Teaching Reading to the Deaf by Educational Solutions Worldwide Inc.

Teaching Reading To The Deaf

Caleb Gattegno

Educational Solutions Worldwide Inc.

First published in 1973. Reprinted in 2009. Copyright ÂŠ 1973-2009 Educational Solutions Worldwide Inc. Author: Caleb Gattegno All rights reserved Educational Solutions Worldwide Inc. 2nd Floor 99 University Place, New York, N.Y. 10003-4555 www.EducationalSolutions.com

Table of Contents Preface ..........................................................................1 Introduction ..................................................................5 Chapter I The First Series Of Films: The Entry Into Language .......................................................19 Words As Graphic Designs .......................................................19 The Association Of Sight With Meaning ..................................22 The Teaching Function Of Film And Classroom Activity ........25 Words As Multivalent Signs .....................................................27 The Construction Of A Story ....................................................29 The First Few Numerals ...........................................................30 Summary ...................................................................................31 Chapter II The Second Series Of Films: Nouns, Adjectives And Prepositions .........................33 Nouns As Classes ......................................................................33 Numerals As An Example Of A Structured System Of Signs ........................................................................35 Irregularities In The Formation Of Numerals .........................39 Applications Of Numerals ........................................................40 Sentence Structures And, Transformations .............................43 Adjectives ..................................................................................46 Ordinals And Time ....................................................................47

Prepositions .............................................................................. 48 Summary .................................................................................. 49 Chapter III The Third Series Of Films: Verbs, Adverbs And The Rest .............................................. 51 Verbs Denoting Action; Tenses ................................................ 51 Adverbs And Articles ................................................................ 54 Pronouns .................................................................................. 58 Summary .................................................................................. 60 Chapter IV Spoken Speech ............................................ 63 The Intellectual Control Of Speech .......................................... 63 The Analytical Study Of The Sounds Of Speech ...................... 66 The Limitations Of Lip-Reading .............................................. 69 Communication Of The Deaf With Each Other ....................... 71 Techniques For Teaching Speech To The Deaf And The Partially Deaf ............................................................................ 72 Spelling ..................................................................................... 74 Summary .................................................................................. 74

Preface

When I completed my monograph, Teaching Mathematics to Deaf Children," in 1955, seventeen years ago, I put a footnote to tell readers that I had also worked on how to teach speech to the deaf. In 1958, on a visit to the American School for the Deaf in West Hartford (Conn.), I felt so unhappy to see the way the deaf students failed to learn speech in spite of their obvious intelligence, that I was moved to get more deeply into this challenge and came up with an answer which is described in this book written fifteen years later. Between these two contributions to the education of the deaf, I produced materials which can take students up to a level of mastery in some fields of mathematics, and in reading and writing of English and other languages, as well as in the study of foreign languages. I felt it my responsibility not to present general ideas, however attractive and easily shared, but to work out in detail classroom solutions to the problems teachers have to meet each day. In a similar way in this slim book, I take up the precise and definite challenges which the problem presents 1

Teaching Reading To The Deaf

to me and work them out up to the point where only the production of the actual material remains to be done. At the beginning of my work with the deaf it did not occur to me to use silent films for speech, although I had used them to teach geometry very successfully. When I came to the United States in 1965, I began a study of television and its role in education and teaching. My monograph "Towards a Visual Culture" (1969), was well received and the interest aroused persuaded the NBC network to screen for more than two years my "Reading English through T.V." These "pop up" films are the fastest way of making sense of reading produced so far and they have subsequently been used in cassette form in a number of schools. Of course, when I began to think of teaching reading to the deaf the many new techniques I had used in the "pop ups" came back to me as devices that could be adapted to the case of nonhearing viewers, and I found myself able to offer a solution to the teaching of reading to the deaf that is at once entertaining, immediate in its impact, swift and effective. The large number of technical problems that have to be solved in order to take deaf students from scratch to a mastery of English will make the production of a complete program of films prohibitively expensive. Fortunately video-taping is now such an advanced technology that we can realize some of the segments of this program on tape at a fraction of the cost of film. Films will still be required in a number of cases for specific purposes because video-taping cannot as yet tackle all the challenges, but for most purposes the video will reduce costs drastically.

Preface

If this text evokes some interest in the circles of educators of the deaf, I am convinced that a number of major problems can be solved in a matter of months at relatively little expense.

