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Experiences and Perceptions of Deaf Students in a South African Sign Language Class Claudine Storbeck and Elizabeth Henning 4 IN SOUTH AFRICA, education for the deaf has been insufficiently researched, allowing for misleading perceptions of deaf children. As a result, "the education of deaf people in South Africa has failed to provide speech pathologists, audiologists, teachers, and parents of the deaf with a clear and cohesive direction for practice" (Penn and Reagan 1991, 19). This lack of research, along with the full participant researcher's personal experiential knowledge as a teacher in a school for the deaf, motivated the initiation of this case stud)', which focused on deaf students' preferred mode of communication, documented through their class experiences. Claudine Storbeck served as the full participant researcher, and was assisted by Elizabeth Henning, who was involved in designing the research, analyzing the data, and writing the report. The aim was to rigorously and methodically describe eight deaf students' emic (personal) views of their class, in which the mode of communication was sign language. This on-site inquiry took place in a grade six class in an urban school for the deaf in Johannesburg, South Africa. The researchers also hoped to construct an institutional model of instruction for schools for the deaf in South Africa. The researchers conceptualized the research question of this investigation from a variety of conflicting opinions regarding the education of the deaf in South Africa and modes of communication typically used in deaf education. The school in which the research was conducted reflected a similar state of confusion and lacked clear direction for the development of a consistent curriculum. An additional problem in deaf education in South Africa is the lack of specialized teacher training programs, which may explain the conflict and confusion. This inquiry explored the deaf students' emic views of their educational experience in a real-life situation, allowing for an in-depth and thus "thick" description of the students' perceptions of their education. The case stud)', therefore, offers educators a look at the experiences of the educated because it is the "deaf themselves who are proper experts in knowing what it is like 53 54 CLAUDINE STORBECK AND ELIZABETH HENNING to be deaf and what it is like to communicate without access to spoken Ianguage ," and, therefore, "their opinion should be the guiding principle for any proposals about their education" (Svartholm 1994). METHOD Subjects This exploratory investigation involved five girls and three boys in a grade six class. The class was culturally representative, including four white children , three biracial children, and one black child. Each class member participated in the investigation. Four students were randomly selected for data presentation; however, this chapter focuses on one student in particular. A pseudonym protects her identity. Lindsay grew up in a middle-class family in a black residential area, a:nd was twelve years old at the time of the investigation. She had a history of auditory verbal agnosia and apraxia, which began at age three, resulting in an inability to understand and produce spoken language. This shy young girl was exposed to sign language from age six. She relied primarily on sign language at the time of the investigation, and was described as a competent sign-language communicator. Procedure The investigation, which spanned the academic year, took the form of a case study a "holistic" study that takes in "real-life events" (Yin 1989, 14) within natural settings. The researcher was a full participant action researcher (Wagner 1993), allowing for "rich" descriptions and explorations through the participants' eyes. The aim of the study was to rigorously and methodically describe eight deaf children's perceptions and experiences in a class where South African sign language (SASL) was used for the first time as the mode of communication. In South Africa some twelve identified sign language dlialects are currently in use, which include regional signs that do not cause isolation among users because the grammar, idioms, accents, and emphasis of the language remain the same (Deaf Federation of South Africa 1994). The researchers used four methods of data collection to ensure that the (lata were representative-focus group interviews, individual interviews, field notes of classroom observations, and documentation (including f~er­ sonal sketches and school and individual reports). They further ensured the validity and reliability of this study by verifying the findings with Miles and Huberman's (1994) validation model. The full participant researcher conducted the focus group and individual interviews in SASL. [3.141.30.162] Project MUSE...

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