"Deaf ways": literacy teaching strategies of deaf teachers in New Zealand

Abstract

Establishment of a bilingual NZSL/English approach for deaf children in New Zealand has led, over the past ten years, to the employment of deaf people in deaf education for the first time. As natural users of sign language, deaf people as teachers and sign language models have been considered crucial to the successful literacy outcomes of deaf students taught using this approach. This study investigates the literacy teaching practices of deaf people teaching in four different educational settings. Analysis of their work is presented within the context of an overview of the history of deaf people in deaf education and a description of the current situation of deaf education in New Zealand, with particular reference to bilingual education and the roles of deaf people. As an initial part of this study, a survey was conducted which revealed that 63 deaf people were working under 17 different job titles in the deaf education sector. Analysis of job descriptions for each of these positions provided insights into the key tasks of each position and whether these reflected the importance of deaf people as key participants in bilingual education, particularly students' literacy development. Against this background, the research then analysed the teaching practices and strategies of three deaf teachers and one deaf language assistant videotaped in different school settings as they were engaged in literacy teaching activities with students aged from seven to twenty-one years. Analysis of this data revealed the "deaf" socio-cultural aspects of their work as linguistic and cultural models and also identified a range of strategies used to teach English print literacy as a second language through NZSL as the first language. Strategies occurred during meaning-focussed and form-focussed language activities and included techniques such as translation, use of fingerspelling, contact language, the "chaining" of print and signed word forms, and vocabulary study. Retrospective interviews with the teachers gave them the opportunity to articulate their views, as bilinguals themselves, on their principles of bilingual teaching practice.