Presentation given at VenTesol, Valencia, Venezuela.

1. Insights into teaching English to
deaf students in Venezuela
Prof. Julio Palma
Universidad del Zulia, Venezuela
Elizabeth Steyer
Gallaudet University, USA

2. Overview
• Legislation for accessibility
• Focus
• Common misconceptions
• Some theoretical framework
• Teaching tips
• Web 2.0 tools for teaching the deaf
• Support and resources for teachers

3. Legislation for accessibility

4. 45 pages

5. 16 pages

6. 42 pages

7. What do these laws say?

8. Focus
The main focus of our interest is deaf college students
who are skillful communicators in sign language and who
take ESP (reading) I and II at the University of Zulia.

9. Communicative Abilities
• Their first natural language is SL . (Sandler and Lillo-Martin, 2006)
• Written Spanish is their second language (L2)
• English is considered a third language (L3)

10. Common misconceptions
• It is sometimes believed that teaching English to deaf
students falls into a regular case of bilingualism.
• The universality of the sign is taken for granted; that is,
these signs are not just universal pantonimes to replace
spoken words.

11. Production Comprehension
Speaking Listening
Writing Reading
Manual –Gestual (L1)
Visual (L1)
Writing (L2) Reading (L2)
Bimodal Bilingualism P
h
y
s
i
c
a
l
M
o
d
a
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yThe official language of their community

12. Features of Sing Language
• “Sign Languages are used for everything
that spoken language are – within the
family circle, for social interaction, ..[…]..
for introspection and dreaming, story-
telling, and poetry”. (Lane and Phillip 1984, Padden and
Humphries 1988 cited by Sandler and Lillo-Martin (2006)).

13. Sing Language Syntax
Taken from Sandler and Lillo-Martin, 2006
• Word order possibilities in SL: SVO, OSV, VOS.
• Embedding of articles, pronouns, and prepositions
which are integral with the signing of verbs and
nouns.

14. SL effects on written production
According to Michael Strong these are some of the manifestations of SL
upon English:
• READING: “The results of numerous studies have consistently
demonstrated that the reading comprehension skills of hearing-
impaired students are considerably lower than those of normally-
hearing children of comparable age” (Strong, 5:1988).
• WRITING: “Sentences written by deaf children and adolescents tend
to be shorter (i.e., contain fewer words) than those written by children
of the same age”. “the misuse of function words (i.e., articles and
prepositions” (Strong, 6:1988).
• GRAMMAR: “Articles, prepositions, conjunctions, pronouns, verbal
auxiliaries, and inflexional and derivational suffixes are among the
most persistent and pervasive sources of errors observed in their
spoken and written English (Bochner, 1982; Quigley and Paul, 1984
cited by Strong, 6:1988).

15. Other intervening factors
Deaf people may differ in the respect of using the spoken
language. An individual’s degree of hearing loss, whether he
or she is pre-lingually or post-lingually deaf, the use of
language in their education, and their family background may
influence their use of spoken language (Lucas and Valli, 1992).

16. Some practical teaching strategies
1.Use lots of visuals in the classroom
• Understanding of spoken information is increased if it is
accompanied with images.
• Don’t use visuals aimlessly. Insert images in a sequential
manner. “For example, a PowerPoint must be in a teachable
sequence of visual information, all of which gradually adds up
to the whole of a course.” (Dotter, 107: 2008).
• Try to create topical lessons to accommodate visuals (family,
food, transportation, etc). This is best achieved by using
FLASH CARDS.
• Allow time to digest the information among them if they come
to the classroom as a group.

17. Some practical teaching strategies
2. Don’t expect them to lipread EFL.
• Lip reading is not considered full access to such information
as the ability to lip-read requires guesswork and familiarity of
content, which will only add more challenges in learning when
students are expected to learn a language not familiar to
them. However, some deaf people like to see the mouthing of
a foreign language.

18. Use web 2.0 tools
My experience in making a vocabulary video.
• CONTEXT:
A group of 3 deaf students who enrolled in my EFL class at the
Universidad del Zulia, Cabimas and who:
1. Have a very low level of English.
2. Are studying Computer Science but do not know technical
words from their field of study in English.
3. Do not have signs for tech words such as motherboard, CPU,
desktop, etc.

19. Use web 2.0 tools
My experience in making a vocabulary video.
• CHALLENGE: DESIGN A VIDEO TO TEACH TECHNICAL WORDS.
1. You are not allowed to forge or create such signs; they must
arise from the deaf community.
2. If they are newly available, the must go through a
standardization process which requires the supervision of an
official commission.
3. Once these signs are openly available they start being used
by the rest of the deaf community.

20. Use web 2.0 tools
My experience in making a vocabulary video.
HOW DID WE DO IT?
1. There was a small community in a private school in
Maracaibo that were using some computer-related signs
locally.
2. One of their teachers came to our university and taught us
these signs.
3. There is always a tech expert in the classroom who is willing
to help. A video was made.

21. Support and Resources
1. Web pages
• http://www.cultura-sorda.eu/
• http://www.conapdis.gob.ve/index.php/
• http://www.gallaudet.edu/
• http://www.wou.edu/education/sped/instructor_guide_dea
f&interpreter.pdf
• http://jdsde.oxfordjournals.org/content/by/year
2. Create a PLN

22. Bibliography
• Dotter, F. “English for Deaf Sign Language Users: Still a Challenge”.
English in international comunication. Eds. Cynthia J Kellett Bidoli &
Elana Ochese, Bern: Peter Lang, 2008. 97-121.
• Lucas and Valli, C. (1992) Language Contact in the American Deaf
Community. New York: Academic Press, Inc.
• Gernsbacher,M and Traxler,M. (2007) Handbook of
Psycholinguistics. Elsevier Publishing, Second Edition.
• Sandler, W and Lillo-Martin, D. (2006) Sign language and
Linginguistic Universal. Cambridge University Press.
• Strong, M. Language Learning and Deafness. (1988) Cambridge
Applied Linguistics.