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Should Sign Language Be Taught to All Students as a Second Language?
The world is consists of more than 7 billion people. There are approximately 6,500 languages in the world. Sign Language is one of the least common language of the list of languages in our world, but that does not mean it should not be taught to people all over the world. Many people in the United States of America will say the use of Sign Language is not needed but the question still stands, “Should sign language be taught to all children as a second language with the teaching of English?” Many people do not realize this question has been tossed around for many years. Sign language is used for communicating with those who can not speak or who have a disability which prevents them from speaking. Many people can easier understand what a person is trying to say to them when they can visually see what is being said. Many people in the world live quiet lives because they do not feel included in the world because of their disabilities or lack of
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This however is not true. In more recent years, Sign Language has been taught to children with down syndrome, autism, and many other disabilities or illnesses that give them a harder time to communicate through English. “Recent studies show, children with a form of mental or physical disabilities have a higher success rate with visual language, than with oral language” (Corley). Many doctors and speech therapist have started to recommend everyone with down syndrome, autism, hearing impaired, or deaf, learn to use Sign Language. It would be extremely easier if we all new sign language, then we would not have to worry about not being able to understand people with different disabilities or people who can not hear or
The movie “Audism Unveiled” was a very interesting and powerful movie. I never realized that deaf individuals are discriminated against. This could be partly because I have never been immersed in or educated about the deaf culture until this year. One of the things that struck me the most while watching “Audism Unveiled” was the many heart wrenching stories about children being unable to communicate with their own non-signing hearing families.. The deaf child would have to ask their family members, why everyone was laughing or what’s going on. The family members would just tell them “I’ll tell you later” or “Nevermind. It’s not important”, resulting in the individual feeling isolated. Personally, I agree with people saying that if a parent has a deaf child they should learn how to sign; communication is what brings families together. As a result, the most intriguing thing to me was the stories of family members never learning American Sign Language; leaving their family member isolated.
People often think that a disability means that the person is cognitively incapable in addition to the obvious, or not so obvious, truth. I firmly believe that people should be labeled by their abilities rather than their disabilities. This is why I love the idea that the Deaf community defines itself as culturally capital-D Deaf rather than lower-case-d deaf, which is the condition of being unable to hear. When Drolsbaugh received strong reactions from using the word Deaf, it was because those individuals were unsure of what to do because of his deafness. I wonder what the world, or at least America, would be like if everyone understood this concept; more so, I wonder what it would be like if sign language was commonly taught in elementary schools in the hearing
While the benefits for the hearing are great, there are better benefits for those who are Deaf. Jarashow stated that it was essentially frowned upon if a Deaf child was using sign instead of trying to use what ability they had to hear. This seems counterproductive and if they emphasized more on teaching Deaf children ASL, there would be better outcomes for them in the future. Instead of focusing on trying to make everyone the same, they should focus on giving these children the best opportunity possible despite their
Many hearing people do not take the time to listen to the Deaf community as they just assume that they are being “selfish” as they do not want to change. The Deaf community does not want the hearing community to change them. If we try to change the Deaf community, we are trying to change their language and culture. The Deaf community relies on American Sign Language just as many of us rely on English. We would not want anyone to try to convince us to change our language just so we can communicate with the general population. Being deaf is not a disability, but rather a culture that most of the hearing community is going to have to
Audism can prevent the deaf and hard of hearing from receiving a quality education. Their educational environment may be based around only hearing professionals. These professionals may not know sign language. In addition, they may believe English is more important than sign language. Some deaf or hard of hearing may be forced to master English to build a foundation on their education.
In this article, “The Deaf Body in Public Space,” Rachel Kolb explains how interacting with people who do not understand sign language could be difficult. With her hearing disability she struggled to communicate with her peers. Kolb further explains the different situations she has encountered with people and comments that are made with first intercommunications. Going further she also mentions how she struggles with two languages and two modes of communication.
