English as a foreign language for deaf and hard of hearing persons in Europe

Abstract

Introduction Together with formal logic and computer skills, English is considered nowadays a key tool for educational and occupational career. According to the British Council it is currently spoken by 1,8 billion people around the world; it serves as an official language in 53 countries and as lingua franca in many others. It is a language of education, politics, art, engineering, business and leisure. The above mentioned facts are significant for every individual who wants to be successful, both in personal and professional dimension. Deaf and hard of hearing people are naturally a part of this reality: in order to become well-educated and competitive on the job market they have to get all the necessary knowledge and skills. However, their problems are connected mainly with using language, as it was formulated by a vice-rector of Gallaudet University, R.O. Cornett: This is not voice but words – that is a real problem of the deaf persons. Difficulties in speech perception, problem with spontaneous access to semantics, syntax and morphology of their national languages – all these factors conform to difficulties with effective language perception and production. It is also evident that these problems do not disappear during the process of learning a foreign language. It is sometimes suggested that deaf people do not need foreign languages but rather foreign sign languages. Nowadays sign languages are treated as a genius solution enabling communication of the deaf and hard of hearing people with other members of society. However, even their effective usage does not allow deaf and hard of hearing people free access to the world-wide treasure of knowledge, the key to which is hidden in the ability to use English. In Europe English in many countries is a non-native language and millions of Europeans each year learn it at schools, universities and private tutorials. This is also true for deaf and hard of hearing education: during the last decades of the 20th century teaching English as a foreign language to the deaf and hard of hearing was recommended as obligatory in many European countries, mainly of Central and Western Europe. Because of a lack of specialized teaching methodology, in each country groups of teachers or even individual teachers tried to work out effective legal solutions, class structure, methods and forms of teaching. Fortunately, the teachers’ – our - paths crossed. English – a common language of all the teachers who undertook the task of teaching it to deaf and hard of hearing population – helped not only the students, but enabled us - their teachers – to get to know each other, establish meaningful contacts, exchange ideas and solutions and finally – prepare this book. The book Teaching English to the deaf and hard of hearing in Europe – state of the art and future challenges, is a unique sort of publication. It resulted from personal meetings, discussions and exchange of knowledge and information among a group of brave and generous teachers who started the job of teaching English as a foreign language to the deaf and hard of hearing in their countries and finally decided to share their experiences with others. It is a long-awaited fruit of moments of uncertainty and helplessness, flashes of brilliant ideas and hours of hard work. This is also a sign of significant relationships with our students – for whom we spent long hours preparing new teaching materials, sleepless nights on night trains and countless hours in airport lounges while waiting for transportation to conference, workshop and meeting venues. The book is divided into two parts. The first one is devoted to the presentation of a general picture of deafness nowadays, form a perspective of people personally involved in organizing English as a foreign language for the deaf and hard of hearing classes. It starts with a chapter by Kazimiera Krakowiak, a professor of linguistics and a mother of two adult deaf sons. In her essay she points to chances and barriers crated by contemporary anthropological trends in pedagogy of the deaf. After discussing biologist and sociologist perspective she points to personalism as a common ground that might make it possible to re-establish quality deaf education in a responsible and effective way. The second paper in this chapter was also prepared by a linguist, Professor Franz Dotter from Klagenfurt. He presents his experience and views on what language development of deaf students should look like. These two texts are both complementary and different in their nature, and they mirror the reality of the deaf world, where strong proponents of oralism try to convince sign language users to back their position, and vice versa. The last text in this part, Elena Intorcia’s, shows yet another perspective: that of the personal experience of deaf people themselves. The second part of the book comprises 9 chapters. Each of them was written by a teacher of English as a second language working in different countries. It starts with a paper by Elana Ochse who aims at presenting English for the Deaf as a special kind of English for Specific/Specialized Purposes concept. She argues that ESP might be an enabling tool in the Deaf discourse community working in Multimedia and Cinema. The second paper was elaborated by Edith Kontra from Hungary and presents the manifold struggle of Deaf foreign language learners in that country. Analyzing her informants’ opinion she argues for the implementation of barrier-free education, the use of the deaf national sign language across the curriculum including foreign language teaching, the need for educators who can sign, and also for the provision of Deaf teachers. Pat Pritchard from Norway presents the English curriculum and examinations for Deaf and severely hard-of-hearing in her country and gives a description of a research study into Deaf pupils’ acquisition of British Sign Language in the classroom. Jitka Sedláčková and Zuzana Fonioková from the Czech Republic present the methods of teaching reading skills in a foreign language class and the implications these different methods have for teaching foreign languages to the deaf. They concentrate on the significance of reading strategies for acquiring reading skills in both L1 and L2. Their collegue from the Czech Republic, Marie Doleżalova describes in a more general way the situation of the deaf language education in the Czech Republic, especially in the conext of a strong movement of the deaf in the Czech Republic who want to be regarded as a cultural minority with a sign language as their mother tongue. Next three texts describe teaching English a foreign language to the deaf and hard of hearing in Poland. Ewa Domagała-Zyśk’s text presents the general outline of the deaf language education in Poland and organisation of the English for the deaf and hard of hearing classes at John Paul II Catholic Univeristy of Lublin. The research part of her paper is devoted to the writing output of different groups of the deaf and hard of hearing learners of English. Continuing this experience, Anna Podlewska devotes her paper to the significance of using Cued Speech as a tool for developing both receptive and productive language skills. She presents the basis of her approach to foreign language instruction that incorporates Cued Speech as one of the modes of communication used in the classroom. Anna Nabiałek presents the assumptions, programme and some aspects of teaching English as a foreign language to Deaf/deaf and hard of hearing students at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, while Beata Gulati describes the art of teaching and learning English as a foreign language at Siedlce University of Natural Sciences and Humanities, the university that can be proud of several years of work in this field. The publication is intended for foreign language teachers of the deaf and hard of hearing or university students who are considering becoming such professionals. Its purpose it is to provide information and guidance about particular approaches, teaching methods and communication strategies. The decision on what ideas should be incorporated in particular curricula, however, is still in the hands of the teachers. The papers presented in the book do not form a ready recipe – they should rather be treated as voices in discussion about the most effective approaches, methods and techniques of teaching English as a foreign language to the deaf and hard of hearing. Both the editor and all the authors fervently hope that the readers will find this book supportive in developing their English teaching and learning skills.

