The Benefits of Incorporating Sign Language in Primary Classrooms of Hearing Learners
As a teacher, do you wish to improve your students’ vocabulary, spelling proficiency, and reading ability? If so, incorporating sign language in your primary classroom may foster this improvement in language learning. Sign language enhances language development and improves students’ sight word recognition and understanding of the alphabet/phonics. Applying hands-on learning to language has multiple benefits, so why not “Let your fingers do the talking” (Goode et al, 1993/94).
Why Sign Language Helps Language Development
A primary concern in education today is improving children’s language development (Daniels, 1994). Fortunately, sign language can assist in this area. Letters and words seem abstract to young children because they initially view them as symbols without meaning. However, if you pair a sign with a word, the word becomes more concrete (Wurm, 1986). This idea is not new.
The 19 th century renowned deaf education pioneer in the U.S., Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, advocated the use of sign language to increase language development in hearing children. He noticed that the hearing siblings of deaf children showed academic advancement in language (Felzer, 2004). Continued studies verify his thoughts; classes that incorporate sign consistently score higher academically on various tests than their non-signing counterparts (Daniels, 1994).
Pairing sign language with spoken English proves beneficial to language development because it is a multimodal language. The greatest learning occurs when both tactile and kinesthetic channels combine with auditory and visual modalities; sign language, which makes use of both modalities, thus improves learning (Renolds, 1995). Multimodal sign language makes use of movement, which even Piaget claimed anchored learning and thinking (Carney, Raymond, 1985 & Daniels, 2001). Prominent educators Maria Montessori and Paul Dennison have also stated that “Movement is the door to learning” (qtd. in Daniels, 2001).
Furthermore, some children have an easier time with the visual-perceptual modality (which sign language involves) than the verbal-auditory modality because the brain processes these modalities in different regions (Kouri, 1989). Sign language uses one specific memory store and English uses a different memory store. This allows language abilities to improve as the students acquire a second memory store where they can search for information (Daniels, 2001). Therefore, if students cannot remember the spoken sound for a written word in their English memory store, they can explore the sign language memory store and recall the sign, which leads to remembering the spoken word.
All the other family members of the young boy were not deaf. The grandparents of the underlying boy were normal and they think that the boy will be normal without any problem. The grandparents of the Mark were against the sign language because they think if Mark understands the signing language he will become dependent. However, the parents of the Mark want to teach him the signing language because according to their point of view, the signing language will help the Mark in understanding the language. In the school, he used the signing language with his friends and teachers in order to communicate with all of them. After the learning of the signing language, Mark was able to understand all the signs and know everything which the other communicates. Mark loved his school and his friends and was very happy in his school. The grandparents of Mark saw him very happy after the learning of the signing class because by taking the signing class, Mark was able to understand the language of the others. When the grandparents of Mark saw him happy due to the learning of the signing class so both of them also took an admission in the signing class in order to understand the language of the other individuals (Oliva et.al,
After reading this article, it is apparent that Suze Orman can relate herself to any topic that she is presented with. She is also able to relate to whatever audience is sitting in front of her or reading her books or articles. Her increasing reputable reputation has earned her a spot at the top, “a two-time Emmy Award-winning television host, New York Times mega bestselling author, magazine and online columnist, writer/producer and one of the top motivational speakers in the world today, Orman is undeniably America's most recognized expert on personal finance” (CNBC). Considering all her awards and accomplishments it is no wonder that Suze Orman has earned her reputation of being a financial guru.
...at sign language was a last resort if the child did not pick up lip reading and oral communication. Thomas now met someone who signed and spoke and realized that signing is a language in its own and its importance to people who could not hear the oral language. This began their quest to learn sign language and use it with Lynn despite the school and public opinion.
Movies in the Great Depression were outlets that the American people used to escape the daily hardships and struggles of their lives. Three genres emerged and flourished during this time period: comedy, musicals, and gangster films. Each genre depicted life in the Great Depression in different yet similar ways. While watching the movies, you can see that money played a large part in the plot. Justice and the law are also reoccurring themes. The treatment and depiction of women in these films is one aspect that is interesting to study and look at, as well. Women’s rights was still a hot button issue, and it is plain to see that by viewing such films as “Room Service”, “The Public Enemy”, and “Gold Diggers of 1937”.
In American Sign Language a major part of the language entails being able to express emotions and types of questions through the use of non- manual signals such as when asking a yes-no question the eyebrows will go up but when asking a wh-question such as what the eyebrows go down. Another way to express something is through mouth morphemes this is the way your mouth is shaped to convey different meanings, such as size and grammar. Non-manual signals and mouth morphemes are just as important as any sign and enrich the language to make it possible to effectively communicate.
