Sign Language: Teaching the Hearing Impaired

Different types of official and unofficial sign languages are used by deaf communities around the world. Two of the well-known ones are American Sign Language and British Sign Language. These and many other sign languages can be written using SignWriting and Stokoe Notation. The invention of a sign language script and the discovery that sign languages have linguistics elements have gone a long way in the acceptance of sign languages as legitimate languages, not just as 'picture writing' as they were often considered.

American Sign Language (ASL) is very widely used by the hearing impaired as well as the hearing; apart from the deaf community, which comprises of deaf people as well as their families, friends, and interpreters, ASL is increasingly taught to hearing babies, toddlers, and children to aid in language and communication development. Other reasons for learning ASL include the desire to know a language used by thousands and to gain a foreign language credit.

A language, widely used or otherwise, needs to be taught, and there is a growing need for qualified sign language teachers in schools and colleges. If you are interested in pursuing a career as a sign language teacher, you need:

• To be proficient in the sign language you want to teach.
• To understand Deaf culture and be a part of it.
• To have a degree in the sign language and English or linguistics.
• To have a certification to teach the sign language.

It will help your career chances, if you:

• Become a member of the American Sign Language Teachers Association (ASLTA). ASLTA, which originally began as the Sign Instructors Guidance Network, is sponsored by the National Association of the Deaf and has local, state, regional, and national chapters. The organization evaluates and certifies sign language teachers. You can find information about certification, learning requirements, and application requirements as well as posted jobs on the ASLTA website.
• Get provisional, qualified, and professional certifications from ASLTA.
• Attend sign language teaching conferences, seminars, and workshops.
• Improve your sign language skills by regularly participating in Deaf cultural activities.

As a sign language teacher, it's a good idea to:

• Be sensitive to the students' requirements.
• Have a sense of humor.
• Be patient.
• Stress on knowing English and other languages as well as sign languages.
• Stress on improving the writing and reading abilities of your students. Often, deaf students fall short on writing abilities.
• Make use of computer technologies in your teaching.

Some of the Colleges offering master's and bachelor's degrees in Deaf studies and ASL are:

Gallaudet University

• M.A. in Deaf Studies with Concentration in Sign Language Teaching
• B.A., M.A., Ed. S. and Ph.D. in Deaf Education

Columbia University

• Master's Degree in Teaching of American Sign Language (ASL) as a Foreign Language

McDaniel College

• M.S. in Deaf Education

Boston University

• B.S., M.Ed., and CAGS in Deaf Studies, Education of the Deaf and ASL/Deaf Studies

Sign language teachers can be deaf or hearing, but the issue that plague other language teaching programs---native versus non-native---crops up here as well. Many people within the Deaf community feel that sign language teaching jobs should be manned by the hearing impaired for the following reasons:

• Deaf teachers may have a better grasp of the language they use on a daily basis than hearing teachers who do not really depend on it.
• Deaf teachers may be better equipped to understand many issues faced by deaf students as they may have faced or experienced those issues themselves.
• There are limited job opportunities for the hearing impaired as compared to the job opportunities available to the hearing. As such, it doesn't seem fair that hearing people should fill up positions that could be easily manned by deaf people.

However, both hearing and deaf teachers can and do teach sign language classes.