Languaculture and Biculturalism
This week I responded to a segment of a Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf education. This particular excerpt discusses the importance of Deaf culture in the context of Deaf education. I felt this article was a good way to introduce my personal opinions on how Deaf education should be structured. Terms such as languaculture and bilingualism that are covered in this text are crucial to my philosophies when it comes to Deaf education. Languaculture is the idea that culture and language go hand in hand and cannot be separated. This leads right into bilingualism, the notion that Deaf students should be exposed to both spoken/written English as well as ASL. I agree that it is so important to allow the deaf and hearing world be molded together to maximize a students’ potential. I am a hard of hearing individual and all throughout my education I was the odd one out that needed accommodation. I was always surrounded by hearing family, friends and classmates. When I was introduced to signing however, I was mesmerized. It was a language that was completely visual. The more and more I learn about Deaf culture and sign language, the more I think the two worlds need more intertwining. In my sign language classes, I excelled. There was no accommodations needed, it was a class that completely capitalized on my strengths most importantly visual learning. Visual learning is another big idea discussed in the reading. There are many ways to incorporate and promote visual learning in the classroom. Throughout my time on my blog we will be investigating different methods and models of Deaf education. Stay tuned each week for more! Hopefully at the end of this project, you will create your own hypothetical Deaf education classroom along with me that includes all of your opinions/philosophies.
Visit the article I responded to here: https://academic.oup.com/jdsde/article/21/4/426/2452850
Source: Dan Hoffman, Jean F. Andrews, Why Deaf Culture Matters in Deaf Education, The Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, Volume 21, Issue 4, October 2016, Pages 426–427, https://doi.org/10.1093/deafed/enw044
