Best way to develop oral skills?

[jillio]

it wasn't by choice. I was intensively disciplined by several Grammar Nazi

Thank you, thank you, thank you!! That statement makes my point perfectly. For you, it was a learned, directive process.

 

[deafskeptic]

I'm glad you see those subtle differences that I am talking about. And, like Jiro, I admire your command of the English language. It is well above average. Yet, I can still see some patterns that tell me that you did not acquire language appropriately, either in sign or speech. You learned it, and you learned it well.

Just out of interest How can you tell if someone acquired sign rather than learned it?

 

[Bottesini]

All of us learn written language past the acquisition period. If I am not mistaken, you were raised by signing parents, weren't you?

And I agree about Jiro. That is why I used him as an example. Just to show that he has excellent use of English, but it still misses what is expected from a native user. It was mostly to illustrate the point that you cannot take an ability to pronounce words well, or even a large vocab, as indcators of fluency. There are many factors that are looked at, as well as many factors examined when assessing for delays.

Yes true. But committed to making me an oral person. Maybe I am missing some point.

 

[jillio]

Just out of interest How can you tell if someone acquired sign rather than learned it?

Better use of ASL syntax, classifiers, modifiers, and function. Stuff that is not taught. Kind of like going back to the past tense illustration. I acquired spoken English as a native. I intuited at a very young age that the addition of -ed to a word changes the time frame being referred to. At first, when I have internalized this, as a two year old, I overgeneralize and add -ed to everything I want to make past tense. However, at 2 1/2 years, I have intuited also that there are exceptions to the rule of -ed creating past tense reference, and so I begin to use the exceptions in my language.

The same way with sign. These nuances are intuited and internalized when it is acquired as an infant/toddler. They then use them appropriately, where someone that has only learned the grammatical rules for ASL will use them appropriately the majority of the time, but will miss the subtleties.

 

[jillio]

Yes true. But committed to making me an oral person. Maybe I am missing some point.

Your parents signed to you from birth, or at the very least, signed to each other in your presence, which means that you, indeed, acquired sign as your first language. Having that native fluency increased your ability to transfer the unspoken and intuited "rule" of language use to English. Actually, you are a perfect example of how an L1 language facilitates the learning of an L2.

 

[Daredevel7]

Basically, yes. A child who acquires a language through even a less than fluent model will still have the advantage of having internalized knowledge of function, grammatical rules, and exceptions. Those that do not acquire any language, but rather are taught a language, do not have this advantage.

I am bit confused by what you are trying to say or at least how it pertains to this thread. Let's see if I can put it in a different way. You're saying that if someone attempts to focus on developing oral skills as a way of "acquiring" language, but in reality, it is "teaching" language? Since they basically imitate and do not have that advantage of "internalized knowledge of function, grammatical rules, and exceptions"?

I am just going to use myself as an example for clarification. Since I never learned ASL and learned language through spoken English, are you saying that I was only "taught" language until I learned to read? Or did I just happen to be able to lipread/hear well enough to "acquire" language through spoken English like a hearing person?

 

[jillio]

I am bit confused by what you are trying to say or at least how it pertains to this thread. Let's see if I can put it in a different way. You're saying that if someone attempts to focus on developing oral skills as a way of "acquiring" language, but in reality, it is "teaching" language? Since they basically imitate and do not have that advantage of "internalized knowledge of function, grammatical rules, and exceptions"?

I am just going to use myself as an example for clarification. Since I never learned ASL and learned language through spoken English, are you saying that I was only "taught" language until I learned to read? Or did I just happen to be able to lipread/hear well enough to "acquire" language through spoken English like a hearing person?

No, actually I would put you in the same category as Jiro and deafskeptic, and many others on this board. You have learned the English language, and you have learned it well.

Nor would I suggest that you stopped being taught language after you learned to read. Reading expands on the knowlege one already has of language. In fact, much language learning is expanded on through the use of language in print. That is another reason why very early language experience is correlated to literacy.

To me, the "development of oral skills" pertains specifically to speech production, as no other language activity is oral. It is simply English.

 

[naisho]

I have to say I can put your cited examples with other experiences I have had in the past and it does seem to fit the criteria.

I have compared myself to other Asian-Americans before, in the manner of our daily use of English and syntax. Your research makes them valid examples of the language proficiency thing.
I noticed that for those who emigrated into the USA after a certain period of time - be it during around Jr high or after (high school FOBs had the worst accent/grammar structure JMO).

For example, I recall these for these friends, all of Chinese-Taiwan ancestral heritage:

Friend A: Born in USA (like me)
Friend B: Born out of USA, immigrated at age of 4
Friend C: Born out of USA, immigrated at age of 10
Friend D: Born out of USA, immigrated at age of 14 (some English education overseas, but was not main language.)

