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From: James.Womack@f14.n300.z1.fidonet.org (James Womack)
Newsgroups: misc.handicap
Subject: Re: Sign Languages
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Date: 28 Feb 91 16:01:36 GMT
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Index Number: 13735

[This is from the Silent Talk Conference]

Lana, speaking really good English is not the same thing as masteringthe
language. As for my statement that many or most deaf people willnever
master English to thelevel of the average hearing person, research
upholds this. So does common sense. Non-native speakers of any, I repeat,
ANY language, onthe average never masterthe language to the extent
that a native speaker does. With the deaf, this is especially so.

Pretty good English? By whose account? The speech therapist? Family
and close friends? Let me tell you, these well-meaning people tell
us deafies, "You speak so well." Then we go out inthe world and people
look at us funny when we speak. Recenlt, alady raised orally and considered
hard of hearing spkoe to my school. She bitterly told how she was always
told she spoke good English. Even thather voice was like a normal hearing
person's. While in the university, she learned that many simply had
to make an effort to understand her most of the time. She used their
audiology facility and personnel to get an honest appraisal of her
speech skills. They told her that people accustomed to "deaf" speech
would understand her but most other people probably would have difficulty.
So, by whose account does the person youmention speak "pretty good
English?"

I don't mean to sound pessimistic or like I am attacking, so please
don't take it that way. I am kind of miffed that there just seems to
be a flat refusal by thehearing dominated deaf educationprofession
that the deaf are deaf. You can trytraining us to be hearing all you
want and we willstill be deaf with allthat goes with being deaf.
I am not anti-English or anti-speech. I am against the continued refusal
to put an end to wasting so many deaf people's lives withthis darn
English only approachthat has 200 years of failure behind it. I am
also perplexed as to why there seems to be so much resistance to giving
ASL as a first language upon which to teach the second language English
a chance. If it does not work, willit makethat much of a difference?
No it won't. It would simply leave us where we were before. All the
other hock-eyed methods have been used to no benefit for the majority
of deaf people, so why not give ASL its chance? More to the point,
why is it that so many oral deafies revert to ASL after leaving school
and coming in contact with other deaf people? Because they realize
that they are home. At long last. Unfortunately, so much time has been
lost that being home isn't as productive as it could be otherwise.
Mainly, they instinctly realize they are exposed to a language that
IS NATURAL to them as deaf people. Would to God that I could videotape
all these oral people I meet at PCC and the UA so you could all see
the joy of self-discovery when they come among other deafies, the bitterness
as they learn from experience or their own reading,or listening to
others' accounts and realize how they have been denied (unintentionally
i insist on believing) fulfillment, education, knowledge etc. So many
of them and I am in this little locationof Tucson which is outof themainstream
of a lot of things in America. Yet many come from out of state. It
would move you to tears. But to joy too when you see the self-discovery
and their sudden awareness as they shrug off the shackles of hearized
deafness and dive into being who and what they really are. Do they
abandon English? No. Speech-usually not. Then what? They stop using
it artificially and start to try to master ASL and take classes or
self-teachthemslves English as a second language. Just wish you could
see it intheprocess as I do,

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