Bilingual Bicultural Theory in Deaf Education - Literature review Example

Bilingual Bicultural Theory in Deaf education Bilingual Bicultural Theory in Deaf Education Introduction Bilingual bicultural deaf education puts into consideration both the native sign language of the deaf community and the majority language of the country in which the students live. While fostering a deaf culture, the bilingual bicultural deaf education also seeks to appreciate mainstream cultures of the broader society (Geeslin, 2007, p5, line 1). This enables the deaf students to integrate seamlessly into the society on completion of their studies. The bilingual bicultural approach to deaf education has many benefits, notably the fact that it enables students to acknowledge the differences between the hearing and the deaf cultural and linguistic communities and is able to adapt accordingly depending on the prevailing situation (Henslay, 2011, p8, line 3-5). Nevertheless, the language skills of children bear a considerable impact on their academic performance. The average reading level of deaf students remains at the fourth grade despite various reforms in the deaf education sector. The bilingual bicultural theory of deaf education, therefore, strives to empower the deaf so that they can participate fully in societal development. Background Bilingual bicultural relates to the acquisition of two languages; namely, spoken / written English of the common populace and the American Sign Language (ASL), and the two cultures comprising of the hearing community and the deaf community (Geeslin, 2007, p9, line 1-3). However, most academic programs involving the application of the bilingual bicultural approach to deaf education usually leave out the bicultural aspect, basing on the premise that they incorporate a multi-cultural angle rather than a bicultural one. The bilingual bicultural deaf education consequently became the bilingual deaf education. It officially took root in America in the 1800s when Laurent Clerc, who was the first deaf teacher in the US, moved from France to the US and began demonstrating how deaf children should be taught (Geeslin, 2007, p13, line 3-4). He founded the American School for the Deaf in Hartford. Subsequently, his students founded many other deaf schools in almost every state. The 1850s marked a watershed for the deaf community in America. This was because there were many deaf professionals, including lawyers, doctors, authors and politicians, among others (Geslin, 2007, p14, line 5-7). However, Clerc had many political battles to fight. He faced challenges from oral educators who contended that they had better approaches to educating deaf students. Consequently, the brief deaf honeymoon came to an abrupt end in 1880 when the Milan Convention was adopted worldwide. The convention was a massive setback for Lerc, as it concluded that oral education had to be spread globally. The adoption of the Milan Convention almost sounded the death knell for deaf education. The years between 1890 and 1940 were the darkest in the history of deaf education as almost all of the deaf teachers were pushed out of their careers (Geeslin, 2007, p14, line8-9). In addition, the number of deaf professionals dramatically dropped to almost none. This was because the new crop of deaf intellectuals could only take up blue collar jobs such as tailoring and running printing presses. This was indeed a dark period in the history of deaf education. The suppression of the American Sign Language (ASL) was based on the false premise that it was not a true biological language. Researchers, therefore, started investigating the veracity of this premise by studying how language is processed in the brain. Findings soon showed that ASL was processed in the left side of the brain, just like ordinary spoken languages. Despite broad literature, educators still argue against the use of ASL in deaf education with a view to promoting oral-only form of education. As it stands, deaf education is failing (Geeslin, 2007, p17, line 17). When the US Congress formed a commission to study the deaf education system, it unearthed grim reality: deaf education was so far unsatisfactory. Consequently, the commission made several recommendations in a bid to streamline deaf education. Most notably, it sought to enact a law to govern deaf education, The Bilingual Education Act. This law would ensure that sufficient resources are channeled into deaf education so as to ameliorate the learning outcomes of deaf children. Application of theory to deaf education Despite fervent attempts by educators to eradicate sign language and impose oral education skills on deaf students, deaf children have a natural preference to sign language. Due to their insufficient auditory input, deaf children naturally sharpen their power of sight and interact with the world around them through the eye (Geeslin, 2007, p7, line 16-17). Their language develops within this framework. Since sign language is produced through visual means, it becomes a natural medium of communication for deaf children who wish to interact with others around them. In 1998, two scholars, Nover and Christensen developed a bilingual multicultural framework for deaf students. The framework identified both prelinguistic and linguistic dimensions (Geeslin, 2007, p28, line 22). The prelinguistic dimensions include the basic non-verbal communication cues such as vocalization, turn-taking, facial expression and use of gestures, among others. Nover and Christensen also expected deaf children to bond with their caretakers in the same manner as their hearing counterparts. Deaf babies would eventually show American Sign Language skills through hand babbling