ewa Domagala-Zysk
John Paul ii Catholic university of Lublin
summary
In contemporary times, learning foreign languages, especially English, is a must for anybody who wants to acquire high quality education and be competitive in the job mar-ket . This is especially visible in central and Eastern European countries and it is also true for students who are deaf and hard of hearing . However, their language disability makes it much more difficult to become a proficient foreign language user . They are hardly ever able to listen to foreign language speech and speak in a foreign language . The written form of communication becomes the main way to acquire and produce the target language .
The goal of this paper is to present deaf and hard of hearing students’ abilities as com-petent users of the written form of a foreign language they have been learning . The paper describes both the theoretical background of this issue and results of several pilot studies, conducted in different kinds of educational settings, in Special Primary and Low Middle Schools for the deaf and among KuL university students . The results show that deaf and hard of hearing students are only to some degree able to use English as a means of effective communication, although these abilities grow over time and are individually differentiated to a great extent . Finally, as university graduates, many deaf and hard of hearing students use a written form of a foreign language fluently, using it as a tool in solving different pro-fessional and personal problems . This issue needs further analysis, including longitudinal and comparative .
Keywords: deaf, hard of hearing, English as a foreign language (EFL), writing, Erasmus exchange
introduction
In the practice of teaching a foreign language it is very important to know who the students are, to know their personal characteristics, learning style, motivation to learn a foreign language, and past experiences in the field . taking into consid-eration the situation of a teacher of hearing-impaired students, first of all it should be stressed that there are many different types of hearing loss and its consequences differ according to its level, time of occurrence, family communication patterns and other factors .
The goal of the main body of this paper is to present deaf and hard of hearing students learning English as a foreign language as competent and creative users of a written form of the language . It is done by describing and analyzing the results of four different pilot studies carried out among different age groups of deaf and hard of hearing students in Poland by the author of this chapter . The analysis is preceded by a characterization of the general situation of deaf and hard of hearing students in the context of foreign language learning .
The conclusion is that, despite their immense difficulties in reading and lip-read-ing, this group of students is able to prepare meaningful texts of different levels of complexity . Their level of English production systematically rises and finally they might be able to use English as a tool for solving different professional and personal problems .
1. Deaf, hard of hearing, and hearing impaired in the Polish Perspective
In Poland, the first school for the deaf was established as early as 1817 in War-saw by Father Jakub Falkowski, and only since that time was regular care for this population organized . dynamic development of schools and rehabilitation centers were supported by the Institute of Special Education, initiated in Warsaw in 1923 by Maria Grzegorzewska (who previously earned a doctorate in Aesthetics at the Sor-bonne), where teachers for disabled students had the opportunity to get the highest possible qualifications, also recognized abroad (orizio 2006) . This intense work was stopped by WWII, but soon afterwards schools and other special educational insti-tutions started their work . In the case of hearing impairment, since that time schools were usually separately founded for the deaf and for the hard of hearing: the first school for hard of hearing students was opened in Poland in trzebież Szczecińska in 1957 (Eckert 2001) . According to traditions handed down from the German school system, in Poland the oral way of communication was most popular and Polish Sign
Language or the Polish Language-Sign System were only partial means of commu-nication in education . In the 1970’s, it was popular to find in schools for the deaf the slogan: “Behave well – do not sign .” In 1984 Polish cued Speech was proposed by Kazimiera Krakowiak (1995) and started to be used in several special schools . The system of education for deaf and hard of hearing students was mainly segregative, with a range of special boarding schools all over Poland . They were located in all the bigger towns and served almost all deaf and hard of hearing students across the country . only after the transformation of 1989 was it possible to create integrative schools, and since that time more and more deaf and hard of hearing students have been educated in integrative and mainstream settings . nowadays special schools of-fer education mostly for pupils who are profoundly deaf or students with hearing im-pairment and other disabilities living together . As anywhere in the world, the popu-lation of the deaf and hard of hearing students is very much diversified and this trend is magnified by phenomena such as newborn listening screening tests (obligatory in Poland since 2002), early diagnosis, early therapy, digital hearing aids and cochlear implantation that enable both early diagnosis and effective therapy for the majority of people with hearing problems .
