Deaf is Disabled quote

[VamPyroX]

I am interested to know if you had a method to overcome this difficulty in tutoring. I had been thinking the past few days about possible experimental teaching methods, but I first need to understand more about how ASL works (I stopped learning it at a very young age, and don't think the way I used it is nearly the same as others)

So any insight would be valuable to me.

It's a two-way method.

Basically, an English tutor helps a student with what the student needs help with. If a student doesn't do anything, then what is there to help with?

So, what the student needs to do is do his/her part to get started. If they're given a handout by the teacher, they need to READ the handout first. If they don't understand it, then the tutor can ask what part they don't understand. If they don't read it at all, then how does the tutor know where to begin?

Also, it requires time and patience. Students can't expect to be "cured" overnight. It's a step-by-step process... especially with English. Since English is somewhat of a "gray" style learning, it's something to fine-tune... to improve on. Math is "black & white" style. You teach someone that 2 + 2 = 4, then they can apply that to 3 + 3, 4 + 4, etc. But with English, there are a million ways of saying one thing... it's just a matter of understanding what makes sense and what doesn't make sense.

Students need to be patience with you and communicate everything with you.

There is no perfect tutoring method. I've had to give up on some students because they simply won't work with me. I had one student who relied 100% on her MS Word program. It got to the point where her grammar was so bad that MS Word couldn't fix it. She asked me to her room one night and asked me to proofread her paper. Her whole paper had green squiggly lines (which is grammar error). In order to fix it, I would have to rewrite it and I couldn't do it. I fixed a couple sentences and she kept saying, "Why? Why?" without listening.

 

[Interpretrator]

An example of Deaf English is the word "why."

Deaf English: I go store why? buy bananas three.

Hearing English: I went to the store to buy three bananas.
OR: I went to the store because I needed to buy three bananas.

That isn't "Deaf English," it's just glossing ASL. It's a written transliteration of ASL signs into English words while maintaining the word order of ASL, just like SEE but in the opposite direction.

The rhetorical question structure appears in English but isn't nearly as strong of a grammatical feature as it is in ASL.

I am interested to know if you had a method to overcome this difficulty in tutoring. I had been thinking the past few days about possible experimental teaching methods, but I first need to understand more about how ASL works

You completely answered your own question! You will be most effective as a teacher or tutor if you have as full an understanding as possible of both ASL and English. In this particular case it's actually less important to be a fluent speaker/signer than to clearly understand the rules of both languages' grammar. This way when a student isn't getting a particular feature in English, you can discuss how it works in ASL and how it's different in English. This is the basis of bilingual education -- teaching students about a second language using what they know about their first -- and it really makes things easier on students than being forced to memorize rules "just because."

 

[jenni-m]

You completely answered your own question! You will be most effective as a teacher or tutor if you have as full an understanding as possible of both ASL and English. In this particular case it's actually less important to be a fluent speaker/signer than to clearly understand the rules of both languages' grammar. This way when a student isn't getting a particular feature in English, you can discuss how it works in ASL and how it's different in English. This is the basis of bilingual education -- teaching students about a second language using what they know about their first -- and it really makes things easier on students than being forced to memorize rules "just because."

A very good point, which I acknowledged in the first place... (hence you say I answered my own question)

I was however looking more for actual general techniques. I know such techniques don't work for everyone, you have to 'customize' accordingly, but I was thinking more along the lines of flash cards, certain comparisons, examining how information is received and processed (for example, many who read English do not go by entire words, the first and last letter is the most important)... that is more what I am looking for.

 

[Interpretrator]

A very good point, which I acknowledged in the first place... (hence you say I answered my own question)

I was however looking more for actual general techniques. I know such techniques don't work for everyone, you have to 'customize' accordingly, but I was thinking more along the lines of flash cards, certain comparisons, examining how information is received and processed (for example, many who read English do not go by entire words, the first and last letter is the most important)... that is more what I am looking for.

Oh, sorry...you might want to search around and/or start a new thread in "Deaf Education" for that, so your question doesn't get buried.

 

[shel90]

deafbajagal,

hearing do say "I went to store today, why? bananas!"

I noticed that since learning ASL, my spoken English sometimes follows the ASL syntax. I have caught myself speaking like that and get weird looks from people who do not know ASL.

 

[jillio]

A very good point, which I acknowledged in the first place... (hence you say I answered my own question)

I was however looking more for actual general techniques. I know such techniques don't work for everyone, you have to 'customize' accordingly, but I was thinking more along the lines of flash cards, certain comparisons, examining how information is received and processed (for example, many who read English do not go by entire words, the first and last letter is the most important)... that is more what I am looking for.

Actually,we all read words that way. It is known as top down/bottom up processing. We see the word not as individual letters, but as a shape formed by those letters with the first and last letters defining the shape we see.

 

[deafskeptic]

I'll give you an A. Good job, and no rotten tomatoes.

I think I'll reserve my rotten tomatoes from the Astrology thread for someone who really deserves them. Audists of course... and any thread concerning cued speech deserves my tomatoes. I was quite neutral toward it but a certain poster is starting to make me loathe it. :P

 

[deafskeptic]

I noticed that since learning ASL, my spoken English sometimes follows the ASL syntax. I have caught myself speaking like that and get weird looks from people who do not know ASL.

LOL!

I remember when I was on my warlock on WoW and I came across a guy with the name Defsmith. I ask him if he's heard of Deaf Smith and then I ask him if he's deaf. It wasn't till after our chat that I had realized that I had asked him if he's deaf in ASL - not English.

 

[jillio]

I think I'll reserve my rotten tomatoes from the Astrology thread for someone who really deserves them. Audists of course... and any thread concerning cued speech deserves my tomatoes. I was quite neutral toward it but a certain poster is starting to make me loathe it. :P

LOL, rotten tomatoes, cucumbers, and anything else we can get our hands on!