and active visual searching for primary information while at the same time learning English skills through vocal babbling and auditory support or listening for primary information (Geeslin, 2007, p29, line 3-5). The next step is acquisition of ASL signing and English literacy abilities. A child will acquire ASL signing abilities through peripheral vision, watching, signing and space usage. A deaf child will then acquire English literacy skills at various levels. For reading English text, a deaf child will engage in various learning activities such as reading, finger-reading and finger-spelling. They will also learn typing English text, speaking, lip reading and listening (Geeslin, 2007, p29, line 13-14). Nevertheless, there is a distinction between oracy and literacy. While oracy bases on listening as a receptive skill and speaking as part of the productive skills, literacy focuses on reading as a receptive skill and writing as a productive skill. Therefore, oracy is about speaking while literacy is the development of reading and writing skills. In addition to oracy and literacy, Nover came up with the concept of signacy. Signacy endows the deaf child with the ability to control the visual-signing medium of linguistic transmission. The receptive skill for signacy is watching while its productive skill is signing. Consequently, Nover’s work as a bilingual theorist was three-fold: signacy, represented by the ASL, literacy and oracy, both represented by English. The implication that Nover created was that ASL was instrumental in the education of deaf children as it helped them improve their mastery of English oracy and literacy. Deaf children who were more fluent in ASL would be in a better position to grasp English literacy compared to the deaf with a poor background in ASL (Delana et al, 2007, p83, col.1). However, debate rages on whether ASL can be acquired in the classroom as a first language. Considering the fact that most of the deaf children are born to hearing parents, educators, researchers and parents wonder if deaf children can acquire their primary language in class (Geeslin, 2007, p2, line 14). Their hearing counterparts join school with a first language, which may be English or any other. In typical conditions, the first language of most learners is usually not the language of instruction in schools. Deaf educators, therefore, need to analyze the contexts required in order to make first language acquisition possible. The classroom becomes the place for the deaf to acquire their first language. Consequently, teachers become the primary role models for deaf children to acquire a strong foundation in the American Sign Language as their first language (Geeslin, 2007, p30, line 9). Teachers have their work cut out for them in laying out their classroom. Since the classroom provide the context for language and socialization for deaf children, teachers have to demonstrate how to be deaf in different situations, for example, when they meet and interact with people who have a hearing ability and do not know how to sign. The deaf teacher, therefore, uses the written word to model. Alternatively, deaf teachers would need to use narratives that depict similar world experiences with their children. However, they would not need to take anything for granted since deaf children born to hearing parents may not have been exposed to critical information at home (Petersen, 2012, p37, col. 1). Nevertheless, it is obvious that most of the learning takes place outside the classroom. Consequently, deaf teachers need to adopt narratives that demonstrate how to deal with daily life experiences. Deaf teachers also know that they are not the sole primary linguistic partners to deaf children. Therefore, they may need to enlist the services of third parties such as deaf peers in their teaching processes. These classroom strategies are essential to the education of deaf children born to hearing parents, and help them achieve the same experiences that deaf children born to deaf parents (Knight, 2013, p1, line 15-16). Advantages and Disadvantages of Bilingual Deaf Education Bilingual deaf education has various advantages. To begin with, bilingual deaf education enables deaf children to morph into the society around them. This is especially because deaf children may be born to either deaf or hearing parents (Knight, 2013, p19, line 17-18). This implies that most children find themselves in a bilingual world even before they start attending school. At school, they learn the American Sign Language, as well as English. This enables them to communicate and interact with both the deaf and the hearing community. Secondly, the bilingual deaf education enhances the learning outcomes of deaf students (Delana et al, 2007, p84, col. 3). Deaf students are able to learn both the American Sign Language and English. Consequently, they attain almost the same qualification as hearing students. They are, therefore, in a position to land professional employment just like hearing children. Deaf students have gone on to become researchers, teachers and other professions. On the other hand, bilingual deaf education has its underbelly. Firstly, the theory remains largely unimplemented. Schools that have adopted this framework have no roadmaps to its institutionalization. For instance, teachers for the deaf are yet to adjust their perception of the deaf (O’Dea, 2008, p3, line 6-8). They continue to consider them as children with defective hearing rather than children belonging to a bilingual bicultural community. Secondly, deaf children in school have no real role models to emulate. This is because most the teachers who teach or guide them are those who have no hearing