Deaf Education - One size does not fit all

Cheri said:
Bear did not say speech wasn't important like some of you have said, bear stated that speech is as extremely important as signs while you and the others thinks speech is just a bonus. What would happen if those deaf children have no speech skills since in deaf schools speech are only given maybe twice a week, is that enough? I don't believe so. You don't those kids to grow up and enter the hearing world feeling awkward tenision and uncomforable with lack of speech skills. Since bi bi program is ASL all the way from the begin to the end it is use to teach English too as a second language how can ASL teach English when ASL signs itself uses ASL syntex?

While I have no problem with introducing babies to signs the first 6 month of the baby's life until there's a stage to pick up spoken language. ASL is different than English, those kids need spoken language.

The bottom line of what I'm trying to say is speech is not meant to replace ASL, speech should be very apart of the child's life as well as signs and I do think that is extremely important not the least important.

We don't need people to see that deaf people are always going to be a failture if something is limited to them. I know most of you believe that ASL is a native language for the deaf, but it does not mean you should limited their communication skills to ASL.
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Thank you for clearing that up Cheri and you are right that I do feel speech is just as important as signs.

However, I feel signs should not be stopped at all. I feel sign should be used AS WELL AS speech at least in the early years. This helps to foster a enviroment for the child, to be able to clearly understand all that is going on around the child. I would say at least until a child reaches a point where they can understand what each word means and sounds like, then sign should be used alongside speech.

Was that clear? Or am I going every which way there? lol not sure!

But my belief is to foster comprehension of the written English it helps to be able to speak it. Otherwise, I see that child writing in ASL more than English.
 
Cheri said:
Bear did not say speech wasn't important like some of you have said, bear stated that speech is as extremely important as signs while you and the others thinks speech is just a bonus. What would happen if those deaf children have no speech skills since in deaf schools speech are only given maybe twice a week, is that enough? I don't believe so. You don't want those kids to grow up and enter the hearing world feeling awkward tenision and uncomforable with lack of speech skills. Since bi bi program is ASL all the way from the begin to the end it is use to teach English too as a second language how can ASL teach English when ASL signs itself uses ASL syntex?

While I have no problem with introducing babies to signs the first 6 month of the baby's life until there's a stage to pick up spoken language. ASL is different than English, those kids need spoken language.

The bottom line of what I'm trying to say is speech is not meant to replace ASL, speech should be very apart of the child's life as well as signs and I do think that is extremely important not the least important.

We don't need people to see that deaf people are always going to be a failture if something is limited to them. I know most of you believe that ASL is a native language for the deaf, but it does not mean you should limited their communication skills to ASL.
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That is not what we are saying.

So, my brother is a failure cuz he was unable to develop speech skills no matter how hard he tried as a kid? Did he deserve to be in an environment where he had no access to communication for the sake of speech?

Is that what you are saying if some deaf children are just unable to develop speech skills that too bad for them even though they have high literacy skills in English?

Bi Bi programs do not solely focus on ASL...what are u talking about?

BTW Cheri..wrong info about deaf schools giving kids speech classes twice a week. One of my students who has a CI goes 5 days a week.
 
How does ASL teach English if the syntax is different. That is what we teachers do...

If u are saying that is impossible, I have many well-educated friends who grew up learning ASL first who have excellent English skills.

Pls...it is either get partial access to language and struggle to develop literacy skills or have full access to language and transfer that to develop literacy skills. I choose the latter.

Speech is critical too but we are realistic...not all deaf children will be able to develop speech skills and we would never ever continue to force children who have shown that they are struggling with developing speech skills. We can use the extra time for education and those who are capable of developing speech skills still continue to work on it.

Why would we want our students to spend as much time working on speech skills during the day when we could be teaching them how to apply their critical thinking skills, knowledge and so on?

Why the emphasize on speech? I thought having education, knowledge, and literacy skills were the most important? Yes, deaf people without speech skills can apply those in real life.
 
Angel said:
I'll be very honest here but that's what it looks like to me from reading most of the posts in this thread cause it sounds like "signs only enviroment to me" :dunno:
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Yep this is what I was seeing too after Flip stated that speech is just extra (bonus) and seeing that Shel was agreeing with him, which lost me there because from what I was reading in the previous past she says she was with ASL and speech all the way. :confuse:
 
Cheri said:
Yep this is what I was seeing too after Flip stated that speech is just extra (bonus) and seeing that Shel was agreeing with him, which lost me there because from what I was reading in the previous past she says she was with ASL and speech all the way. :confuse:
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Ok to clear it up..speech is not used to teach the lessons. We will definitely give every child the opportunity to develop speech skills and also, we watch for signs if they are not able to benefit from it. Why waste their time during school on something that wont work for them when we could use the time to teach them develop reading strategies? If the child can benefit from the development of speech, great.

