General classroom behaviors:

• Deaf people prefer the term “Deaf” instead of "hearing impaired."
• Naming differences: Saying that we have “Sue, a deaf student and her interpreter, Carol, here in our class” is not bad.  Students notice the difference, so naming and explaining what is going on is usually appreciated by the deaf student.  Other students sometimes think the interpreter is a student’s mother because the interpreter is usually a middle-aged woman.
• Most deaf students love it if a hearing teacher uses at least one sign, so Nancy taught us “thank you” as one to use with students: Tips of fingers of one hand (palm facing toward body) placed on chin and then move fingers away from face, sweeping toward viewer.
• Explain the role of the interpreter to the class, especially when putting students in groups: “This is Sue’s interpreter.  She will interpret for Sue, but can’t participate in the group work herself.  When you talk, talk to Sue not her interpreter, and make sure she can see your face.”   Students sometimes will try to engage the interpreter in group work or if nervous they will not look at the deaf student directly and may turn away to talk to other group members.
• Students will look to us as models.  If we talk directly to the deaf student (instead of the interpreter), call on the deaf student for answers as we would for a hearing student, listen to what the deaf student says (through the interpreter) as we look at the student, etc, we model the place of a deaf student in our classes.
• Keep in mind that if we want to meet a student for office hours, this also needs to be arranged so an interpreter can be there.

Background on deaf students and ASL

• American Sign Language (ASL) has a different syntax, different sense of vocabulary.  IT is a conceptual language.  The syntax is often subject object verb.  The verbs often don’t have tense markers.  Adjectives come after adverbs.  There are no articles.  It’s actually similar to Russian, Nancy remarks.
• No one mold for deaf students…very different from different backgrounds with different abilities, though there are some generalities…
• Education for deaf students in this country is usually not very good, dependent on what hearing person has political control over ‘what should be done.”

• 90% of deaf students have hearing parents.  Hearing parents often don’t learn to sign and sometimes want to deny that their child is deaf, discourage signing, pretend the child is “normal.”
• Students who have been to deaf boarding school actually do better culturally (though not necessarily in terms of English usage) because of the exposure to other deaf children and affirmation of deaf culture.
• If parents sign in ASL, the deaf student’s English is usually better because they have a stronger foothold in their first language (ASL).
• Because most hearing parents don’t learn to sign, they don’t read to their deaf children, which inhibits early language learning.  Many deaf students hate to read because they didn’t get the early parental reading experience and it is hard…reading in a second language, English different from ASL.
• Because many hate to read, deaf students do not usually recognize the levels of thinking (Bloom’s taxonomy) that we expect when we ask students to read.  They might read something, but they don’t comprehend it.
• Lip reading…students’ ability to do this depends on when they became deaf.  Students can get 25 to 30% of what is said through lip-reading if they have this ability
• With the prevalence of close captioning (in English rather than ASL), deaf students' abilities with English may be improving.  Nancy used to work with students who cited their favorite childhood cartoon as Roadrunner because there were no words to miss.  With widespread use of close captioning, this might change.

Here at Highline

• Deaf students are at different levels of language, depending on their early language exposure and schooling.  HCC tries to match students up with interpreters, a match based on the “register” of language they are using.  Sometimes interpreters are doing two levels of teaching in our classrooms…relaying what the classroom content is and teaching the deaf student a new sign.
• Often for writing classes, interpreters add an “English slant” to their signing.  Rather than the usual syntax of ASL, they add some English syntax to the signing.

Tips for Writing Teachers

• We’ve had anecdotal evidence that COMPASS is not great for placing ESL students and the same may be true for deaf students. 
• The most dreaded words an interpreter hears from a teacher: “OK, we only have five minutes left so I’m going to go over really quickly what you need to do.”   With this kind of rushing, Nancy said, none of the students are really getting it --deaf or hearing!
• Innovative techniques that you employ to alter a lesson for a deaf student usually benefit all of your students.   When Allison had a deaf student in her creative writing class, rather than going around the room and reading their poems out loud, she had them post their poems on the walls so they could walk around and read each other’s poem.  This actually worked out better than a read around because students could write comments on each other’s poems as they walked around and read.
• Use overheads…if reading from a student passage, copy it off for the overhead so the deaf student can follow along (or give the deaf student a copy of what you are reading)
• Provide the interpreter with copies of our handouts, readings and assignments.
• When reading out loud, we speak twice as fast as with normal conversation.  It is hard for the interpreter to keep up.  Though if reading from a common book, the student can follow along.
• Use as many visuals as possible.  See overhead tip.
• Deaf students cannot watch what you put on the board and listen to what you say through the interpreter: they need to choose what they will "read" in this instance.
• Discussion webs can be a great way for deaf student and other students in the class to communicate directly without the interpreter.  Activities where the interpreter can drop out of the interaction are good ones.
• Time with tutors:  we could offer service-learning credit to students to work with deaf students.
• Encourage reading--and reading classes.  Many deaf students enter HCC reading at a fourth grade level and this definitely impacts their writing.   This said, reading classes are hard.  If they are reading Maya Angelou, this is challenging.  Reading classes can stress pronunciation.

Wendy Swyt has handouts from Nancy on Improving the Language and Learning of Students Who are Deaf, ASL alphabet, and Communicating with a Deaf Person.  Email her if you want copies of these handouts.