The “deaf and dumb” stigma as well as the delayed language and cognitive development of some Deaf children concerns this topic. “Ninety percent of deaf children have hearing parents, and usually there’s a significant communication gap” (Drolsbaugh 48). Therefore, it is not that being born deaf or hard of hearing that makes children unintelligent. It is the lack of access to language in the critical early years, as hearing parents often do not know sign language, that causes later issues in education. This can be seen from the fact that the brain’s plasticity, or its ability to acquire new information and establish neural pathways, is the greatest at birth and wanes throughout development. Therefore, if a child does not have sufficient access to language before five, significant language, and thus cognitive impairment, can result (100). Additionally, children learn about the world around them and develop critical thinking skills through asking questions. However, hearing parents often “wave off” such questions as unimportant due to difficulty explaining them (48). Therefore, early exposure to an accessible language such as ASL is crucial in developing language and cognitive abilities. When hearing families are fully aware and understanding of this, it can greatly facilitate improvements in education for Deaf
Modern Times was unlike most movies produced during the Great Depression era because it is featuring a view on the unemployment and rough conditions that people f...
Sign language is a natural human language, they have their own vocabularies and sentence structures. Sign language comes into practice wherever Deaf societies come into existence. Sign language is not identical worldwide; every country has its own language and accents; however, these are not the verbal or transcribed languages used by hearing individuals around them.
I suggest there be larger sample sizes and that all participants be randomly assigned to experimental groups. Not only would this help show empirical support, but results could then be generalized beyond the experiments. Longitudinal data should also be recorded in order to measure the long term effects of teaching children sign language or symbolic gestures, especially as it relates to development of language. If there more longitudinal data becomes available to analyze, then parents and educators could be better informed when making the decision use baby sign language or not. Also, there needs to be a more diverse sample of participants. Many studies only included with middle class parents. Since there is no evidence of harm to children with the use o baby sign language, I believe it is a useful communication tool.
It “is an important part of the social, cultural, and educational context of the hearing-impaired child’s development” (Stahlman, 349). If a person cannot communicate effectly then they may not thrive and develop while having a hearing or speech impairment. In both American Sign Language and Pidgin Signed English, a person who is hearing-impaired must learn to communicate with the world using only his hands and facial expressions. American Sign Language and Pidgin Signed English is a way for the unable to communicate. Both ASL and PSE can be taught in many different ways however, ASL is normally taught in school while PSE is normally self-taught but either way they are both a unique method of communication and can be used all over the world and can be translated and spoken just like any other language can
The documentary “For a Deaf Son,” delineates a young boy, Thomas Tranchin, who was born deaf into a hearing family, and the battle his parents endured to decide to teach Thomas in sign language communication, strictly communicate in English, or both. The documentary is educational for the hearing world to shape their own particular opinions on what type of technique would be better for their child in the event that they were to ever be in a comparative circumstance. As Dr. Carlos Erting expressed in the film, 93% of hearing impaired children have hearing parents; therefore, this documentary gives a glimpse at both perspectives of nonverbal communication and oral communication. However, as I viewed the short film, the clashing feelings of Thomas’
“Learning another language is not only learning different words for the same things, but learning another way to think about things” (American). For centuries, people from all walks of life have been using their hands to communicate with one another, and for centuries people from all walks of life have been learning. Today I am following in their footsteps with a passion from God for the deaf language, culture, and souls. For almost a decade, an intense ardor for American Sign Language and a desire to reach its native users for Christ seeded itself in my soul, wove its roots deeper and deeper, and blossomed into one of the greatest loves of my life. American Sign Language is a unique language with a rich history that not only provides a service to people in the deaf culture, but also to hearing people who seek to attain fluency.
When children are born and as they grow most of what they learn to speak is from hearing their parents talk but what if they couldn 't hear? How would they learn? Its pretty simple actually. They wouldn 't learn. Those who were born hearing but got sick or eventually lost their hearing learned a few things and use them but, eventually they turn to ASL to be able to communicate with others and be able to further their education. When having to learn this language you have to keep many things in mind such as handshape, palm orientation, location, movement and facial expression, all of those things are crucial to being able to speak this language correctly. While this language has been around for many years there are still things that don 't have an ASL name and in those cases you would do something called finger spelling, where you spell out what you are trying to say in order to get your point across.(Learning Sign Language,2) As every language you are learning a whole different way of saying things and you are also opening yourself to those who can’t really open themselves to you. The deaf community do really try to not be a burden to us. They learn to read lips or even talk because they were forced to. A couple a years ago they were restricted from learning ASL and were punished if they tried to sign. (About sign
In part two the book is about the view of American Sign Language and the way people have naturally created grammar and the arrangement of words and phrases to create well-formed sentences in a language from basically nothing. He demonstrates that this languag...
Lou, Mimi WheiPing. Language Learning and Deafness: The history of language use in the education of the Deaf in the United States. Ed. Michael Strong. Cambridge: Cambridge Universtiy Press, 1988. 77-96. Print.