I am talking about in the classroom like during math, Language Arts, Social Studies, and Science...ASL is the language used for instruction cuz it is equally accessible to all of our students whether they have speech skills or not. If I should switch to speech in the middle of my lesson, those who dont have speech skills will become lost and miss out so that would make me the same as an oralist.,..limiting my students to the curriculm so my other students with speech skills can continue to develop their speech skills. That is not good teaching.
 
Omg

I already stated on my other post that bi bi program teach ASL as a primary Language and it is use to teach English as second with reading and writing therefore that program is ASL all the way.
 
Since some of you have all these opinions about speech being in the classrooms, can u give me your expertise on how I ,as a teacher, switch from ASL to speech during my lessons.

Since it seems that many of you are saying things as if u have experience and the training in the field of deaf education, maybe u can help me.
 
Cheri said:
Omg

I already stated on my other post that bi bi program teach ASL as a primary Language and it is use to teach English as second with reading and writing therefore that program is ASL all the way.
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If it was ASL all the way then we wouldnt bother teaching kids to read and write in English nor have the speech classes, right?

Bi means two so therefore, two languages are being used. I have no idea what u are talking about ASL all the way. To me that would mean no lesson on reading, writing and no speech classes. :confused:
 
shel90 said:
Ok to clear it up..speech is not used to teach the lessons. We will definitely give every child the opportunity to develop speech skills and also, we watch for signs if they are not able to benefit from it. Why waste their time during school on something that wont work for them when we could use the time to teach them develop reading strategies? If the child can benefit from the development of speech, great.

I am talking about in the classroom like during math, Language Arts, Social Studies, and Science...ASL is the language used for instruction cuz it is equally accessible to all of our students whether they have speech skills or not. If I should switch to speech in the middle of my lesson, those who dont have speech skills will become lost and miss out so that would make me the same as an oralist.,..limiting my students to the curriculm so my other students with speech skills can continue to develop their speech skills. That is not good teaching.
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But what's wrong with using speech WHILE signing the lessons?
 
shel90 said:
BTW Cheri..wrong info about deaf schools giving kids speech classes twice a week. One of my students who has a CI goes 5 days a week.
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If you read my post more carefully I said maybe twice a week. Just because at your school taught students speech 5 times a week does not mean every deaf schools does the same, so therefore you can't say I'm wrong when you don't know either.
 
Angel said:
Yes I realized that you and the others strongly believe that the bi-bi approach would work for any children but however at the same time I also believe that children should access all tools so that will help determine whether or not it will work for that particular child. Like Cheri said earlier in this thread to wait and see how bi bi educational will do in a couple of years since the program is new which I agree.

I haven't seen many stories yet about how well a child does in the bi-bi program so I'm looking forward learning more about this. smile.
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Yes, I'm looking forward to seeing the results, as well. Bi-Bi does allow a child to access all the tools much in the same way that TC was designed to do. The main difference is that the L1 language is ASL, and the L2 language is English. In most TC programs, the language in the classroom was always English, even if it was supported through sign as in sim-com. Sweden has been using a more Bi-Bi approach for some time now. They have been acieving very good results in increasing literacy scores, so it makes me hopeful that we will see the same results here in the U.S. Shel;s program seems to be getting good results,particularly since so many of her students are language delayed.
 
shel90 said:
If it was ASL all the way then we wouldnt bother teaching kids to read and write in English nor have the speech classes, right?
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Speech is not use in the classroom, second of all how do you teach the students English as a second Language? You use ASL to teach them English to read and write correct?.
 
Angel said:
I'll be very honest here but that's what it looks like to me from reading most of the posts in this thread cause it sounds like "signs only enviroment to me" :dunno:
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Oh, no. Bi-Bi is not about signs only. Its about giving a child access to 2 complete languages.
 
jillio said:
Yes, I'm looking forward to seeing the results, as well. Bi-Bi does allow a child to access all the tools much in the same way that TC was designed to do. The main difference is that the L1 language is ASL, and the L2 language is English. In most TC programs, the language in the classroom was always English, even if it was supported through sign as in sim-com. Sweden has been using a more Bi-Bi approach for some time now. They have been acieving very good results in increasing literacy scores, so it makes me hopeful that we will see the same results here in the U.S. Shel;s program seems to be getting good results,particularly since so many of her students are language delayed.
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Cool :thumb:
 
Bear said:
my question is- in a ASL only enviroment, will they learn english or will they learn to write in ASL?

