Editorial Note

Sign Language Studies 16 EDITORIAL NOTE As the latest of the Biology & Language series appears, SIGN LANGUAGE STUDIES takes another departure - into the area of sign language teaching. The National Symposium on Sign Language Research and Teaching (Chicago, 30 May to 3 June 1977) revealed a strong demand for information exchange directly relevant to teachers and teaching; it also yielded a distinguished panel of referees to read and make recommendations on papers in this area of sign language studies. There are papers on the use of American Sign Language in the teaching of English grammar and usage in early issues of SIGN LANGUAGE STUDIES; and a number of papers in the first six years of the journal have dealt with teaching (iconic or non-iconic) signs to hearing, speaking learners. The recent national symposium, however, may well mark the opening of a new era, one in which instruction dealing with their own language is included in the education of deaf persons. If this is so we all can look forward to an increase of knowledge, both about sign languages and about the teaching and learning matters they entail. Studies in sign language teaching may of course deal with the psychological differences of acquisition when sight serves instead of hearing, with the sociological differences in a differently structured community (as Meadow's paper in this issue already deals), and with the gathering, analysis, classification, and presentation of information, often quite differently handled when a teaching-learning situation is central. Meanwhile, a treatment of second language teaching in general, as it relates to the teaching of signs and fingerspelling and signed English in a specific institutional setting, follows in this issue. W.C.S. ...