C. Gattegno New York City Christmas, 1972

Introduction

This monograph is dedicated to an exposition of a solution to the challenge of teaching reading and writing to deaf children, using the English language as the example. Speech â&#x20AC;&#x201D; that is, spoken speech â&#x20AC;&#x201D; can be taught after the children have reached mastery of the written language. This solution is therefore at variance with the usual procedure, borrowed from the non-deaf population, that spoken speech must be taught first and then codified into the writing of English. We shall assume in this monograph that our student population is made of the completely deaf, those who were born deaf and cannot effectively utilize a hearing aid. If these people can manage to acquire the skills of reading and writing then our task with the partially deaf will be that much easier, provided it is the case that hearing helps one to learn to read. There is a theoretical question to consider, when attempting to understand the challenge of teaching reading to deaf children. Most people engaged in this field face a similar dual problem, although the theoretical aspect may turn out to be a bias, a

Teaching Reading To The Deaf

preconception or even a prejudice. Thus it may seem obvious that since hearing people on the whole own speech and the deaf do not, and since reading assumes the writing down or encoding of speech, the order of things must be: somehow make the deaf acquire speech and be capable of making sense of language, and only then present the written language to them. This is a theory, and if it convinces some people they may then hold this belief as if it were a statement of fact, and construct their practice upon this foundation. The alternative theory which will serve as a basis for the proposals that follow, stems from many years of study of man and his various functionings. The universe of the deaf person is complex and extensive even if no sounds can reach his mind through his ears. A deaf person like everyone else, has a vast equipment at work through all the sensitivities available to him. We need only consider how he has forged links between many of the functions of his soma in order to learn how to sit, to stand, to walk, run, climb, etc. The study of all these learnings leads us to state that every child, whatever his condition at birth, knows how to use the central functions of the self to achieve the development of essential skills so as to will behaviors and apply them to the conquest of new skills. What deaf children do not do is spontaneously discover that they own the powers of coordinating the utterance of sounds to the hearing of sounds, and conversely. This inevitably hampers their learning to talk, which normally precedes and conditions

Introduction

learning to speak, and so they miss all that goes with the awareness of what can be achieved as a consequence of owning the power of speech. A description like the above still includes a comparison of the deaf to the hearing and presents the universe of a deaf person as if it is lacking in something. The respect for truth requires that we take a second look at the deaf to find how functioning universes can be available to them that permit considerable developments, even though they cannot attempt to equal the achievements of people who speak because they can hear. Deaf or not, people can be defined as awarenesses that integrate in their self the outcome of experiences which "educate" them, i.e. affect their awareness. Sometimes these awarenesses are accompanied by memory that has the property that it can be evoked while an awareness cannot. Awarenesses are integrated or made part of the self in an undifferentiated manner. Swallowing, grasping with one's hands, standing and other somatic skills, though learned, do not become associated with the particular events that accompanied the learning. The way that babies learn to use their sight or their muscles are similar in the use of both the deaf and the hearing, and if perception is important for development it will be as much a foundation for the deaf as for others. We can therefore use the same theory of knowing that serves others, to serve the deaf. In my book, "In the beginning there were no words - The universe of babies," two important chapters were devoted to

Teaching Reading To The Deaf

talking and speaking. A great deal of the babies' world is associated with speech â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a human creation which displays a deep knowledge of the economy of mental energy. In my book, "Towards a Visual Culture," I studied in detail the similarities and differences between a world dominated by the word and a world dominated by the image. In this book I shall attempt to pursue as far as I can the study of the contribution to education of all the powers deaf people have â&#x20AC;&#x201D; i.e. of the perceptions allowed them by what they bring into the world at birth. This study is at the same time psychological and pedagogical and will permit me to elaborate techniques and materials which will radically change the education of the deaf, particularly in the field of speech, reading, and writing.

If we are not taken up with comparing the deaf and the hearing, giving to the one all the advantages and to the other the disadvantages, we find that through sight it is possible to have rich and profound dialogues with the various worlds everyone can distinguish. Sight permits us to perceive simultaneously a multitude of components of a landscape and it gives us a synthetic way of knowing, which we can make analytic through visual focusing while still maintaining the whole in the background. Non-deaf, non-blind, people acquire through hearing an analytic way of knowing and take years to relate their synthetic sight and their analytic hearing so as to obtain the maximum from both.

