Deaf ESL Students - Gallaudet University

Spring 2000
Research,
Reading,
and Writing
The Internet
Surfing, NO! Learning, YES!
By John Gibson
In my class, young teens gathered
from all parts of the globe—Peru,
Morocco, Nigeria, Ethiopia,
Guatemala, the West Indies, and
Mexico. They were participating in a
two-and-a-half-week program that the
Clerc Center’s Model Secondary
School for the Deaf sponsors as part of
our extended school year because they
were from families where English was
not spoken in the home and because
they were struggling with learning the
English language. Most of them had
been in the United States for at least a
year, and they were conversant, if not
fluent, in American Sign Language.
During the first days of class, I
15