Duration : 0:2:17

Duration : 0:6:37

Transcript:

Hi! I would like to share about the article written by Francois Grosjean who provided his perspective by researching Deaf children. The article mentioned that ASL should be the primary language of a Deaf child. Despite the use of various technological aids ( i.e. cochlear implants), sign language is mandatory period. Why? I will explain the reasons for you to think about it.

When hearing babies are born, they normally acquire language in the very first years of life that their parents communicate with them and that babies receive information by listening to surrounding sound environment such as T.V., radio, people having conversations, etc. Even some parents sign with their hearing babies making it more accessible. “Language in turn is an important means of establishing and solidifying social and personal ties between the child and his/her parents. What is true of the hearing child must also become true of the Deaf child.”

It is crucial for Deaf children to see a visual, 100 percent accessible, natural signed language that they are able to completely comprehend the information as they grow up.

But is this really happening for all Deaf children? Unfortunately, no. Why? Organizations like AG Bell, AVT (Auditory Verbal Therapy), etc. think it is not necessary to include ASL but focus on listening and speaking ONLY. That only approach HURTS! I will explain to you why.

First of all, we don’t know for sure if a Deaf baby will grasp information completely through auditory. All cochlear implant users don’t pick up the information in the same way. We know that some hearing aid users have developed strong listening skills and some of them don’t at all in spite of having the same decibel loss. Too often, people ume by exposing one language (oral) would do just fine until the moment they realize that this approach did not work. So what happens to that child? “He or she falls BEHIND in his/her development, be it linguistic, cognitive, social, or personal.” It becomes TOO LATE!

This issue is disturbing to DBC that this oral only approach is GAMBLING the Deaf child’s life away from academic development, social development, healthy emotional development, etc. We need to advocate more strongly on having both languages, ASL and English, for all Deaf children.

The responsibility, the duty and the goal of DBC are to make sure that ALL Deaf babies from the start have access to natural sign language that is acquired naturally as much as possible where two-way communication takes place. For a Deaf child to bridge to English (spoken English and/or written English), the most important part for academic success and future professional achievements is to master written English. Once a Deaf child has the ability to write well, he/she can do anything!

By using one language (oral) approach and excluding ASL with those who use listening istive devices, is it a right way? No! We know that obviously oralism involves RISK! BET! GAMBLE!

Having the ability to develop cognitive/personal skills will be minimized when using oral only approach. Why limit the Deaf child’s ability? He or she would have developed much more advanced in these areas (linguistic, cognitive, social and personal). Oral approach with most Deaf children is not perceived as communicating in a two-way street in a natural way. Research states that for a Deaf child to use oral only approach impedes communication and that the daunting effort to develop speech skills is consumed rather than focusing on developing cognitive skills. When using ASL, “it allows the young Deaf child and his/her parents to communicate early, and fully, on the condition that they acquire it quickly.” ASL play an important role in the Deaf child’s cognitive and social development and it will help him/her acquire knowledge about the world. They can express about anything that is much easier and clearer for them to communicate.

Hearing parents can learn signs and they need to get more support. What DBC wants to see happening out there is the establishment of ASL Therapy Centers. We don’t even have one here in America but we always have numerous speech therapy centers even hotline phone numbers where immediate attention can be given. More fund is needed to establish such centers where support to facilitate hearing parents’ signing skills will be much more possible in the future.

In the meantime, DBC has been sharing an important message that every Deaf baby has the right to sign. Why is this so important? There are numerous benefits and opportunities using ASL when a Deaf child grows up. In this case, opportunities are more of GUARANTEES.

BILINGUAL (ASL/ENGLISH) GUARANTEES A DEAF CHILD’S FUTURE!

Duration : 0:5:32

Hi! I would like to share about the article written by Francois Grosjean who provided his perspective by researching Deaf children. The article mentioned that ASL should be the primary language of a Deaf child. Despite the use of various technological aids ( i.e. cochlear implants), sign language is mandatory period. Why? I will explain the reasons for you to think about it.