Introduction

The presence of consciousness in the instrument of seeing is labeled looking, and in the instrument of hearing, listening. Deaf people may not be able to listen but they may well have the possibility of attending more to looking and gain an advantage over the hearing from this mere fact. (For the blind, it is an advantage to dwell more profoundly in a listening world. Ordinary people not showing anatomical or physiological loss of senses may be handicapped by being poor lookers or listeners.) An improved education of the deaf may result from the use of their propensity to dwell in their sight and their muscle tones alone. But much more can be done, as we shall see in the following chapters. An education of the deaf may also result from the activities offered them in a school or a special environment which is not offered by ordinary living in homes. If these activities positively affect the self, consequences of importance may be found elsewhere than in the areas initially aimed at. Education of awareness is always of this kind. It spills over into other areas. We shall see that this is the case with the proposals made in this book if they are applied by people aware of the dynamics of the self. Let us consider as a whole the energy system which is enclosed by our skin. There are chemical reactions going on all the time in it, as well as physical changes due to gravity, or the impacts of noises upon our eardrums, or the photons that reach our retina, or the muscle tones which vary under many stimuli, or the electromagnetic variations in the atmosphere, etc. all the time. Our tissues are molded by and for the functions they perform. Our organs process energy and through these processes educate 9

Teaching Reading To The Deaf

our brain so that it interprets correctly the significance of energy changes whenever they happen. Our self dwells in our senses and it activates or de-activates them â&#x20AC;&#x201D; as, for example, when we fall asleep. Particular segments of the brain are anatomically connected with each of the sense organs and these segments develop their own interpretations of the energy changes which take place every day, for many hours. This is what is meant by the education of the brain. Without conscious exercise by the brain, correct interpretations would be miraculous. The hemispheres connected with the sense organs, sited in the middle and lower brain are educated in utero for the interpretation of delicate somatic balances within the organs and tissues so as to maintain their optimal functioning. The internal connections between the layers of the brain maintain the flow of information required by the integrated person whose self has the overall responsibility for the use of the totality of his soma. In particular, the chemical metabolisms controlled by hormones and enzymes are directed by the pituitary, which is half made of nerve tissue and half of ductless gland tissue. Because of this concentration in the brain of the control and government of the numerous fine transformations which never cease to operate in the soma, it has been assumed that the brain dominates our life; most people share this view. However, there are phenomena which indicate that controlling and governing the brain there is an instinct for each species in animals and a will in each human being. The impacts of the "outside world" do

Introduction

not affect all species alike. What is food for one is poison for others; what delights one may generate fear or disgust in others. Each brain is educated by each self to produce unique individuals who encounter their world singularly. This long complex statement was necessary here because a basically new vision of the inner dynamics of the deaf is needed in order to understand the chances for success of an unusual proposal such as the one given in this book. Sight, hearing, intellect and emotions are usually thought of as belonging in separate compartments. What we propose here is to look at a person as a unity comprising many interactive processes going on at the same time. In particular, all functioning requires and uses one and the same energy which has then to be channeled through the various organs and tissues. When hearing people receive an amount of exterior energy through their ears, they process it at once, integrating it with all the energy that was there previously. This change in the amount of energy changes us continually even if we only become aware of it when the level of change reaches a certain threshold. The amounts of energy received through the eyes are much smaller than those received by the ears. For this reason seeing people who are deaf develop in early childhood a very different connection with energy from that of hearing people. This can be thought a handicap if we compare hearing and deaf people, but 11

Teaching Reading To The Deaf

an opportunity if we only concern ourselves with the phenomenon in order to understand it and find how to use it. Sound acting upon our ears will make us spend energy in turning our head towards its source. Totally deaf people neither receive nor expend this mechanical energy. Sources of light do not attract the same degree of attention as sounds unless they are in a direct line with the eyes, or unless they are very powerful. It requires careful scrutiny to become aware of the many shades and colors that indicate the multitude of light sources contained in the environment. The deaf have more time to use in this study, because hearing people have to study sounds as well as light. They can become far more expert in their acquaintance with light than hearing people. Sensitivity to changes in the light field carries with it a grasp of shapes and all their modifications. These are perceived directly, not verbalized and not subject to the slowing down that verbalization brings. Though deaf people cannot benefit from warnings of danger that appear in the form of sounds and may develop a vulnerability (easily transformed into anxiety) to what happens in the outside world, they may be better prepared than hearing people to benefit from inconspicuous changes in the field of vision. Their sensitivity to visual changes may be the equipment on which to work if we want to reach them without words and to establish inner changes corresponding to those that non-deaf people develop through hearing. We can therefore use the medium of film to generate awarenesses which may provide the deaf with