When we grew up, we all ended up in the same high school. It was by then I was able to start distinguishing speech "inhibitions" or whatever that set them apart from my English.

Between A and B we always got along fine. There are very little to note in speech disambiguation. This supposedly explains where we have acquired the language, harnessed and fine tuned it for our uses.

For C, I had noticed that he could not grasp the context of some form examples as you have stated. "I need to go camp in the park next week. Can you watchs my dog?", "Yes! Last week I was able to finally kills the boss!" But often simple mistakes like these are heeded if they are not written on paper, we give a ? at first but then understand it.

Friend D just simply.. did not ever make sense when speaking. The common stereotype goes for us Asians who cannot speak properly, "Fragmented English", with a taste of accent.
That was how bad it was to understand him. However in written proficiency he was able to do fine. (I suppose this is where it draws the learned trait). It was almost as bad as first generation asian parents, but he was able to make more sense than them. But his writing was WAY past their level. When I applied a combination of Chinese + English grammar together, it made his speech more understandable.


However, turn this all around and play the foreign language game.. D and C simply destroy the rest of us at speaking our native tongues, hands down no contest needed.

 

[jillio]

I have to say I can put your cited examples with other experiences I have had in the past and it does seem to fit the criteria.

I have compared myself to other Asian-Americans before, in the manner of our daily use of English and syntax. Your research makes them valid examples of the language proficiency thing.
I noticed that for those who emigrated into the USA after a certain period of time - be it during around Jr high or after (high school FOBs had the worst accent/grammar structure JMO).

For example, I recall these for these friends, all of Chinese-Taiwan ancestral heritage:

Friend A: Born in USA (like me)
Friend B: Born out of USA, immigrated at age of 4
Friend C: Born out of USA, immigrated at age of 10
Friend D: Born out of USA, immigrated at age of 14 (some English education overseas, but was not main language.)

When we grew up, we all ended up in the same high school. It was by then I was able to start distinguishing speech "inhibitions" or whatever that set them apart from my English.

Between A and B we always got along fine. There are very little to note in speech disambiguation. This supposedly explains where we have learned the language, harnessed and fine tuned it for our uses.

For C, I had noticed that he could not grasp the context of some form examples as you have stated. "I need to go camp in the park next week. Can you watchs my dog?", "Yes! Last week I was able to finally kills the boss!" But often simple mistakes like these are heeded if they are not written on paper, we give a ? at first but then understand it.

Friend D just simply.. did not ever make sense when speaking. The common stereotype goes for us Asians who cannot speak properly, "Fragmented English", with a taste of accent.
That was how bad it was to understand him. However in written proficiency he was able to do fine. (I suppose this is where it draws the acquisition trait). It was almost as bad as first generation asian parents, but he was able to make more sense than them. But his writing was WAY past their level. When I applied a combination of Chinese + English grammar together, it made his speech more understandable.


However, turn this all around and play the foreign language game.. D and C simply destroy the rest of us at speaking our native tongues, hands down no contest needed.

Excellent examples. I can see that you really do understand what I am talking about.

 

[Daredevel7]

No, actually I would put you in the same category as Jiro and deafskeptic, and many others on this board. You have learned the English language, and you have learned it well.

Nor would I suggest that you stopped being taught language after you learned to read. Reading expands on the knowlege one already has of language. In fact, much language learning is expanded on through the use of language in print. That is another reason why very early language experience is correlated to literacy.

To me, the "development of oral skills" pertains specifically to speech production, as no other language activity is oral. It is simply English.

So Jiro, deafskeptic and I (and etc.) technically never really "acquired" language? Still trying to understand the difference between acquired and learned.

Also, by "the teaching of language stopped after I learned to read", I meant teaching language via spoken English. Like you said, we learn a lot by reading.

 

[jillio]

So Jiro, deafskeptic and I (and etc.) technically never really "acquired" language? Still trying to understand the difference between acquired and learned.

Also, by "the teaching of language stopped after I learned to read", I meant teaching language via spoken English. Like you said, we learn a lot by reading.

Let's see if I can re-phrase. Acquisition is an innate capacity provided by virtue of development of specific areas of the brain. That developmental period is time limited, because it is developmental. Acquisition does not require a degree of cognitive comprehension to grasp intuitively, complicated concept.

To learn the same thing, past the developmentally appropriate period, requires greater congnitive effort and mechanical understanding, as well as a high degree of direction. Therefore, it is never learned as completely as it is acquired passively.

