Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!ccu.umanitoba.ca!herald.usask.ca!alberta!ubc-cs!van-bc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!think.com!yale!bunker!hcap!hnews!104!424!Lana.Berrington From: Lana.Berrington@f424.n104.z1.fidonet.org (Lana Berrington) Newsgroups: misc.handicap Subject: Re: Sign Languages Message-ID: <17914@bunker.UUCP> Date: 28 Feb 91 16:11:29 GMT Sender: wtm@bunker.UUCP Reply-To: Lana.Berrington@f424.n104.z1.fidonet.org Distribution: misc Organization: FidoNet node 1:104/424 - Ready Room(IDIC), Denver CO Lines: 52 Approved: wtm@bunker.UUCP Index Number: 13763 [This is from the Silent Talk Conference] Hi James! In a message of <10 Feb 91>, James Womack (1:300/14.0) writes: JW>> Lana, speaking really good English is not the same thing as JW>> masteringthe language. As for my statement that many or most deaf I really didn't mean for it to sound as though I thought that "speaking really good english" meant they had mastered the language. I meant my statement only as an anecdote really. It's true.. My sign language teacher speaks really good english. I Really didn't intend this to be a scientific oberservation.. I have no speach therapy or educational background.. I'm just this person who's taking an ASL class from a really nice person who happens to speak "REALLY GOOD ENGLISH" and who also happens to be profoundly deaf. Let me qualify what "really good" means to me. My teacher speaks so that somebody who had never talked with her before would understand exactly what she's saying and so that the same person who had never met her might describe her speach as having a sort of enhansed Barbara Walters quality to it. Her R's sound a bit like W's and she's not great with words that have wierd spellings or are of forign origin. In my first class... she didn't say anything for like the first hour.. only sign.. (after all.. we were there to learn) and I though "Right on.. our teacher is deaf"... Then.. During a break she was talking to somebody.. and I though "Huh? oh.. I guess Iwas wrong.. she Can hear". I was right the first time. That's how well she speaks. JW>> I don't mean to sound pessimistic or like I am attacking, so please JW>> don't take it that way. I am kind of miffed that there just seems to JW>> be a flat refusal by thehearing dominated deaf educationprofession JW>> that the deaf are deaf. You can trytraining us to be hearing all you JW>> want and we willstill be deaf with allthat goes with being deaf. I am Please don't pigeon-hole me in with those people to whome you are refering. I'm not like that. Like I say.. I'm not in the education profession.. I'm just this person taking a class because now-and-again I work with deaf kids and I'd like to understand and be understood when with them. I agree with you! People should never be forced to be something they're not. JW>> could videotape all these oral people I meet at PCC and the UA so you JW>> could all see the joy of self-discovery when they come among other JW>> deafies, the bitterness as they learn from experience or their own Don't try to convert me! I'm on your side already! If I wern't I'd have taken the Signed English course instead of insisting on the ASL courses. :-D ~ <*Lana*> ~ # Origin: The Point Of No Return: Calgary, AB (201:5500/55.4) To respond netmail, use FSC-0038 DOMAIN lines or as 1st line of msg use: @DOMAIN METRONET 201:5500/55.4 === FNPGate 2.50 Release -- Uucp: ..!{decvax,oliveb}!bunker!hcap!hnews!104!424!Lana.Berrington Internet: Lana.Berrington@f424.n104.z1.fidonet.org