Introduction

enough experience of signs and their transformations that they can be brought deliberately to the place where chance takes most of us. But there is more to be achieved in the education of the deaf provided we do not become too timid and stop too soon on our road to becoming aware of their needs. If we look at the deaf mainly as handicapped and let their lack of hearing loom large for us, we may forget that each of us is an incredibly complex system: one entity within which the energy of the self controls and activates all sorts of functionings in subtle and deliberate ways. There is much in each of us, regarded as an energy system, that can serve us better if we do not fragment the total field and seek ad hoc connections between the pieces. Each of us can affect the muscle tone of each voluntary muscle in subtle ways, as I am doing when writing this page. When learning to write we have to be in direct contact with this inner dynamics in order to make our hand mold its movements to our visual images of words and their shapes. The analytic movements of our muscles are directed by our synthetic consciousness of the whole of the task as expressed in the images of the words which guide us. If people are made aware of these dynamics through appropriate exercises, we make available to their will all that is involved in them so that they are then available for any other activity besides the one in which they were first met. This is a secret of

Teaching Reading To The Deaf

the education of awareness that does not belong to the traditional approach. It is therefore better suited to the education of the so-called handicapped, who should be spared the risk of becoming more handicapped through incorrect training. If we can reach the student's awareness we can count on the mobilization of his self and the transfer of learning. Is this not what we find with all our skills? Once our hand has learned to grasp, we use grasping instrumentally to lift ourselves and become ready to learn to sit, to stand up, to climb onto a chair, and so on. If we manage to understand how to make deaf people aware of some of their functionings we can also show them how they can be used for other purposes. This is the basis of our proposal. Reading as an intellectual activity can become the consequence of some involvement of the self in some arbitrary but structured uses. Instead of taking written designs as its support the same activity can as easily begin from lip formations and the tone of the surrounding muscles in order to evoke the dynamics of the self's functionings as a muscular system. The results that are produced, though not recognizable as sounds, can be recognized through secondary attributes as corresponding to the signs perceived. The same mental organization gets hold of the somatic components and merges them with as much precision as in the case of hearers, the result being lip-reading. Deaf people cannot see all the muscular changes taking place when people produce sounds as speech, but they see enough to trigger the complementary components that are compatible with those perceived. Hence they have the capacity to affect their larynx and tongue in the way that speakers do, even though these 14

Introduction

elements are invisible from the outside. Deaf people use more than sight to decode the movements which produce sounds. They use their "somatic intelligence," developed in utero and soon after birth. Unless we see that more than imitation is involved, the capacity to lip-read seems to be another miracle. Another important insight in the universe of the deaf results from taking into account the emotional dynamics that arises from a withdrawal from social intercourse. The deaf see people come and go, and they grow up in more or less closer contact with themselves than with others when they notice that the mystery of speech serves as a link and they cannot use it spontaneously. We need not equate the social diffidence of the deaf to their being unsociable or uninterested in other people's concern for them. But educators can use more easily and with greater yields the inner dialogue of the deaf where they are accustomed to using the real dialogues of the hearing as a basis for the education of the deaf. Inner dialogues contain their own criteria and are less subject to interference and confusion. By throwing the deaf back onto themselves they will get a more reliable response than by counting on others to show them how to learn. For this reason, deaf people will take to individualized activities with enthusiasm where hearing people feel left out. Rather than conditioning the deaf to someone's idea of how to enter speech (and there are many bright ideas in circulation), the approach of this book is to mobilize simultaneously the dynamics of sight, the dynamics of feelings and the dynamics of .the intellect, letting the deaf learner recognize that the changes of consciousness he goes through are not arbitrary in all respects but contain permanent 15

Teaching Reading To The Deaf

features. He may integrate these into large wholes and become capable of still larger integrations into still larger wholes. The law of learning is not linear. Learning is generally slow in the beginning and accelerates faster and faster as greater mastery of the components is reached. The use of this law of learning means that for lessons of equal duration more material is made available in the second period than in the first.

