English VS ASL

When Erin first came home,

Communication was the biggest concern.

She was coming with only Chinese Sign language.

We enrolled her into our local deaf school

less then a week being home.

She was eager to learn ASL and to

be surrounded by deaf people

which wasn't us.

 She was just over 13 and was being placed in 7th

grade to be with peers,

even though academics wise she 

was nowhere near 7th grade.

She had a great one on one, that 

was also a great teacher assistance for Erin.

At the same time, some peers

were great with her, and others

were teaching her things that weren't good,

and she got in trouble because of it.
Which created more problems

 8th Grade they still had 1:1 for her,

but not for all the classes.

She was doing really well with picking up ASL vocabulary

but English was very slow and

with her having poor study skills from China

it was a challenge.

many times she try to give up 

and called herself stupid and dumb.

ASL was easier for her and she didn't really

see the need for the English language

no matter what people tried explain to her the importance

of learning how to read and write in English.

 9th grade she enter high school

with one other girl,

the rest of the girls transfer to the other deaf school.

This was a very tough year for Erin,

Many problems with way more boys

and only two girls.

Erin was no longer had 1:1, but did 

have a class that it was just her and the teacher,

She had more motivation to learn English

but still became easily frustrated

She was given many suggestions by

different people on how to improve

with English none which really interested her.

It was just to confusing.

She had also joined the hearing school volleyball team as 

there wasn't enough kids at the deaf school.

Difference between ASL and English:

With ASL, you leave a lot of little words out when signing and some signs mean multiple things depending on what you are talking about.  Also with ASL you use a lot of facial expression and body moment to get your point across.  (hearing world our tone in our voice is how we express along with body language.)   The noun and verb is switch around when signing.  And past, present and future usually are the same sign. Along with compressing sentences together.  

With English, what we say, read and write is all in the same content.  With ASL the way they sign isn't the same way they would write or read English.

For example:

ASL signer would sign go store buy milk (or something similar with that.)

English would be "I going to the store to buy some milk"

When Erin would write she struggle on how to put the words down on paper in what order.  

She could sign the four words in above sentence but to write it

she would not always know how to add the words or what time (past, present, future) part should she would need to us.

And trying to teach this to frustrated her.

  Dave and I knew 10th grade we needed to something different.

but what?

We knew sending  her to the other deaf school was out of question 

because we didn't want to dorm her, she was still learning 

about family and relationship.

What are healthy relationships and not.

She spend approx. 13 years without a family

and I wasn't a mother to her for most of her life and

wasn't ready to let someone else raise her or

be influenced by her peers because she

still was learning so many basic skills and

boundaries.  

I wanted her home with her family.

She was pretty much the only girl now (there were two other girls but they were in a transition program so they weren't around much)

So that left us with 3 options:

Stay at the current school full time which was getting to the point where that wasn't an options for many reasons.

Go to a hearing school full time

or do split schools.

The local hearing school was open to whatever decision we made.

The deaf school raised a lot of concerns about her going to a hearing school,

for example:

She wouldn't be taught in ASL (interpreter would be interpreting what the teacher said)

She wouldn't be around deaf peers and cause her to feel isolated

She had limited English skills (was testing at 3 grader level for reading and writing )

Her vocabulary was still growing and she had many more signs to learn and word definations.

Hearing school would be to fast of pace for her.

Erin was complaining that the deaf school was going to slow and was bored

yet she wasn't showing that what they were teaching her was easy for her.

So we knew we didn't want to keep her there full time.

Next question was she ready for full time mainstreaming?

She felt she wasn't

We didn't think she was.

So we decided part days at the deaf school and other part at the hearing school.

During her year at the deaf school, she complained a lot about 

the boys screwing around and not respecting the teacher and valuing their time.

Even though kids at the hearing school may have also misbehaved in 

class, Erin wasn't aware of it.

Her writing started to improve, she was reading a little bit better.

She enjoyed having the different elective class like clay, cooking, photography

she even took a shelter class (step down from regular) history

class and got a B in it.

She was so much more happier.

She also joined the dance team

and shocked a lot of people that couldn't tell

she was deaf.  This dance team

was a high kick dance team.

The peers both from VB and Dance were warm and accepting of her.

She was motivate more

and repeatedly stated that about the hearing school.

She said many peers would acknowledge her and some

would talk to her thru the interpreter or they would know a little bit of sign.

 
Now Erin is in 11th grade and we did the split schedule again.

She started on a Wednesday

Initially put a EL English class and Clay class at the hearing school.

I asked if they had a photography class available.

Thursday they switch the English and photography class.

Friday on her own, Erin talked to the counselor and got herself

back in the EL English class without me knowing about it.

This past week, Erin and I have had some deep discussions about English and what she is going to do after graduation. 

Good positive discussion and she didn't shut down or get moody when talking about life after graduation.  

Before that subject would shut her down and she would start challenging me that she was indeed dumb or stupid and we would have to go around and around like we done many times in the past.  

This time she didn't.

She requesting for me to sign English to her, which I said I would do when we have conversations between her and I and if there isn't other distractions.

She informed me that she asked her interpreter in her English class to try to sign English to her. 

She is also reading a 4th grade level book.

She is using her Ipod to look up words and if she still doesn't understand she ask.
She is reading things outside of the house and will ask what it means.

It took 4 years for her, but the lightbulb went off in her head that learning English and understanding the English grammer and language is very important,
She is also learning from others from her family and other deaf people in community that
eventhough she is deaf, there is a lot of things she can do in the hearing world and that most of the jobs you apply for are in the hearing world..
She has also learned that reading can bee fun and you can enjoy it.

So now it time to explore more ways to get her more English exposure,
which will start with mainstreaming more hours.