Educating Deaf Students: Global Perspectives

Bridging Literacy: Integrating ASL and English Into the Language Arts

Bridging Literacy Integrating ASL and English Into the Language Arts CYNTHIA NEESE BAILES
The concept of bilingual education has long been in Deaf consciousness. In 1886, George Wing, a Deaf teacher at the Minnesota School for the Deaf, was strong in his assertions that “the sign language” (as American Sign Language [ASL] was called during that time) was a necessary predecessor to the teaching and learning of written language, thereby establishing a “flow of thought in the expressive channel” (Wing, 1886, p. 27). Although Wing did not explicitly name what he advocated as “bilingual education”, his intent was clear. Proposals for bilingual education by Kannapell (1974), Stokoe (Maher, 1996), and Woodward (1978) emerged in the 1970s, when the study of ASL as a language in its own right was in its infancy. Although many schools for deaf children were moving from oralism to the use of some kind of signing (not always a native sign language) in the form of Total Communication (TC), ASL was considered an obstacle to the learning of English literacy, and thus not appropriate for classroom use (Barnum, 1984; Kuntze, 1998). Following the publication of Unlocking the Curriculum (Johnson, Liddell, & Erting, 1989), a number of schools adopted a bilingual philosophy (Strong, 1995). Carrying explicit statements of intent to use ASL as the language of instruction and learning, several “charter schools” were created for the purpose of providing bilingual education to deaf children.1 A longer version of this chapter was originally published as “Integrative ASL–English Language Arts: Bridging Paths to Literacy,” Sign Language Studies 1 (2), 147–74, © 2001 by Gallaudet University. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of the publisher. 1. Charter schools are alternative schools, typically established to pursue innovative teaching strategies. Publicly funded, yet autonomous, operators of charter schools are able to pursue educational innovations without bureaucratic constraints. 127 Theoretical arguments in support of bilingual education for deaf children are abundant in the literature. Cummins (1978, 1979, 1980, 1984, 1989) is most frequently cited. Barnum (1984), as one example, referred to Cummins ’s (1980) differentiation of children’s basic interpersonal communicative skills (BICS) and cognitive/academic language proficiency (CALP) to support the contention that ASL promotes the cognitive development necessary for both first and second language use and development in deaf children . Christensen (1989) cited Cummins in arguments that deaf children be consistently exposed to complete forms of both ASL and English from an early age, calling attention to the “separate but equal” features of each language and stating that deaf children who are afforded “opportunities to acquire American Sign Language naturally at an early age, and [who] are made aware that English is the language of speech, story books, and other special situations, should be able to acquire parallel competence in both languages with success” (p. 12). Such theoretical underpinnings have not been forthcoming with in-depth explanations of how to apply bilingual education to deaf school children. Individual papers presenting positions and proposing teaching practices have surfaced (Erting, 1992; Kuntze, 1994; Nover & Andrews, 1998 ; Paul, 1990), yet evidence of systematic study of actual practices in bilingual programs for deaf children is scant. In this chapter, I report the results of a study of one bilingual charter school—Metro Deaf School (MDS) in St. Paul, Minnesota. I examined the perceptions of and instructional strategies used by teachers of primary-grade deaf children as they related to the teaching of English literacy through ASL. Founded in 1993 by joint efforts of teachers , parents, and community members, the program had 39 students in grades K–5 at the time of the study. There were four teachers and 19 children in the primary grades, defined as grades K–3. Three of the primarygrade teachers were Deaf, and two were from Deaf families for whom ASL was a native language. The third Deaf teacher attended a residential school from the age of 3 and reported that she had learned ASL as a first language beginning at that age. The sole hearing teacher was a child of Deaf adults (CODA) who was also fluent in ASL. ASL was prominent during the school day at MDS; instruction took place primarily in this language. This ensured clear and efficient communication between teacher and students in an accessible and comprehensible language. ASL was integrated seamlessly into English Language Arts, 128 Cynthia Neese Bailes a strategy that I have called “Integrative ASL–English Language Arts.” Attending and signing...