Deaf ESL Students - Gallaudet University

Spring 2000
A Letter From the Vice President
Dear Friends,
We are proud to bring you this special issue of Odyssey that focuses on deaf
and hard of hearing students who are learning English as a second language.
These students face daunting tasks and challenges, linguistically, socially, and
culturally. In the field of deaf education, we sometimes say that many deaf
students need English as a second language (ESL) instruction and a number
of professionals have proposed applying ESL theory and practice to all deaf
and hard of hearing students. In this issue, however, we use the term to mean
students whose families speak Spanish, Polish, Hmong, Urdu, or another language
that differs from the dominant language of our schools and society.
These students not only face language differences; the rules for classroom behavior and teaching
techniques may be completely different for them, too. Each of them is unique. They may be immigrants,
foreigners, American citizens, or the sons and daughters of diplomats. Since they are deaf or hard of
hearing, oral-auditory language is not fully accessible. Therefore many are simultaneously learning a
combination of languages and codes: their home language, English, American Sign Language, and/or
a manual code for English.
Most ESL pedagogy is designed for students who hear and based significantly on oral and auditory
instructional strategies. While some strategies may apply to deaf and hard of hearing students with good
use of residual hearing, others have to be adjusted to accommodate visual learners. At the Kendall Demonstration
Elementary School and the Model Secondary School for the Deaf at the Gallaudet University
Laurent Clerc National Deaf Education Center, our program for ESL students starts with a solid initial
evaluation of each student’s strengths and weaknesses.
In the May/June 1999 issue of Perspectives, we published a description of the nine components of
a school literacy program and described how they fit into a school day. This special Odyssey issue takes
those nine components and looks at accommodations that need to be made for ESL students who are
deaf or hard of hearing.
Some deaf and hard of hearing ESL students arrive in school with some fluency in their native language.
In this case, we tap that language fluency to build bridges to English and American Sign Language.
For example, in writers’ workshop, we encourage students to write pieces in their native language, using
the writers’ workshop process to complete their pieces and translate them into English. For dialogue
journals, we may encourage the family to help maintain and build the student’s skills in his or her native
language by keeping a dialogue journal at home while we work on a dialogue journal in English at
school. For shared reading, we might have a book translated into the student’s native language so that
it can be presented in that language and English. Our teachers and staff continue to use English and
American Sign Language, but they demonstrate respect and understanding for the student’s home language
and use it whenever possible to build bridges to American language and culture.
Other students arrive with little knowledge of their native language and skills in sign language that
range from full fluency to use of home signs and gestures. For these students, basic communication
building needs to occur intensively, and reading and writing instruction begins at a more basic level.
The nine components of the literacy program at the appropriate developmental level remain critical,
however, and it remains critical to include students’ families in their educational planning.
Students from diverse cultures represent fully one-third of the deaf student population and their numbers
are increasing. At the same time, the number of teachers from diverse cultures is falling. It is critical
that teacher education programs recruit and train qualified teachers from diverse cultures so that students
will have a variety of role models.
At the Clerc Center, we are exploring innovative strategies for meeting the needs of ESL students who
are deaf or hard of hearing and their families. Please contact us if you would like to arrange a visit to our
schools. For more information, you can visit our Web site at: http://www.gallaudet.edu/~precpweb.
Sincerely,
Jane K. Fernandes, Ph.D.
Vice President, Laurent Clerc National Deaf Education Center
Gallaudet University
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