Proficiency of Deaf High School GraduatesEssay title: Proficiency of Deaf High School GraduatesRunning Head: English ProficiencyDifferent English Proficiency Levels of Deaf High School GraduatesErek BrewerThe College of Saint RoseHistorically, the English proficiency levels of Deaf people, let alone high school graduates, have not been viewed as very high. An important question raised by this statement is whether mastering spoken and written English is even a possibility for deaf individuals. In spite of concerted efforts by educators to facilitate the development of literacy skills in deaf individuals, most deaf high school graduates read English at roughly a third or fourth grade level. Having limited literacy skills acts as a hindrance for deaf people in the workplace. They often have had limited opportunities at school for job training. The problem is if deaf children cannot fully comprehend the linguistic information received in English, how can a full understanding of English reading and writing be expected?
Many hearing students are monolingual. Oral language is acquired naturally and effortlessly during early childhood and use only one language in both their school and home environments. They enter school at age five, while still using and developing their first language (English) primarily through listening and speaking. At age five, they are learning both the oral and written forms of one language, English. Not only are they still using and developing their
English conversational skills, but in kindergarten they are exposed to English academic language and begin to develop two additional skills, reading and writing. These skills contribute to their social (oral) language abilities. In other words, their social (oral) language is the foundation on which reading and writing are built, and it continues to serve this role as children develop as readers and writers. Throughout the twelve years of mandatory education, hearing children continue to expand their vocabulary and develop special language registers in each subject area. It takes a hearing monolingual student 12 years to build a high level of academic language skill. Their knowledge and cognitive development is also expanding with each grade level.
The Teacher
Teaching a reading/writing/visual class is a unique aspect of kindergarten. Teachers are typically teachers, but are able to help children understand their environment in different ways. Some teachers include a “learning support worker.” A learning worker allows them to ask a child questions based on his or her experience as a child. These children can then help them in learning more about their environment; learn specific activities that help them to understand their environment. While reading is a major aspect of kindergarten, teachers still need to be able to build specific mental and emotional awareness as well as a teaching/development work ethic.
The teachers can also teach language problems. These problems are typically related to the type of writing you’re doing or what questions you are trying to get answers to. For example, if you like a question of comprehension, then you can often use the “question-of-knowing” vocabulary to ask questions in a “read-only” style (rather than trying to write with a set vocabulary).
It is important for our society that we make the world more informed about what we’re learning and what we’re asking for. Without truly understanding what is at the root of a problem, and without making any assumptions about what we can do to fix problems or improve their outcomes, we won’t learn. At least on paper. We will just make things worse because we are only learning about the real world at the expense of some more fantastical solutions. That isn’t a problem whatsoever. Learning to get the answers we need in a classroom works just fine to the point that there is a difference.
In order to continue to be an effective teacher, we must make sure our teachers have a good working knowledge of both the language systems they teach and the methods and techniques we employ to address problems and learn from them. The best teacher is not someone who makes assumptions about what they’re doing or how they use material or methods. A good teacher teaches very little. They don’t teach you how to play the “what to do”; they teach you the facts and things you need to learn. Not everything is taught or implemented correctly. Sometimes mistakes are made, but it doesn’t always make for a better teacher.
We often use “somewhat” because it’s not a problem that’s very much about the language system, but rather about what we do and sometimes the way we learn and use it. Even when it’s not about the problem at hand, it is about a basic skill and a core competency that is required to succeed (such as a willingness to take risks, learn from failure).
Teaching English
What is learning to write in English? It’s all learned by taking the English language and giving you a piece of the learning toolkit. It’s almost like learning a vocabulary but not knowing how to use it. The more you practice to get your word count down and your comprehension (which can be measured in terms of how far you’ve gotten and what you’ve done to “get more.” Not knowing how to code could be a
In comparison, most deaf students have significant gaps in early language achievement and development. For example, by age five when most hearing monolingual children have acquired a fully-functioning (oral) language, many deaf children are just beginning the language acquisition and learning process. Deaf students vary in the ways they become bilingual. Most often, deaf children of deaf parents develop their bilingualism simultaneously, while deaf children from hearing families often develop their bilingualism successively.
The task of acquiring and learning is challenging for deaf children. Whether it is American Sign Language (ASL) or English, deaf children must be provided with comprehensive language models for both languages to function within their home and school environments. In order to fully understand the different English proficiency levels of Deaf high school graduates, we must again take a look at what impacts these individuals from the roots of their education.
There have been many attempts taken to aid the Deaf communities’ understanding of the English language. The oral approach, which prohibited the use of signing, was the traditional method for teaching language and other academic subjects to the deaf. During the 1970s, “Oralism” gave way to the practice of teaching hearing-impaired or deaf persons to communicate by means of spoken language. This was an inefficient shot at English proficiency right off the bat. From a linguistic point of view, language acquisition is a learning process. Learning how to process certain kinds of information efficiently is difficult because deaf children cannot fully comprehend the linguistic information received in English. Hearing impaired children often have been taught to speak, but that does not equate with the mastery of a language.
Oralism utilized a simultaneous manual and oral component.