In Polish pedagogical literature there are several terms describing people who have problems with their hearing . The official term used throughout the 20th century was the term “deaf .” It appeared in all official documents, names of schools and other institutions that provided care and education for this population . Along with it, the term “deaf-mute” (or “deaf and dumb”) was used to describe these people who did not use speech as a means of communication . It is interesting to note that with the passing of time, these terms started to become pejorative, thus both in everyday use and in academic literature it was politically correct to use the term “hearing impaired”
(cf . Krakowiak 1995, dykcik 2001) . during the last two decades of the 20th century, several other terms were coined, usually the tendency was to place “the person first,”
so we spoke generally of persons with hearing impairment(s) or persons with hearing disorder(s) . only after the ideology of deaf culture began to be known in Poland, the term “deaf” (or “deaf”) started to be re-used by some groups of people with hearing problems, those who identify with this cultural trend and tend to feel pride in being a member of the deaf community . others, however, still prefer to be named hearing impaired or persons with hearing impairment .
In the deaf world and literature, along with the terms “d/deaf” or “d/deafness,”
the term “deafhood” started to appear . Paddy Ladd (2003) from Bristol university, England, who coined this term in 1993, states that it is meant to convey the positive meaning of being deaf . He sees it more as a process by which deaf individuals can actualize their deaf identity, their priorities and principles . deafhood is viewed as an opposition to the term deafness, which indicates the biological and factual state of a hearing loss . deafhood treats being deaf as a normal, even positive state and oppos-es those who want to cure it by hearing aids or cochlear implantation (cI) . deafhood is also understood as the personal journey of deaf individuals to discover who they
are and what role they are supposed to play in society . In order to do this, one has to liberate oneself from the oppressing hearing society:
“deafhood is not, however, a ‘static’ medical condition like ‘deafness .’ Instead, it represents a process - the struggle by which each deaf child, deaf family and deaf adult explains to themselves and each other their own existence in the world . In sharing their lives with each other as a community, and enacting those explana-tions rather than writing books about them, deaf people are engaged in a daily praxis, a continuing internal and external dialogue” (Ladd, 2003, 3) .
In the Polish context the above distinctions are very much theoretical, as there does not exist a Polish term for the English “deafhood .”
nowadays, the most often used terms are: persons with hearing impairment(s) or persons with hearing disorder(s) . They include all the people who have problems with hearing, not considering the etiology and severity of the disorder . However, both in research and educational practice, there is a strong need to distinguish between the groups of deaf and hard of hearing persons . traditionally, in Poland, the borderline between them is based on the audiological measurements proposed by BIAP (Bureau International d’Audiophonologie) . It is presumed that naming a person deaf requires that one has a hearing impairment of 70dB or more . Those with minor levels of hear-ing impairment are described as hard of hearhear-ing . It is worth notichear-ing that in Polish pedagogy for the deaf, two terms are used for describing the group of hard of hear-ing: 1 . Niedosłyszący (hard of hearing) and 2 . Słabosłyszący (severely hard of hearing, cf . Krakowiak 2003). In the case of the former subgroup, niedosłyszący, it is implied that they can rely on their residual hearing while learning and using speech, although their hearing abilities are restricted . In the case of the latter subgroup, słabosłyszący, they are defined as people who are not able to use their hearing in the process of speech and language acquisition and who have to rely on visual signals to master it . Their level of hearing impairment is usually deeper than in the case of the first subgroup, but it is not the only criteria for being ascribed to either of these groups .
The distinction between people who are deaf and those who are hard of hearing has traditionally been based on audiological tests . However, medical and technolog-ical advances, early diagnosis and early intervention practices have made the audi-ological typology imprecise: it happens that a person with profound hearing loss, but with broad and early intervention experience, with constant rehabilitation, uses speech and functions more like a hard of hearing individual than a deaf person . on the other hand, in schools for the deaf, there are still children whose level of hearing impairment is relatively small (50-60 dB) and who are not able to use speech as their means of communication, because they prefer using sign language and being treated as deaf . Paradoxically, it sometimes happens that students at Special Schools for the deaf prefer not to be called deaf, but hard of hearing – despite their severe hearing disorders (90dB or more) . In the latter part of this paper there is some information about this phenomenon .
