American Sign Language and English bilingualism: educators' perspectives on a bicultural education

Teaching a second language to students who are Deaf and hard-of-hearing is unique because language learning techniques often disrupt spoken/phonocentric models of bilingual language learning that require speech before learning to read and write. Balanced bilingual educational strategies in education of Deaf and hard-of-hearing students include chaining concepts using American Sign Language (ASL) rather than relying on speech and lip-reading. Rather than focusing on speech as an initial step to learning English, ASL is used to teach reading and writing of English. Five face-to-face interviews with educators at a large Deaf residential school serve to explore issues and prescriptions for teaching language to Deaf students. Five themes are used for discussion: understanding ASL-English bilingualism, the significance of technology in Deaf education, the goals of bilingual language models, how identification plays a role in language learning, and suggestions for ideal ways to teach Deaf students. Limitations and suggestions for future research are offered.