Re: Tutoring Hearing Impaired Students

["Virginia L. Galloway" <xxxvlg@basil.stthom.edu>]

Mostly I lurk on this list and read with more or less rapt interest, but 
sometimes I am lured from my silence; happily, not often. Tere 
Molinder-Hogue brings up an issue that is really broader than just a 
writing center or university problem, and that's how we, as members of a 
mostly hearing culture, interact with deaf people (and if you *really* 
hate the "deaf and dumb" reference, I'm sure you also know how much more 
deeply they loathe it).

I first started working with deaf people in the church to which I 
belonged in the late 1970's.  I was a deacon at that time, and we were 
always looking for ways to make our worship accessible to as many people 
as possible.  One of our members had spent most of his youth with a deaf 
family, so he was near-native in his ability to sign.  He began to bring 
some of his deaf friends to church with him, and a ministry was born.  
Because I was part of the ministerial staff (and probably also because I 
have an irrepressible urge to communicate), I began to learn individual 
signs from them.  I could already fingerspell (a result of wanting to 
talk in church as a child, but having to be silent), so I'd spell 
something and they'd show me the sign.  Ultimately, I went to one of our 
local community colleges and took three ASL/interpreting classes so that 
I could serve as a formal interpreter during announcements, sermons, 
etc.  Interestingly, we also signed for the music, and our two greatest 
triumphs in that area were 1) forming a choir of some of our deaf people 
and signing in unison, and 2) having two of us who served as 
interpreters sign an entire cantata, including contrasting vocal parts.

I've since gone through all kinds of life changes, including 
abandoning Protestantism in favor of Catholicism, and I've been hanging 
around the University of St. Thomas for years, both as a student 
(finishing a masters in liberal arts later this month) and more recently 
as a "take no prisoners" writing, Latin, and theology tutor in our 
Learning Resource Center.  UST is a small school (about 2,500 students), 
and if we have any deaf students, they're hiding well, since I haven't 
met them.  I find that my experience as an interpreter has served me well 
as a student:  I can listen to what is being said now while writing down 
what was just said and rarely miss anything.  I also do a great deal of 
the work here at the LRC with our ESL students, particularly our 
Vietnamese Dominican sisters.

What Tere says for deaf students is, in many ways, true for anyone who 
uses another language, with or without an interpreter.

<snip>

>Deaf students' writing difficulties are closely akin to the challenges ESL
>students face.  Most of them use ASL (American Sign Language) as a "first
>language" and its syntax, grammatical structures, etc. are very different
>from "standard" English.  Verbs are usually offered in present tense (ASL
>uses other markers to establish time) and articles aren't used -- as in
>many Asian languages.  So many of the same issues crop up in ASL papers
>that tutors see in ESL writing.

Linguistically and syntactically, ASL is closer to Navajo than to 
English.  Most of us who use ASL signs but who are native English 
speakers (and hearing) are actually using "Pigeonized Signed English" 
(PSE); we use English syntax, discarding superfluous article adjectives 
and minimizing transitions, conjunctions, etc.  What takes a while to 
realize, even for someone who is trying hard to learn to think in Sign, 
is that even things like pronouns essentially do not exist in ASL.  A 
deaf friend told me years ago that he tries to read the newspaper every 
day, but doesn't read books because they have "too much 'he'"; the 
pronouns didn't make sense to him.

Deaf people who use ASL as their primary language _are_ ESL students.  
They're out here navigating in a learned language with different rules, 
different grammar, and verbalization rather than (primarily) gestures 
(there are sounds, but they're used to help shape facial punctuation 
rather than to be heard).  Consequently, what Tere says . . .

<snip>

>. . . Practice the compassion we talk about extending to all students.  
>Many deaf folks are *very* sensitive to the social implications of the
>situations they're in.  Hearing people often don't know how to react, are
>uncomfortable.  Don't be.  Treat deaf students as you would any other
>student and make a special effort to welcome them into the Center.


. . . is only too true.  Deaf people laugh and hurt and yearn just like 
hearing people; shunning them because they appear to be "other" means 
missing rich and exhilarating encounters.

Virginia Galloway
University of St. Thomas
Learning Resource Center
Houston, TX