2. english Written Production of the Deaf and hard of hearing
As mentioned in the introduction, for deaf and hard of hearing people writing constitutes the main means of acquiring the language (through reading) and using it in communication . For English teachers of the deaf, there are not many sources that might help them to understand the nature of this process and its conditions in the process of foreign language learning .
teaching and learning foreign languages in groups of deaf and hard of hearing students is one of the most recent terrae incognitae in contemporary methodology of foreign language learning . The author’s extensive search for any research studies in this field brought no results . In this situation a kind of enlightenment may come from analyzing the results of research on the writing skills of hearing students learn-ing foreign languages and writlearn-ing skills in the national language of deaf and hard of hearing students .
Lee and Krashen’s (2002) theory may appear especially useful . They identi-fied four elements that condition the success or failure in writing among hearing students . These are: reading, fear of writing, self-correction and the process of writing . In a detailed analysis, Lee and Krashen explain their theory, suggesting that it might be completed by each teacher with his or her own observations . They suggest that, first, in order to write well, one must read extensively, not only oblig-atory texts, but also be in the habit of reading just for pleasure . Second, fear of writing correlates highly with failure in writing: students are afraid of disclosing their thoughts, making mistakes and they prefer to copy well-known schemata instead of preparing their own texts . Third, mature self-correction style (when the student concentrates on structure, preciseness of words and expressions and not only on formal aspects such as spelling) correlates with success in writing . And last but not least, as for the process of writing, the most important aspect is the frequency of assigning writing tasks – the more often a student writes a text, the better the texts are .
research on written production of deaf students in their national language was analyzed by e .g . cornett (2001) and Svartholm (2008) . cornet noticed that the written productions of deaf students often resemble a foreigner’s style: language is generally simplified and clumsy . Svartholm notices that the language used by the deaf very often resembles pidgin: most often, the order is subject-verb-object (SVo), sentences are short and simple and mainly concerning facts but not opinions . The texts contain many vocabulary and grammar mistakes . Svartholm is one of the first researchers who considered the written output of the deaf and hard of hearing stu-dents not as inferior but specific . As such, deaf stustu-dents’ texts demand special meth-ods of description and assessment (cf . also Berent 1996, Krakowiak 2003) .
Written English production of hearing impaired Polish students was assessed in a series of studies by domagała-Zysk (2012a, 2012b, 2012c, 2012d) . These studies
involved different age groups and diversified research methodologies . The results will be presented below .
3. Written Production in english of the Deaf and hard
of hearing students in Primary and Lower secondary schools
In order to better understand the results, some information is necessary about the Polish school system and the status of foreign languages taught here . The Polish school system is divided into 3 types of schools: 6-year primary, 3-year lower sec-ondary (gymnasium) and 3 year secsec-ondary school . Learning a foreign language is obligatory at each stage of education . After the total domination of russian as the only foreign language taught and learned after WWII, in 1989 Poles started to learn foreign Western languages on a big scale, both at schools and at private language schools and centers . needless to say, this possibility was withdrawn from deaf and hard of hearing students: together with students with speech disorders they could easily have been exempt from foreign language classes and in the majority of cases, this was done . till 2001, only a few had the possibility to be taught foreign languages . only in 2001 was the rule established by the Polish Ministry of Education that deaf and hard of hearing students had to have foreign language classes organized on a par with other students . According to this rule, they can only be exempted from second foreign language classes .
nowadays, all Polish children learn a foreign language (usually English) starting in first grade . After 12 years of learning, they are expected to pass a Matura exam that consists of 5 parts, including reading comprehension, Grammar and Vocabulary, Writing, Listening and Speaking . For some of the students, it is possible to achieve level c1 or c2 by that time and pass the Extended English Exam that is a good start-ing point to enter a university . others pass the Basic English Exam (A2/B1) . deaf and hard of hearing students have two options of passing the Matura Exam: the first is to take a regular Extended English Exam without its speaking and listening parts and the second is to take the Basic English Exam which has a form prepared for deaf and hard of hearing students . Its main modification involves providing additional vocab-ulary and grammar exercises instead of the speaking and listening parts . Apart from this, the texts prepared for the Reading Comprehension tasks, clues and introduction to Writing are prepared in such a way as to to answer the special language needs of the deaf and hard of hearing students (the topics tend to be connected with regular life events rather than abstract phenomena, and vocabulary that is too abstract and sophisticated is exchanged with more regular words) .