To sum up the proposal which is described in detail in the subsequent chapters, we see â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 1

that if reading could be taught before speaking there is a chance that the deaf would benefit;

2 that if we want to assist learners to retain words we must make sure that meanings exist for them before we introduce the words; 3 that television and film are teaching media per se and have qualities that may be more helpful to deaf students than teachers on their own can be, at least in the introductory stages; 4 that films and classroom materials can be coupled to ensure that learning has taken place;

Introduction

5 that it is preferable to forget deafness as a handicap and use the numerous existing powers of the mind of the deaf in self-education; 6 that a theory of the self as an energy system allows us to be optimistic about the possibility of finding new and effective solutions to educational problems.

Chapter I The First Series Of Films: The Entry Into Language

Words As Graphic Designs We must convey to the viewers that written words obey laws and are made to behave in special ways â&#x20AC;&#x201D; which will later become the basis for learning the properties of speech. For instance, words keep their form when looked at from different distances and angles although they may appear smaller or bigger, or upside down or turned sideways. The first film handles through animation the following transformations . The word get appears, is first made to recede and then come closer, up to the point of leaving only e on the screen; et is then 19

Teaching Reading To The Deaf

shown before get is restored. The g and t now drop away; p arrives from another direction and t is brought back to its first position. pet is treated in the same way as get to show that change of size is a permissible transformation. Then pet is stabilized and, as if the letters are on a rotating circle, p is replaced by m to form met, by s to form set, by 1 to form let, by w to form wet and by b to form bet, leaving each initial consonant on the revolving circumference, which is now available for various games. A quick forward and backward movement generates in the window each of the words in random order so as to ensure that the visual image is well formed in the mind of the viewer. Checks are made by bringing separately onto the screen any of these words and placing the double of it in the window. The rotation can now be random and the "flashing" of the window will be a conventional signal that the correct matching has been achieved. Another concentric wheel is now added to the first one; it carries, besides the e of net, u to form nut, o to form not, with n and lb kept fixed. Returning to pet, pot and pit can be formed (but not put which contains a u that we shall distinguish from the u in nut by color later). In quick succession we form "gestalts" where the letters on the two circumferences form words that are left on the screen for a short time to be "photographed" by the viewer. 20

Chapter I The First Series Of Films: The Entry Into Language

Passing to the third letter, and starting with met, we form men by substitution of n for t, then man; form pen, then pin, sin, win, etc. The third circle of consonants will be sufficient to demonstrate the mechanism of substitution as a producer of words. These "words" are, of course, still only designs since we have not associated sound or meaning to any of them. Returning to pit in the window, we clear the remainder of the screen and then remove p, leaving it at the center. A double of it is formed and sent to the northwest corner of the screen, at is produced and goes to the northeast corner, as is produced and goes to the southwest corner, and is to the southeast corner. The screen now holds four forms: as, is, at, it. it and is are brought to the center and form it is on a horizontal line. A permutation produces is it, restored to it is, then changed into as is, which then for a moment becomes at it, by calling in the top two words. Then as is returns, as it is is formed, is it as it is, and it is (as in pop up #5), filling the screen with these two sentences. Returning to net we reverse the order and get ten, from which men and man are obtained. We go back to ten to obtain tent and sent and, by insertion, spent. We now have five concentric wheels on which to place at will the required letters and we can use it as a word-machine to manufacture words.

Teaching Reading To The Deaf

We could pursue this sequence of games and introduce all the consonants of English, but our purpose is different. We want to convey messages to viewers so that they know that by relating to some simple rules they can make sense of the act of reading.

The Association Of Sight With Meaning We now attempt to convey meaning by associating to the words already formed images which will evoke experiences well known to the viewers. A drawing of a man appears. A second later, the word man appears and is first placed under the drawing as a caption, then at the side and at the top of the drawing. The two designs are removed to the left. A copy of the man is formed and placed near the first, the word man reappears and is placed as before in several positions. Since two figures are now present the word men appears under a horizontal bracket inserted temporarily (which will become the signal for thinking of plurals), the two words man appearing near each figure alternately with men. In swift succession another copy is added to the previous ones so that man is associated with one figure while men always appears under a constantly expanded bracket indicating the bringing together of the multiple images. Thus we have managed to convey that each of the two words has one meaning and we can show that interchanging the two words is not allowable by a device which conveys that an error is being

