and hearing people. Language mixing by deaf children shares the characteristics of that of hearing bilingual children as it is the result of the childrens creative use of their linguistic resources. It is important to recognise the distinction between this type of natural language mixing and the use of contrived manually coded forms of English. This is often used for teaching purposes (bimodal communication) where some aspects of sign or speech become redundant. The contrast between the natural and contrived mixing of sign language and English and the implications for the teaching context are discussed in detail in later chapters.

Routes to bilingualism

There are many routes to becoming bilingual, which depend largely on the individuals family circumstances, their educational experiences and the wider social context. Throughout this book we are mainly concerned with children from linguistic minorities since this bilingual situation is similar to deaf childrens bilingual experience. For these children, the home language or language of their parents is a minority language. Usually the minority language...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• The Authors
• Acknowledgements
• Preface
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Part I: Background to Bilingualism
• 1. An Introduction to Bilingualism
• 2. The Development of Sign Bilingual Education
• 3. Sign Bilingual Policy
• Part II: Early Years Context
• 4. Pre-School Support
• 5. The Sign Bilingual Nursery/Foundation Stage Department
• Part III: The Classroom Context
• 6. Language Use in Sign Bilingual Classrooms
• 7. Sign Bilingual Approaches to Literacy Development
• 8. Sign Bilingual Deaf Children's Approaches to Writing
• 9. Promoting Learning and Access to the Curriculum
• Part IV: The Current Scene
• 10. Current Issues
• References
• Index