In the following fragment, the results of some pilot studies will be presented and discussed . They were conducted in primary and low secondary schools and among
university students . It has not been possible to conduct research among secondary school students, so there is a kind of a gap within the presented research body . Such research is to be undertaken in the very near future .
The written production of deaf and hard of hearing primary school students was analysed in research by domagala-Zysk (2012a) . In this research 78 deaf and hard of hearing primary school students (IV, V and VI grade) took part . They have been learning English as a foreign language for 2-4 years . The subjects were 12-16 years old1 and a majority of the group consisted of males – there were 38 boys (73%) and only 14 girls (27%) in the whole group . 33% of the participants identified themselves as deaf and 67% as hard of hearing .
As a research task the children were asked to prepare as many sentences in English as they could for the following topics: 1. Me; 2. My family; 3. Food; 4. An-imals; 5. Weather. Although the research group consisted of 78 persons, only 39 written works were obtained . The pupils prepared altogether 265 sentences and that result means that it is almost 8 sentences per capita . The shortest answer con-sisted of 3 sentences and the longest contained 16 sentences . The sentences were very simple in their form and provided information about the students and their family members’ names, age, likes and dislikes and place of living . Information about favourite animals and food usually consisted of a series of nouns presenting the students’ choices (e .g . dog, ham) and information about the weather consist-ed of adjectives describing the weather conditions . The sentences were analyzconsist-ed and their grammatical correctness was checked . All the sentences without any ex-ceptions were single sentences of the simple pattern subject – verb - object (SVo) and this type of structures is typical for students with hearing impairment (Berent 1996) . unfortunately, only 140 (53%) of the entire corpus of 265 sentences were grammatically correct (cf . tab 2) . The most common mistakes included incorrect sentence structure (16 .6%) that usually resembled a group of freely gathered words, not a sentence structure . next, common mistakes include the incorrect use of verb forms (16 .4%), the omission of definite and indefinite articles (15 .6%) and the lack of plural form markers (13 .6) . other common problems appeared in adjective sen-tences (8 .8%) . deaf and hard of hearing children quite often, when they do not know a word in English, use a Polish word that may mean the same (8 .8%) . The
As a research task the children were asked to prepare as many sentences in English as they could for the following topics: 1. Me; 2. My family; 3. Food; 4. An-imals; 5. Weather. Although the research group consisted of 78 persons, only 39 written works were obtained . The pupils prepared altogether 265 sentences and that result means that it is almost 8 sentences per capita . The shortest answer con-sisted of 3 sentences and the longest contained 16 sentences . The sentences were very simple in their form and provided information about the students and their family members’ names, age, likes and dislikes and place of living . Information about favourite animals and food usually consisted of a series of nouns presenting the students’ choices (e .g . dog, ham) and information about the weather consist-ed of adjectives describing the weather conditions . The sentences were analyzconsist-ed and their grammatical correctness was checked . All the sentences without any ex-ceptions were single sentences of the simple pattern subject – verb - object (SVo) and this type of structures is typical for students with hearing impairment (Berent 1996) . unfortunately, only 140 (53%) of the entire corpus of 265 sentences were grammatically correct (cf . tab 2) . The most common mistakes included incorrect sentence structure (16 .6%) that usually resembled a group of freely gathered words, not a sentence structure . next, common mistakes include the incorrect use of verb forms (16 .4%), the omission of definite and indefinite articles (15 .6%) and the lack of plural form markers (13 .6) . other common problems appeared in adjective sen-tences (8 .8%) . deaf and hard of hearing children quite often, when they do not know a word in English, use a Polish word that may mean the same (8 .8%) . The