When hearing babies are born, they normally acquire language in the very first years of life that their parents communicate with them and that babies receive information by listening to surrounding sound environment such as T.V., radio, people having conversations, etc. Even some parents sign with their hearing babies making it more accessible. “Language in turn is an important means of establishing and solidifying social and personal ties between the child and his/her parents. What is true of the hearing child must also become true of the Deaf child.”

It is crucial for Deaf children to see a visual, 100 percent accessible, natural signed language that they are able to completely comprehend the information as they grow up.
But is this really happening for all Deaf children? Unfortunately, no. Why? Organizations like AG Bell, AVT (Auditory Verbal Therapy), etc. think it is not necessary to include ASL but focus on listening and speaking ONLY. That only approach HURTS! I will explain to you why.

First of all, we don’t know for sure if a Deaf baby will grasp information completely through auditory. All cochlear implant users don’t pick up the information in the same way. We know that some hearing aid users have developed strong listening skills and some of them don’t at all in spite of having the same decibel loss. Too often, people ume by exposing one language (oral) would do just fine until the moment they realize that this approach did not work. So what happens to that child? “He or she falls BEHIND in his/her development, be it linguistic, cognitive, social, or personal.” It becomes TOO LATE!

This issue is disturbing to DBC that this oral only approach is GAMBLING the Deaf child’s life away from academic development, social development, healthy emotional development, etc. We need to advocate more strongly on having both languages, ASL and English, for all Deaf children.

The responsibility, the duty and the goal of DBC are to make sure that ALL Deaf babies from the start have access to natural sign language that is acquired naturally as much as possible where two-way communication takes place. For a Deaf child to bridge to English (spoken English and/or written English), the most important part for academic success and future professional achievements is to master written English. Once a Deaf child is the ability to write well, he/she can do anything!

By using one language (oral) approach and excluding ASL with those who use listening istive devices, is it a right way? No! We know that obviously oralism involves RISK! BET! GAMBLE!

Having the ability to develop cognitive/personal skills will be minimized when using oral only approach. Why limit the Deaf child’s ability? He or she would have developed much more advanced in these areas (linguistic, cognitive, social and personal). Oral approach with most Deaf children is not perceived as communicating in a two-way street in a natural way. Research states that for a Deaf child to use oral only approach impedes communication and that the daunting effort to develop speech skills is consumed rather than focusing on developing cognitive skills. When using ASL, “it allows the young Deaf child and his/her parents to communicate early, and fully, on the condition that they acquire it quickly.” ASL play an important role in the Deaf child’s cognitive and social development and it will help him/her acquire knowledge about the world. They can express about anything that is much easier and clearer for them to communicate.

Hearing parents can learn signs and they need to get more support. What DBC wants to see happening out there is the establishment of ASL Therapy Centers. We don’t even have one here in America but we always have numerous speech therapy centers even hotline phone numbers where immediate attention can be given. More fund is needed to establish such centers where support to facilitate hearing parents’ signing skills will be much more possible in the future.

In the meantime, DBC has been sharing an important message that every Deaf baby has the right to sign. Why is this so important? There are numerous benefits and opportunities using ASL when a Deaf child grows up. In this case, opportunities are more of GUARANTEES.

BILINGUAL (ASL/ENGLISH) GUARANTEES A DEAF CHILD’S FUTURE!

Duration : 0:5:29

* Interesting.
* They use real language.
* They can be chosen for individual interests.
* They illustrate accurate use of language in the target culture.
* And, they help students learn how to get as much information as they can, even if they can’t understand everything, or even very much.

An innovative offering from the Office of English Language Programs, Shaping the Way We Teach English, is a 14-module teacher training video series developed and produced in cooperation with the University of Oregon.

Duration : 0:11:11

Simon: Well, it has gotten worse. It’s been my experience that there is no bottom, one can always sink lower, and that the language can always disintegrate further.

RM: How would you describe the state of our language today?