 

[deafdyke]

gaps in grammar and syntax are much harder to overcome than gaps in vob

Yes, and while vocab is important, even oral deaf kids may have issues with grammar and syntax.
I remember picking up a pamphelt from Oticon and it said that oral deaf kids very often have problems with grammar and syntax. Like the kid will say " "How many spiders have legs?" when they meant " How many legs do spiders have?"
Daredevil,
Again, as I've said it's hard to tell whether it's due to methodology or the fact that high achiever types tend to be attracted to oral deaf education.

 

[Hear Again]

I am good at written language although I learned it at an old age of 5 years.

So did I yet this was not due to my hearing. In my case, it was due to my blindness. I learned how to read Braille at age 4/5, but didn't start to write in Braille on a Perkins until I was 5.

I also didn't start to talk until I was 3, but again, this was due to my blindness -- not my mild hearing loss at the time.

However, my former CI audi disagrees. She says that even a mild hearing loss can have a negative impact on one's oral langauge development. This may or may not have been true for me. I don't know.

My mother always read to me as a child, so I'm sure this helped me develop good writing skills. I also had several teachers in elementary school who used to read books to us during the last hour of the day, so this was yet another opportunity for me to understand the concepts of written language and how they are applied.

In addition, I was an avid reader growing up and it wasn't uncommon for me to read 6 talking books or Braille books in a week.

From what I've read on the Internet, my elementary school had very high marks for students when it came to reading and written language skills from the 70s to the present, so I'm sure all of these factors may have contributed in some way to my writing ability.

The only area where I feel that I struggle is when I express myself orally. Due to my progressive hearing loss, I continue to mispronounce words even now that I have CIs. This is why I think I express myself better in writing than I do orally.

 

[naisho]

So Jiro, deafskeptic and I (and etc.) technically never really "acquired" language?

Is daredevel not apart of the "acquired" crew?
I went through the posts on "What kind of a world you grew up in" and here, from the limited knowledge I gathered from them..

Correct me if I'm wrong:
She stated having zilch experience with sign while orally trouncing past her doctor's expectations through mainstream schooling.

From personal opinion, I find that her usage of written English on this forum had always met or exceeded my subconscious "Nazi" checkpoint, she's hardly ever as even gotten a eyebrow twitch from me yet.
Unless there is something that I'm not catching..

 

[Hear Again]

From personal opinion, I find that her usage of written English on this forum had always met or exceeded my subconscious "Nazi" checkpoint, she's hardly ever as even gotten a eyebrow twitch from me yet.
Unless there is something that I'm not catching..

I agree. Daredevel's writing skills are excellent (note that I'm not saying ASL users can't have excellent writing skills; I'm referring to Daredevel alone) and she seems to understand posts better than I do sometimes. There was a thread recently where I didn't understand another ADer, but Daredevel was able to provide clarification for me.

 

[shel90]

let's just say that time is better spent on intellectual growth (with a deaf-friendly approach)

I agree and that is my #1 priority.

 

[shel90]

Oh no. We can't have that. We're only intelligent if we have good speech. :roll:

In social situations, I dont care if people associate my intelligence with my speech but when it comes to workplace discrimination, it seems to be a common denominator which causes many deaf people not to get hired or get passed over promotions or raises.

 

[shel90]

interesting! something I learned about myself!

Jiro, u are a good man for letting Jillio do that.

 

[shel90]

Better use of ASL syntax, classifiers, modifiers, and function. Stuff that is not taught. Kind of like going back to the past tense illustration. I acquired spoken English as a native. I intuited at a very young age that the addition of -ed to a word changes the time frame being referred to. At first, when I have internalized this, as a two year old, I overgeneralize and add -ed to everything I want to make past tense. However, at 2 1/2 years, I have intuited also that there are exceptions to the rule of -ed creating past tense reference, and so I begin to use the exceptions in my language.

The same way with sign. These nuances are intuited and internalized when it is acquired as an infant/toddler. They then use them appropriately, where someone that has only learned the grammatical rules for ASL will use them appropriately the majority of the time, but will miss the subtleties.

I am not sure if I suffer grammatical errors but I do know that I lack in creativiness with the use of vocabulary. I always scored below grade level when it came to vocabulary on the standardized tests. Knowing that, that was one of the many reasons for not going to law school. I had no confidence in being able to write briefs and memos required by lawyers due to my low vocabulary usage from not having full access to English growing up.

 

[deafskeptic]

In social situations, I dont care if people associate my intelligence with my speech but when it comes to workplace discrimination, it seems to be a common denominator which causes many deaf people not to get hired or get passed over promotions or raises.

Yes and it ticks me off when this happens.