Sorry for the long post.
Yeah, it's all too common in the UK. Schools were encouraging deaf people to speak than to sign.
I remember all that BS from the 70's from 'experts' believing that all deaf children should be taught how to speak no matter how bad their hearing or lack of benefit from hearing aids give them.
I had intensive speech therapy from a tiny tot till primary school that the teachers there said that I had a larger vocabulary than the kids there. I was brought up in the total communication method which I found really helpful in understanding things. But my speech therapy was stopped when I left for Oral High school and was deemed 'passable' speech?!?!.
I signed to supplement my speech cos it was making my life hard for others to understand me - and I get this instead 'stop signing, put your hands under your legs, use your voice!' by my parents and other people. I was dumbfounded/insulted so I didn't sign.
To this day, I still talk more than sign as I saw it was a necessity out there in the hearing world if I wanted to get to places - career wise. At least my speech has improved with better hearing aids but I do fear for those who cannot gain any help from their HA's. I'm getting a CI this year and I hope it'll clarify things up for me as I find HA's muffle alot of the sounds I hear. I'm profoundly deaf by the way. I believe everyone has a choice regardless of the stigma or culture they're in. BSL, ASL whatever IS a language. Heck, they even have sign language terps at the United Nations!.
I had an interesting conversation with my mother about this, she just said that she was going by the advice of the 'professionals' in the 70's and that sign language was deemed limiting and she didn't want that for me and wanted me to speak well. I said to her, don't you find that insulting to those who cannot speak and need to sign in order to communicate?, she said no, but after a further debating about this subject. She now realises it's wrong to take away the deaf person's means of communication - namely sign language from them. As she now starts to see from a deaf person's perspective.
She now apologises profusely for telling me off for signing when I was younger. But she always says she feels left out if I sign to my friends, and my response was, what about me when you all natter together and I can't even follow the conversation and you wouldn't even tell me whats going on by saying 'it's nothing' ?! - She now gets it after all these years - a bit too late in my book but nonetheless the enlightenment has happened!
In my mother's words - she absolutely floored me with this! after debating about Oralism V Sign Language.
'For a deaf person - regardless of their hearing loss - demands an equal access to information/resources (yeah!). This should be provided in the best communicative means for that person - BSL, SSE, ASL, French, Italian etc.. This way the person can take away on board all that information and assimilate it, grow from it and become a better educated person as a result. If that person's means of communication was taken away from them - how do they learn? not much and the end result a frustrated, demeaned and depressed person (sure yeah). If the person has a such drive to do well, they'll find ways of getting around/accessing it but it comes at a price. is that true ?'
Who said that we deaf people aren't that creative, heck we are - just to access the same information as our hearing peers! Mebee we all should apply for M16/CIA/FBI
She's getting there... but she refuses to learn sign language citing old age! no-one's never too old to learn but I'm not pushing it for forsaking our mother/daughter relationship.
I am perfectly "normal", thank you. 
