Tutoring deaf English learners

Hello Everyone!
I tutor deaf college age English learners. They are not foreigners, but were born in the U.S., however their first language is American Sign Language (ASL). Sentence structure and use of articles are two of the greatest weaknesses for most of them, and is characteristic of ELLs from an ASL background. I am looking for suggestions onactivities, worksheets, or lessons that would be useful for these students.

Thank you very much!
Cathy

Welcome to the forum. :hi:

Do you teach hearing students too? If so, you can just use the same worksheets you use for them. Are you teaching from a course book? Does the college recommend a specific book or syllabus?

Can you elaborate on what sort of difficulties they have with sentence structure?

Hello to Everyone!
Thank you for the question. Right now I am teaching one-on-one with deaf adult college students at a state university. My position is that of staff sign language interpreter, but since I am a qualified and experienced teacher, I asked if I could start a tutoring program for our deaf students who struggle in English. I hope it will lead to a remedial class being established to teach in ESL methodology for deaf students in the future. (I should mention that I have a masters certificate in TESOL.)

Deaf students are often born into hearing families, and do not have the auditory exposure to the language of their parents and siblings. And since the families themselves don't usually know any sign language, they start from scratch, and by the time the baby is ready to enter school, he has only been exposed to a few signs in most cases, rather than any full language. So the problem is that they are behind in English by the time they enter school, whether it be a Deaf state school or a mainstream class with an interpreter. At the college level, our students enter at the 5th grade level , and sometimes below in written English production.

So, more often than not, regular worksheets at the students' level are babyish, intended for younger students. Or they contain various phonetic components that are not applicable in most cases. Even testing has to be adjusted in part.

I do have one book that is an entire system that would be effective for deaf learners, Working Text, by Sue Livingston. I plan to use that with my students, at least in part.

Other than that, what "regular" or other kinds of worksheets or books and activities do any of you suggest that would work well with visual learners? Is there an ESL book/workbook that would be good to teach basic grammar, even prescriptive grammar according to each student's weakness? Of course, I know that there would be adjustments that need to be made. That's a given.

My one student is needing help in use of articles, as his native language of ASL does not use them. What do you suggest to use as I work with him?

Thanks so much for any and all suggestions!
Cathy

emsr2d2 said:

Welcome to the forum. :hi:

Do you teach hearing students too? If so, you can just use the same worksheets you use for them. Are you teaching from a course book? Does the college recommend a specific book or syllabus?

Click to expand...

Tdol,
Thank you for your interest. My students have a lot of varied problems with word order, word choice, use of articles and verb tenses, and some just write English, but using their L1 syntax/word order. I would love to have some activities that can give added exposure as well as practice in correct English word order, help with choosing words carefully and concisely, and making good sentences.
It is difficult for these ESL learners because they have been treated as their hearing counterparts and basic plunked into regular remedial classes and pushed on to regular literature and comp classes, all the while struggling with English. They should have ESL classes, even if put in with foreign learners, as that would meet more needs than native language remedial classes, which they tend to fail several times before barely passing, if not given special tutoring.

I have one student especially whom I am tutoring right now that needs help with sentence structure. I meet with him one-on-one a few times a week.

Thanks for any ideas you may have to help with sentence structure!
Cathy

I have not taught deaf students- I have only taught blind learners, which involves different issues, but there were very few materials available in braille, and they were mostly old workbooks rather than textbooks. However, this does make me wonder about textbooks, as most modern textbooks are very much geared up for listening activities and use phonetics. However, the internet is awash with materials that are not young learner oriented, so how far would adult worksheets work? Most tend to be more text-based than visual, but is this a major obstacle? What is their literacy like?

The link below has a couple of links to materials for deaf learners, though I don't know how good they are.


https://www.usingenglish.com/links/...ds/Deafness_and_Hearing_Impediment/index.html

Thank you so much for the link. One of the resources looks promising to provide some workbooks and books specifically designed for deaf ESL learners!

All deaf people are different. Because most deaf babies are born into hearing family homes, they don't start out with a solid language base. So many deaf people have low English skills, and thus, don't read much, and this leads to very low literacy. So adult texts and worksheets don't usually work so well. Of course, we learn to adapt whatever materials we have, as teachers, so we use what we have until something better comes along.

I will check out the resources from that link, and perhaps will find a gold mine of resources I can use!
Thanks again for your help!
Cathy Rose

Tdol said:

I have not taught deaf students- I have only taught blind learners, which involves different issues, but there were very few materials available in braille, and they were mostly old workbooks rather than textbooks. However, this does make me wonder about textbooks, as most modern textbooks are very much geared up for listening activities and use phonetics. However, the internet is awash with materials that are not young learner oriented, so how far would adult worksheets work? Most tend to be more text-based than visual, but is this a major obstacle? What is their literacy like?

The link below has a couple of links to materials for deaf learners, though I don't know how good they are.


https://www.usingenglish.com/links/...ds/Deafness_and_Hearing_Impediment/index.html

Click to expand...