Sign Language Case Study

Introduction

There are many issues teachers and students encounter in educational contexts centering on teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL). Many of the major issues addressed here are also relevant to teaching students American Sign Language (ASL), as well as other signed and spoken languages. The goal of this paper is to conduct a review of current research and literature of ELL/EFL/ESL/TESOL/TEFL/ESP/TOEFL/IELTS peer-reviewed publications that address these teaching-learning contexts and the key focus areas of culture diversity, sociolinguistic variation, the use of innovative technologies for language teaching and learning, language assessment, and language modalities. Each of these concepts will be extrapolated to

TESOL represents Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages, which are teachers of non-native English speaking students living in the US and can be found in K-12, colleges, universities, community groups and as tutors for hire. TEFL represents Teaching English as a Foreign Language and is found in countries where English is not the native language. Students function in society utilizing their native language and there is a large possibility that their interaction with their teacher and classmates is their only use of the English language. In many countries, these positions do not require any academic background besides being a functioning native speaker.

Subsets of ESL

Although, ESL is an umbrella term for the goal of many learners, there are different forms of English. One of those fors is ESP, and it represents English for Specific Purposes and is a subset of ESL geared towards adults, characterizes topics such as:

• Business English

• Technical English

• Scientific

No better example of that is through migration and emigration, and how people no longer move just to different cities, but many move to different countries and in doing so, many countries, such as Russia, Germany and Canada, require language tests in order to become a resident. Some countries that maintain two languages, such as Canada, allow multiple languages in order to create a society filled with functioning dominant language speakers.

As a result, this cross-national concept has implications on English and has fostered two additional terminology, World Englishes and World English.World Englishes refers to the different forms of localized variations of English outside of the United States of United Kingdom and is different from the idea of World English. This is related to Kachru’s concept of the circles of English, discussed later. World Englishes is the idea that different variations of English arise through various political and social influences. These language variations vary and in many instances acquire different meanings and lexicon. World English is the concept of English as a Lingua franca and used for global activities, such as business, diplomacy and trade. In this instance, English is following in a long line of global Lingua