deficiency. Consequently, deafness is seen as a disability and not as a normal aspect of life. Proponents of the theory There are many proponents of the bilingual bicultural theory. First is Laura Peterson of the California School for the Deaf. This is a deaf school that operates on the premise of the bilingual bicultural program (Peterson, 2012, p36, line 1-2). The California School for the Deaf upholds the use of the American Sign Language as the language of instructions and the deaf children’s first language. Another proponent of the bilingual deaf education theory is Jennifer Scarboro Hensley. Hensley (2011, p1, line 1-2) states that she was born to two culturally deaf parents, thereby becoming both bilingual and bicultural. She learnt the American Sign Language so as to be able to communicate with her parents and English for the rest of the society. She, therefore, had two languages and two cultures. Other notable proponents include Yu and Patterson (2010) who examine the academic performance of adolescents from a cross-cultural point of view. Moreover, the American Annals of the Deaf (2007, p84, col 1) observe that students whose parents were well versed in signing skills performed much better than those whose parents had none. For this reason, bilingual deaf education is the best approach for educating the deaf. Pizer, Walters and Meier (2012) support bilingual deaf education by studying the language practices of hearing adults with deaf parents. Benefits of theory The bilingual bicultural theory of deaf education has had considerable impact on deaf education. The theory has great potential in improving the learning outcomes of deaf children. This is because deaf children in a bilingual program can exploit both their sign language and English when reading and acquiring vocabulary (Hermans et al, 2008, p162). The bilingual bicultural theory also contributes to the body of knowledge that is constantly growing through research. The best research in the field of language acquisition, especially concerning the deaf is a person who understands the worlds of the hearing and the deaf. A bilingual bicultural scholar can act as both a researcher and an interpreter to become a language facilitator, cultural mediator and a socio-linguistic consultant (Hensley, 2011, p1, line 13-15). Therefore, a bilingual bicultural student has more opportunities of professional development than their unilingual unicultural counterparts. Lastly, the bilingual bicultural theory of deaf education stands to integrate the deaf community into the society around them (hermans et al, 2007, p155, line 1-2). This is because the deaf are usually treated as a minority group and, therefore, are prone to subjugation. If they learn both the ASL and English, and are conversant with both cultures, then they can easily fit into the society where the majority are the hearing group. Conclusion The bilingual bicultural deaf education involves combining the ASL, which is their first language, and English, which is the language of the majority. By so doing, the deaf will be able to communicate and interact effectively with the rest of the community around them. Learning both forms of languages is also important, considering the fact that some deaf students are born to hearing parents, or vice versa. The theory has many proponents, including Hensley, who uses the knowledge on a professional level as both a researcher and an interpreter (Hensley, 2011, p1, line 9-12). Nevertheless, the theory faces several criticisms and challenges. Teachers in deaf schools are yet to change their mentality towards deaf students. However, the theory will go a long way in improving the status of the deaf community. References Delana, M., Gentry, M.A. & Andrews, J. (2007) The Efficacy of ASL/ Bilingual Education: considering Public Schools. American Annals of the Deaf, 152, 72-87. Geeslin, J.D. (2007). Deaf Bilingual Education: A Comparison of the Academic Performance Of Deaf Children of Deaf Parents and Deaf Children of Hearing Parents. (Doctoral dissertation). Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies. Indiana University. Hensley, J.S. (2011). A Bilingual, Bicultural Interpreter and Researcher Navigates Blurry Boundaries and Intersectionality. (Masters Dissertation). Arizona State University. Hermans, D., Knoors, H., Ormel, E. & Verhoeven (2008) Modeling Reading Vocabulary Learning in Deaf Children in Bilingual Education Programs. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 13, 155-174. Hermans, D., Knoors, H., Ormel, E. & Verhoeven (2008) The Relationship between the Reading and Signing Skills of the Deaf Children in Bilingual Education Programs. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 13, 518-530. Knight, T.R. (2013) Social Identity in Hearing Youth Who Have Deaf Parents: A Qualitative Study. (Doctoral dissertation). The Faculty of the College of Graduate Studies. Lamar University. ODea, B. (2008) Struggling to Develop A Bilingual-Bicultural Approach to Deaf Education: A Case Study. (Doctoral dissertation). The University of New Mexico Albuquerque, New Mexico. Peterson, L. (2012) Research-based Curriculum, Pedagogy, and Assessment in a Deaf Bilingual Program. Center for ASL/English Bilingual Education and Research. Retrieved April 3, 2014, from www.gallaudet.edu/CCS/LPI_and_CAEBER.html Pizer, G., Walters, K., & Meier, R. P. (2012). We communicated that way for a reason: Language practices and language ideologies among hearing adults whose parents are deaf. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 18(1), 75-92. Yu, F., & Patterson, D. (2010). Examing adolescent academic achievement: A crosscultural review. Family Journal, 18(3), 324-327. Read More