I believe adding spoken English, also helps to foster the written English.
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I would agree that exposure to both is beneficial, but I think in the case of a deaf child, exposure to the written form of English improves the spoken form rather than the other way around. But Bi-Bi idoes not promote an ASL only environment. Followers of this philosophy just keep the 2 languages separate, because of the differences in grammar and syntax. They don't try to change sign to fit English format, and they don't try to change English to fit ASL format. Each language is kept pure. A student in a Bi-Bi program learns to write in English grammar and syntax through the methods that have already been proven successful for teaching ESL.
 
Cheri said:
Speech is not use in the classroom, second of all how do you teach the students English as a second Language? You use ASL to teach them English to read and write correct?.
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You would use the same techniques that are used to teach a hearing person who speaks a different language English. That is why Bi-Bi focuses on keeping the languages separate and not trying to make ASL more likeEnglish or English more like ASL. The child has 2 pure and accurate models of 2 different languages: a fluent ASL model and a fluent English model.
 
Cheri said:
Bear did not say speech wasn't important like some of you have said, bear stated that speech is as extremely important as signs while you and the others thinks speech is just a bonus. What would happen if those deaf children have no speech skills since in deaf schools speech are only given maybe twice a week, is that enough? I don't believe so. You don't want those kids to grow up and enter the hearing world feeling awkward tenision and uncomforable with lack of speech skills. Since bi bi program is ASL all the way from the begin to the end it is use to teach English too as a second language how can ASL teach English when ASL signs itself uses ASL syntex?

While I have no problem with introducing babies to signs the first 6 month of the baby's life until there's a stage to pick up spoken language. ASL is different than English, those kids need spoken language.

The bottom line of what I'm trying to say is speech is not meant to replace ASL, speech should be very apart of the child's life as well as signs and I do think that is extremely important not the least important.

We don't need people to see that deaf people are always going to be a failture if something is limited to them. I know most of you believe that ASL is a native language for the deaf, but it does not mean you should limited their communication skills to ASL.
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I never said that speech skills were not important. But what I did say is that English skills, in whatever mode the child can access them, are more important than diction. In other words, it is more beneficial to be able to read and write fluently in English than to be able to pronounce some words clearly, but be limited in vocabulary and language usage. For instance, a deaf person who is unable to develop the ability to speak clearly, but has a grasp of English that allows them to read and write at a college level will be more independent and have more opportunity available in the job market. Just being able to speak does not neccessarily mean that one has fluent use of the language. like, I can speak a bit of Yiddish, and can understand much of what is said to me in Yiddish. Sometimes, I have to guess the meaning from the context,though. And I cannot express my thoughts in Yiddish as easily as I can in English. So, just being able to pronounce the words so others can hear them doesn't mean that I can communicate fluently in Yiddish. That is what I mean about speech being a bonus. The real goal should be to develop fluency in English. And fluency in the written form of English will benefit more than concentrating so hard on the mechanics of sound production that fluency is neglected. Of couse, work on speech skills if that is what the individual wants. But make literacy the priority, not diction.
 
Bear said:
But what's wrong with using speech WHILE signing the lessons?
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Because that would make it Sim-com not ASL.

Also, we have other teachers who r deaf working too who have no speech skills themselves. Poprose that, they use their intelligible or nonextistent speech skills while teaching or just fire them cuz they don't have speech skills and that wud make us just as bad as those people who discriminate deaf people.

Also, the quality of education goes down cuz while sim-comming the teachers r using two languages stimulatenously and both languages or one becomes compromised giving the kids a poor model of language.

Not my idea of a good quality education. Besides, if I sim com, I have to concentrate hard on using both language therefore taking my ability to teach the lessons effectively away. Even the hearing teachers at my work say that they won't be able to teach engaging and insightful lessons if they sim-com. They feel that the quality of the lessons go up when using just one language not both.

At least one good thing about the oral-only approach that it uses one language at one time.

I prefer to choose an approach that gives high quuality education for all of our students whether they have speech skills or not.
 
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