Chapter I The First Series Of Films: The Entry Into Language

produced within the rules of this game. We can expect the animation of the letters to convey a feeling of non-acceptance or of acceptance when the association of a word with a shape or an action is wrong or right. If th is introduced first for that, then for then and than, it is possible to introduce a picture of a bun with the word bun near it, then make it recede and let that is a appear and the word bun run to form that is a bun. The picture of a bun is then replaced by the picture of a man at a distance and that is a man appears. As the pictures are shown advancing towards the viewer, that is transformed into this, and this is a bun, this is a man, are shown in turn and returned to the original form when the pictures recede. Two such transformations will establish that this and that are signs which relate to proximity and distance respectively. Plurals are introduced independently of this and that by presenting duplicate drawings and changing the captions by adding an s. A quick succession of associations, first of pictures and words to establish the correspondences, then of statements this is a ----- or that is a ----- will establish by the process of receding or bringing closer which written forms are the appropriate ones, is and a remaining the same throughout the transformation.* When a duplicate of each picture is produced then these and those appear, a disappears and is is replaced with * Provided the name of the object does not begin with a vowel.

Teaching Reading To The Deaf

are. More copies can be added. Another sequence of close-ups and receded pictures will establish that are is there because of the multiplicity of the specimens, that these correspond to this and those to that. A reduction of the number of copies does not affect these are ---until only one is left, when these becomes this, those becomes that, are becomes is, and the s of the plural vanishes. Associated with the films we can produce material for the student to manipulate. A special word-transformer with a set of pictures to match a set of words can produce as many examples as are required to cover the structures this is a----

that is a----

these are----s

those are----s Similarly we can illustrate on the screen is this a bun? and produce the answer as yes or it is or no, it is a pen, and practice a number of similar affirmations that a particular label goes with a particular image or not. We have met this is a man. We can add a segment of film to introduce this man is ---- and 'its variations. The positions of sitting and standing and the two corresponding words will give us the opportunity to show this man is sitting, that man is standing as a progressive construction and then to change all this to these men are standing or these men are sitting, those men are standing, for example. 24

Chapter I The First Series Of Films: The Entry Into Language

In this way we can provide a written vocabulary and a number of controlled variables that convey much more than this. We may have brought to light for the viewers that there exists a new medium(normally called language) which is made of arbitrary but constant signs whose dynamics reflect changes in the field of vision: to particular changes in perception correspond certain changes (regular or irregular is not the question) in the patterns of the signs. It is this awareness that will be extended in the sequel for it is this which will make deaf people free in the use of language, although at this stage we are only concerned with the written form.

The Teaching Function Of Film And Classroom Activity Before taking up the expansion, let us consider the classroom games and materials which can make every student certain that the field has been thoroughly covered, as well as opening up new ways of looking at the written or printed word. All the words used in the film can be printed on cards. (We can use the device employed in my word-cards of coloring the cardboard on which the words are printed in a unique association with one grammatical category.) Packs of cards and packs of pictures can be matched, as is already done in a number of published materials, to ensure the one-to-one correspondence between image and noun.

Teaching Reading To The Deaf

Cards can be inserted into a slotted board to produce the above statements visually. Taking one object, for example, a teacher can indicate to a student that he must pick up the cards needed to make the statement made in the film, and thus test whether the student fully comprehends the statements he has seen. If he does, the teacher can move on to other games. If he does not, then the film can be shown again and stopped at the first example for the teacher to select the cards and place them on the board, pointing at the words and their order, then stopped at the second example for the student to attempt it. Alternatively, a direct attack on the selection of particular cards to form one of the statements may produce the reason why the task was not understood. Film has several advantages. 1

It does not lose patience with the students.

2 Once made it can be copied indefinitely and shown to thousands of people. 3 By focusing attention on certain facets of a situation it can eliminate the distractions that arise when the same situation is studied in the normal environment. But the work in the classroom can be just as vital if it serves to consolidate through actions that which was first perceived as dynamics. It must become an integral part of the reinforcement of the visual impacts of the films as well as a feedback system

Chapter I The First Series Of Films: The Entry Into Language

informing teachers whether a student now owns what it was intended that he assimilate. We shall leave the link between the teaching through films and the teaching in the classroom partly unstructured. Teachers will find out empirically how to switch from one to the other for particular children. But we shall assume that, because there is need for feedback, and films are only a one-way channel, every lesson will provide an opportunity for classroom activity whose end is to give the signal for moving ahead and using new segments of films.