Acknowledgements I wish to acknowledge the encouragement of several people who believed in the sense of my work of teaching English as a foreign language to the deaf and hard of hearing students and motivated me to do research in this field. First of all I would like to express my sincere thanks to Professor Kazimiera Krakowiak who first realized the significance of organizing foreign language classes for the deaf and hard of hearing at KUL and supported the project throughout all these years with her invaluable linguistic advice and personal warmth. My work was also professionally supported from the very beginning by the Ombudsman for the Disabled Students at KUL and a recognized linguist working on methodology of teaching English as a foreign language to the visually impaired persons – Professor Bogusław Marek. His constant interest in my work, all the signs of belief in its sense and significance, together with immense personal kindness was an invaluable source of strength. I would like to address special words of gratitude to professor Elana Ochse from Torino University, for proofreading the book before its publication and for suggesting a lot of valuable linguistic and content improvements. Words of gratitude should be also directed to the reviewers of the book – professor Bogusław Marek and professor Bogdan Szczepankowski. Their comments helped both me and the authors to improve our papers and make them even more professional and valuable. And finally special words of thanks to my former and present students who willingly wanted to learn and teach together with me and at the same time immensely enriched my professional and personal life. I suppose these words of gratitude should be addressed not only to my students, but to all the deaf and hard of hearing students who work with all the authors. Ewa Domagała-Zyśk