Learning Sign Language: ASL and English

ASL and English are languages that have a good bit of differences between them. ASL sign language is a visual language, expressed through signs, gestures, and expressions. It does have written forms, as in SignWriting and Stokoe Notation, but it is primarily a visual language. English, on the other hand, is a sound language that is expressed through speaking, listening, and writing.

If you know English, you will find it easier to learn another sound language, say, like French or Spanish. The required basic linguistic skills are, after all, already in place. There are phonetic similarities and, even if there are no phonetic similarities, the differences can be bridged over through learning methods like immersion learning. It is a different case for someone knowing ASL to make a first time transition to a sound language like English. Learning to sign in English is not the issue but rather developing the inner speech habit that speakers of English and other sound languages take for granted is.

The written form of a language is the inner speech of the language. For instance, you usually think what you want to express before you write it. It is necessary to have a good grasp of the language to be able to write it well. Quite a few ASL students often have rather poor writing or expression skills, especially when it comes to reading and writing in English.

Language researchers have found that, rather than just poor comprehension or learning skills, this is really rather an issue of not having acquired a proper first language in their formative years. Language skills really take root in the formative years, between ages one and five, and, if these skills are not acquired in this time, people, whether hearing or deaf, tend to always lag behind in language development.

Often, in the case of deaf children with hearing parents, there is, for various reasons, a failure to impart a strong base in a first language; the children may have rely on outside instructors or attend sign language classes for learning ASL. This is not the case in deaf families where the children pick up ASL skills as naturally as speaking children in speaking families pick up a speaking language.

Deaf children with a good base in ASL come to school well-prepared to pick up further language skills and learn a second language. Formerly it was thought that teaching children ASL would conflict with their ability to pick up English, but this is not the case at all. Bilingualism actually helps children learn better.

Children who are able to express themselves well in one language will be able to express themselves well in the second language. They will have a well-developed inner speech, and this will be reflected in the quality of their writing. Being able to read and write well in English is very important to do well in the world socially and career-wise; by sharing a common language with everybody, deaf children will not feel cut off or isolated and be able to make friends easily. Therefore, it is necessary to boost deaf children's literacy by giving deaf children every opportunity to improve reading and writing skills through both English and ASL finger-spelling reading practice. The first step, of course, is to give them a strong main language base, like ASL, to start with.