Words As Multivalent Signs The first sequence of films can also include some units that bring the awareness that the words encountered are multivalent, as most words are, so that deaf learners transfer to the universe of words what they already know to be true in the world of perception. Illustrating that nouns are labels for classes and not individual objects is one of these important transfers. We use car as an example, since there are so many kinds of them, and we play the dual game of assimilating distinct objects through a common attribute and distinguishing them by stressing the differentiating properties. Hence we show a car and bring the word car onto the screen. The word is retained and, at increasing speed, one car is replaced by another so that many samples having different shapes, colors and dimensions

Teaching Reading To The Deaf

are put into the same class. Then we start again, but this time car is replaced, say, by four door sedan; car is returned for the next picture and replaced by convertible; car is returned again for the next car and replaced by sports car, and so on. We may wish to consolidate this with classroom activity using toy cars and cards in a matching, game, but we may impress upon the children that when classes can be subdivided into subclasses distinguishable by obvious attributes, new labels are often made available. Since two year olds often show that they can name all the different types of cars (Volkswagen, Chevrolet, Rolls Royce, Cadillac, Ford, etc.) we must assume that the demands of perception on everyone ensure the early establishment of the two properties of labels. 1

An indefinite number of objects can have one label.

2 Different objects that can be labeled in the same way may have additional names to distinguish them, i.e. each object may be described in an indefinite number of ways depending on the labels that can be attached to it. In fact these properties are basic for language â&#x20AC;&#x201D; for thinking and all intellectual activity â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and permit the dynamics of speech to lend an apparent flexibility to thinking, to the point that linguists often identify language and thinking.

Chapter I The First Series Of Films: The Entry Into Language

The Construction Of A Story We can develop a story on the screen as a summary of a sequence of images accompanied by captions that unfold from left to right on a line. The time interval between the appearance of successive words can be adjusted to suggest the phrasing of speech. Thus: this is a man will have a slightly longer silence between the showing of is and a than between this and is or between a and man, so that the spacing of the words indicates the way words are uttered in English by normal speakers. The scenario which accompanies a possible story is easily visualized. - this is a man - this man is sitting - he is sitting

he replaces this man

- now he is standing

now appears as the action

- now he is sitting

of standing or sitting is completed.

If we wish we can alternate now standing and now sitting a few times to force the association of now with the perception of actualization known as precisely by the deaf as by the hearing.

Teaching Reading To The Deaf

The First Few Numerals We conclude the first sequence of films with the introduction of numerals and the labels 1 and one, 2 and two, 3 and three. - these men are sitting - these three men are sitting

inserting the word three after the third figure appears and sits down.

From this we have: - two men are sitting, one is standing - one man is sitting, two are standing - now three are standing - now two are standing, one is sitting - now one is standing, two are sitting - now no one is standing, three are sitting. - none is sitting, all are standing

- these men are all standing.

flashing the word all and using it to close the series with -

Chapter I The First Series Of Films: The Entry Into Language

Summary We have used film to convey without ambiguity and without sound a certain amount of language. We have introduced a definite organization of a system of visual signals whose behavior is consistent and predictable and which were selected so that they made sense per se. With these films we have associated games which can be played in the classrooms or the homes in which deaf children can be given opportunities to acquire what they cannot pick up themselves from their environment. We have now reached a point from which the student can jump ahead, learning more quickly and absorbing larger chunks of the language.

Chapter II The Second Series Of Films: Nouns, Adjectives And Prepositions

Nouns As Classes Nouns are the least important of the components of language and can be conveyed so easily that in what follows we shall do what we did before when introducing them and pass on to the task of supporting more subtle learnings of more elusive meanings. Nouns refer to one-to-one correspondences and can be illustrated at once by introducing first the image of an object and soon after a word that will induce the idea of labeling, associating the label to the object and conversely. Although we used an irregular plural as our first example (man, men), when we used other plurals the s was used in a functional manner, i.e.

