question about asking if someone can read lips

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rockoutloudgirl

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I'm sorry if this is a dumb question.

Is it polite to ask/sign to someone asking if they can read lips? My ASL teacher is deaf and uses ASL as his way of communicating, and i would like to know if he can read lips, but i don't want to be rude.
 
rockoutloudgirl said:
I'm sorry if this is a dumb question.

Is it polite to ask/sign to someone asking if they can read lips? My ASL teacher is deaf and uses ASL as his way of communicating, and i would like to know if he can read lips, but i don't want to be rude.
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It depends on the social setting. Since your ASL teacher is deaf, I wouldn't ask him if he could read lips.
If my student asked me that I would choose to not respond. I would prefer them to sign to me. Even fingerspelling if they have to.

The reason is: the more practice they get, the better they get. Showing motivation in trying gets high marks for me.

If it matters any, most deaf people are better than the general population in reading lips.
 
Why do you want to know if he can read lips or not? just curious
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You most likely answered your own question right there. I am guessing the OP is just curious.

No, this isn't something that is rude to ask a Deaf person. Ask the person "Curious. Lip read you?" And if the person asks why you are asking, just explain you are very curious as if he is (or Deaf people generally are) skilled in lip-reading. IMHO, this is a very good topic for discussion in an ASL class.

A Deaf friend of mine who taught ASL class in a major US city told me how he always handles the lip-reading question in his classes. He writes a phrase on a piece of paper and then asks the class to lip-read the phrase he will mouth and then everyone is to sign what he said. He mouths the words and EVERYONE in the class will sign "I love you." He then holds up the paper which sees "Island view". Then the students understand the difficulties of lip-reading.

I asked a good friend of mine who was prelingually deaf about lip-reading and she told me about her experiences with speech therapy. If was a very fascinating discussion and she showed me how she was taught to place the hands on the throat/face to try to learn how to speak. Since you are in ASL class, I think this would be a valuable lesson!
 
Daft said:
He mouths the words and EVERYONE in the class will sign "I love you." He then holds up the paper which sees "Island view". Then the students understand the difficulties of lip-reading.
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I've heard this with "elephant shoe" too.
 
Daft said:
You most likely answered your own question right there. I am guessing the OP is just curious.


!
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Yes. I did. Since she is taking an ASL Class to learn how to sign ASL. why bother to find out if her teacher can read lips or not. :hmm: so i am curious.
 
I had to ask one of my friend for feedback about your question. I know I asked a question that is already answered. However, my point was that your question is vague to me. If you learn that your asl teacher can't read lip then what happen next? Or if your asl teacher can read lip then what happen next? that's where I start to wonder.

In a general question, if you meet new deaf or hoh people, if i were you, I would have to wait and try to communicate with deaf or hoh people to see they can read my lips without signing. If there is some struggles between me and people due to lacking of communcating, it depends on who people are sensitive about asking the read lips question. I admit that I sometimes get annoyed when people asked me if i can read their lips or not, while we tried to communicate to each other and get barriered from there. Obviously, i would not able to read their lips. :dunno2: so asking someone if they can read lips is a stick situation, for me. yes for others maybe not.
 
I get asked this all the time. no I don't read lips. I speechread. That mean I used hearing aid/CI, read lips, and watch for body language at the same time. If you try to cover your lips, I won't understand. If you try talking silent, I won't understand. If you are not moving, I won't understand.

but it isn't really important to know if he lipread or not. I rather be asked if I know ASL than lipread. because to me, I wonder she is going to test me next? I had people testing me like that before.
Some things are best left alone.

usually I ask the person to face me because I can't see his lips.. (but still don't test!)
 
Do not ask your teacher that. You are there to learn ASL.
 
If you ask, does it mean you don't have to do ASL if he says he does read lips? to me, ASL is his form of communication, not lipreading.
 
I usually tell hearies that I read lips. People get freaked out when you're staring intently at their face and they don't know why.
 
Hask12 said:
Just ask. What's the big deal.
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I think it's what the asker does with it that is a big deal. "Oh you read lips? So I can stop signing?" is a big deal. "Oh, you read lips, was just curious" isn't.
 
I did sign to him asking if he could read lips. I was hesitant about it because of the question of politeness, and i did tell him that i was hesitant, but he personally said he didn't mind me asking. He can lip read. I didn't ask him so i can cop out of learning sign language, i really was just simply curious, it wont change anything. It is ASL II, and i've been signing since i was in 6th grade and am very keen on learning more.
 
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