Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uwm.edu!caen!ox.com!yale!bunker!hcap!hnews!300!14!James.Womack
From: James.Womack@f14.n300.z1.fidonet.org (James Womack)
Newsgroups: misc.handicap
Subject: Re: Sign Languages
Message-ID: <17893@bunker.UUCP>
Date: 28 Feb 91 16:03:54 GMT
Sender: wtm@bunker.UUCP
Reply-To: James.Womack@f14.n300.z1.fidonet.org
Distribution: misc
Organization: FidoNet node 1:300/14 - The Emerald Isle, Tucson AZ
Lines: 35
Approved: wtm@bunker.UUCP

Index Number: 13742

[This is from the Silent Talk Conference]

If you read my post with care, I believe you will find the reasons
I made my statement. On the average, a deaf person much like any non-native
user of English does not master it quite as well as the average native
user. This does not put down deaf ability-I am Deaf myself- it is a
fact. It does imply thatit is an impossible achievement, but is true
onthe average.

M O R E deaf people would achieve higher English skills if educators
allowed us to have a first language on which to build a 2nd language.
A N D fewer deaf people would graduate with merely a 3rd or 4th grade
reading level. If you would look at some of the very old films of deaf
Gallaudetians and other deaf spokespeople addressing audiences, you
would stunned at their eloquence and use of rather advanced word usage.
They are people who were educated in what Gallaudet, Clerc and others
called the "Natural Language of Signs of the Deaf." They had a 1st
language on which the 2nd one-English was taught. They were also better
writers than todays average deaf graduate. Heck! One of them , Veditz
even refuted the great Alexander Graham Bell's research and argument
against having deaf only schools and use of sign language and allowing
deaf people to marry each other. He provide statistical and methodological
proof of thefallacies of these arguments before the academy of Science
and Congressmen and won!

Never think I am claiming deaf people can't do something offhandily.
I argue that the narrowminded English only approach is demonstrated
failure andthere are valid reasons for why this is so. I stand by that
contention.

--
Uucp: ..!{decvax,oliveb}!bunker!hcap!hnews!300!14!James.Womack
Internet: James.Womack@f14.n300.z1.fidonet.org