My personal understanding of this subject has changed drastically since I entered the sign language curriculum. I am going to cheat here a little, as I took sign in high school and I believe the spirit of the question has to do more with my overall learning about deaf culture overall rather than just my learning since entering CSUMB. When I first entered the sign language curriculum I would have encouraged the use of a mainstream education curriculum and forced auditory lessons. This would not have been because of any disdain I had for deaf people but instead because of a want to see deaf people succeed and a lack of understand of how to best facilitate
In American Sign Language a major part of the language entails being able to express emotions and types of questions through the use of non- manual signals such as when asking a yes-no question the eyebrows will go up but when asking a wh-question such as what the eyebrows go down. Another way to express something is through mouth morphemes this is the way your mouth is shaped to convey different meanings, such as size and grammar. Non-manual signals and mouth morphemes are just as important as any sign and enrich the language to make it possible to effectively communicate.
Acquiring a Language: American Sign Language vs. English In the Unites States and Canada, an estimated range of 500,00 to 2 million people speak/use American Sign Language. According to the Census Bureau, ASL is the leading minority language after Spanish, Italian German and French. ASL is the focal point of Deaf Culture and nothing is dearer to the Deaf people’s hearts because it is a store of cultural knowledge and also a symbol of social identity, and social interactions. It is a fully complete, autonomous and natural language with complex grammar not derived and independent of English.
“Learning another language is not only learning different words for the same things, but learning another way to think about things” (American). For centuries, people from all walks of life have been using their hands to communicate with one another, and for centuries people from all walks of life have been learning. Today I am following in their footsteps with a passion from God for the deaf language, culture, and souls. For almost a decade, an intense ardor for American Sign Language and a desire to reach its native users for Christ seeded itself in my soul, wove its roots deeper and deeper, and blossomed into one of the greatest loves of my life. American Sign Language is a unique language with a rich history that not only provides a service to people in the deaf culture, but also to hearing people who seek to attain fluency.
Sign language is a natural human language, they have their own vocabularies and sentence structures. Sign language comes into practice wherever Deaf societies come into existence. Sign language is not identical worldwide; every country has its own language and accents; however, these are not the verbal or transcribed languages used by hearing individuals around them.
Stahlman is a researcher who conducted a study over native speakers and non-native speakers. If a person is born deaf, he or she would “acquire a first language via sign in a normal and natural environment” (Stahlman, 349). Meaning that a parent with a deaf child could possibly take ASL classes to help their child learn ASL before going to school. With a parent being able to sign that means a child would have a way to communicate more efficiently at school, home, and with the outside world. However, if a person becomes deaf later in life or is self-taught they may not use ASL due to the new syntax and grammar rules. Therefore, PSE would be easier for them to learn and use to communicate since the syntax and grammar rules are those of the spoken English
When children are born and as they grow most of what they learn to speak is from hearing their parents talk but what if they couldn 't hear? How would they learn? Its pretty simple actually. They wouldn 't learn. Those who were born hearing but got sick or eventually lost their hearing learned a few things and use them but, eventually they turn to ASL to be able to communicate with others and be able to further their education. When having to learn this language you have to keep many things in mind such as handshape, palm orientation, location, movement and facial expression, all of those things are crucial to being able to speak this language correctly. While this language has been around for many years there are still things that don 't have an ASL name and in those cases you would do something called finger spelling, where you spell out what you are trying to say in order to get your point across.(Learning Sign Language,2) As every language you are learning a whole different way of saying things and you are also opening yourself to those who can’t really open themselves to you. The deaf community do really try to not be a burden to us. They learn to read lips or even talk because they were forced to. A couple a years ago they were restricted from learning ASL and were punished if they tried to sign. (About sign
I also feel that ASL is a beautiful language and should be given as a choice in language requirements in all grade levels. This language that was brought to us over 150 years ago could sustain and still be useful today for within our own country unlike Italian, French or German. It has some kind of magic that makes us want to learn and speak it when we do not have to. The fluent and rhythmic motions are mesmerizing and captivating and anyone with the means to learn it should.
Sign language is a visual form of communication within the deaf and mute community. There is evidence of the existence of sign language before it was recognized. Native Americans utilized sign language to communicate with other tribes that spoke a different tongue. The Native Americans and Europeans also benefited from the use of sign language when