Simon: Unhealthy, poor, sad, depressing, um, and probably fairly hopeless.

RM: Jess Sheildlower stands for everything John Simon hates. He is the American editor of the august Oxford English Dictionary. With his dark suit, tie, and rolled up umbrella, he certainly looks the part. But, you can’t judge a book by its cover, for he’s also the author of a scholarly history of the f-word. Jesse’s often in the New York Public Library looking for new usages. American English has always been inventive but it is now globally so influential that the Oxford Dictionary needs a full-time office in New York City.

Sheidlower: Well, American English has always been, at least for the last hundred years, it’s always taken great pleasure in its slang. You can find even Walt Whitman writing in praise of slang in the 19th century, about how wonderful it is and how poetic it is, and how, you know, this is the American spirit distilled into language.

RM: So when you come here what are you, what are you looking for?

Sheidlower: We’ll try to find magazines that have words in them that we think are gonna be of interest, and these can be in really any field out there.

RM: What are you looking at at the moment here?

Sheidlower: Well, right now we’re looking at some magazines devoted to tattooing and body piercing. There are terms for these different kinds of piercing and there are terms for different kinds of tattoos. Blue, a music magazine, has a lot of stuff about hip hop, which is a big influence on the language. Guide to Zines, Fanzines,

RM: Fanzines, fan magazines?

Sheidlower: Yes, well, they’re just called Zines nowadays.

RM: So, if you find a new, a new word in one of these, one of these really lurid magazines, and you decide to put it in, does that mean that the dictionary has adopted the word and as it were recognised it?

Sheidlower: No, not all. For now it just means that we have an example in the data base, but then we have an example in Time Magazine, and then we have an example in New York Magazine, and now we have an example in so and so. And we start to think, well okay, this is term that started off as a very restricted sub cultural thing, but now it’s very wide spread. And the fact that we did read something like this originally will tell us something that we wouldn’t know if all we read was Newsweek.

RM: Language enthusiasts tend to be either prescriptivists or descriptivists. Descriptivists like Sheidlower and other dictionary makers are content to describe language as it changes. Prescriptivists like Simon believe you need prescribed rules to preserve language.

Simon: The descriptive linguists are a curse upon their race, who, of course, think that what the people say is the law. And by that, they mean the majority, they mean the uneducated. I think a society which the uneducated lead the educated by the nose is not a good society.

Descriptivists deny treating uneducated usage as the law since they label it non-standard. But, they may record things like the often violent, homophobic, misogynistic lyrics of gangster rap. The result gives new currency to words like “ho” and “bitch”.

RM: What do you say to the people like John Simon who are really angry about what they see as a serious decline in linguistic standards in this country?

Sheidlower: Well, I think they’re wrong, and I think they’re misguided. Language change happens and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Simon: I mean, maybe change is inevitable, maybe dying from cancer is also i

Duration : 0:5:17

An Art Performance presented by Peter Wolf

http://www.ludom.org

Duration : 0:9:55

give me the definition of ‘simpleton’,
what picture does that spring up?,
is it one with a simple life?
is it one who is the body of silliness?

with a downcast look,
look at what it is that you see,
there’s the simple way,
the simple life,
the simple way,
where, all is used and not wasted,
as though it were ‘trash’.

other’s follow a carrot hanging from a stick,
but who says that the fool will,
will he follow something more different,
such as a berry pie?

to know yourself is easy,
but beware of people who try to deceive you,
for they want you to falter and turn from the path of light and love.

but people don’t deceive you,
you can already do that yourself,
listen! what thought do you hear?
what feeling do you feel?
doubt?,
fear?,
anger?,
hate?,
fear?,
what doubtful thoughts you have here!,
let them go,
we don’t need them.

look at those birds flying around right now.
do they feel fear?,
no they don’t.

animals live a life of simplicity.
look, there are no simpletons, if you believe you are seeing simpletons, a simpleton you will be seen to be.

Duration : 0:2:12

Duration : 0:1:13

Duration : 0:8:57