Teaching Reading To The Deaf

the s appeared when more than one object was being referred to and disappeared when the set was reduced to one element. Those who learn a language do not expect all plurals to be regular unless they have been misled into believing it. In our treatment they meet from the start what traditional English demands. There are many kinds of plurals in English: nouns may be 1

collective (the government; the ministry)

2 unchanged from the singular (sheep, deer, fish) 3 produced by a change of vowel (goose, geese; mouse, mice) 4 produced by a change of spelling (thief, thieves; lass, lasses; fly, flies) 5 formed by putting an s at the end 6 Unusual alterations of the singular, as in Latin and foreign words (criteria, criterion; museum, musea; radius, radii; bureau, bureaux). We shall treat all this as having to be retained as it is without assuming that the deaf will either object to tradition more than the hearing, or require regularization because "these poor things" will have such an uphill struggle and must be helped. Deaf students, who have no sound to guide or misguide them, will accept more easily than others that in the system they are presented with these idiosyncrasies are not more or less baffling

Chapter II The Second Series Of Films: Nouns, Adjectives And Prepositions

than the substitution of are for is, or the maintenance of are when we pass from 2 objects to as many as we wish. We shall take in our stride all changes of spellings, and so will the viewers. The question of nouns that do not refer to objects is clearly challenging. How, for instance, shall we make the meaning of words such as thief clear by means of a picture? Although this can be done â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and easily â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the real question is, should we spend large amounts of money to teach now what can be learned later by other means at almost no cost? My answer is, definitely, let us only do the essential and provide instead tools for the deaf to solve the subsequent and perhaps marginal questions.

Numerals As An Example Of A Structured System Of Signs When we work on the teaching of adjectives and prepositions we have opportunities to innovate and take up the above matter in a more practical manner. In all we shall put on film the principle of giving viewers as little as is permissible and drawing from this as much as we can will guide us. Thus we shall establish a motivation which will be needed when the exercises are not of the kind spontaneously generated by the deaf or made of the thin substance that is all we can put on cellulose. This principle is pedagogically sound, but it represents a real challenge for those who contemplate the whole of a language and attempt to pick out the key pieces.

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As our first exercise we shall study the numeral and ordinal adjectives to establish the validity of our guidance by the principle: a little yields a lot. Starting with a set of centimeter cubes we can form a sequence of "trains" of 1, 2, 3.... cubes producing prisms 1 square centimeter in section and heights 1, 2, 3 centimeters, etc. Under the first we put the figure 1 and underneath that the word one; under the second 2 and then two; under the third 3 and three (one, two, three have already been met) and continue as far as 9 and nine. Then we form the two rows â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 1

one

two

three

four

five

six

seven

eight

nine

and play the game of randomly covering up a figure or a name so as to indicate that, although the order served to produce the sequence, the correspondence is now a thing per se and one can think of either when referring to a property displayed by the trains of cubes. A game with cards in the classroom will establish if the learner can with certainty give the corresponding name or figure when the other of the pair is indicated to him. Immediately after this sequence is mastered, a new pair of lines is given. 36

Chapter II The Second Series Of Films: Nouns, Adjectives And Prepositions

100

200

300

400

500

one

two

three

â&#x20AC;Śâ&#x20AC;Śâ&#x20AC;Ś up to

600

700

800

900 nine

with an additional word hundred being placed after each name in the following manner. When hundred is placed on the right of the name of a numeral, the figures above it flash. This relates 500 to its name five hundred, and conversely.-When these correspondences are established, it is possible to produce tables summarizing the learned material. The first gives the four lines shown above. A second separates the numerals from the names, and a third shows that the second line in each of the new tables is derived from the first by adding 00 to each figure and hundred to each name. By having, say, 400 on the screen on the left of the middle line and four hundred on the right we can make sure that four hundred seven, for example, is seen to be represented by 407 by simply replacing the 0 on the right by the figure 7. Giving a few examples of this type using 400 with each of the nine units and the corresponding names, we can see that a substitution of 400 by, say, 800 carries with it the message that the name for 802 must be given as eight hundred two, the structure of the situation ensuring transfer of learning. When this has been secured we return to the table having the two lines of numerals in figures and increase the horizontal separation to make room for another line on which we put 90 under the nine and flash the name ninety, the ty being made prominent to attract attention to it. Successively 80, 70, 60 are shown and the corresponding names flashed. Then a copy of, say, 500 picks up a replica of 70 and produces 570, and the name five hundred seventy is 37

Teaching Reading To The Deaf

flashed,(with the 5 made larger as five hundred is stressed, the 7 for seven and the 0 for ty). A few examples will fix the formation of three-figure numerals ending in 0 and the correspondence that gives their names. Returning to the new table, we can lift one of the numerals on the second line and let it pick up any of the units above, replacing the zero, and producing, say, 52 or 75 or 91, their names appearing as a juxtaposition of two names already met (fifty is flashed with the 5 and two with the 2, etc.). Since the spelling of forty is at variance with fourty it must be treated separately, perhaps by showing four and ty coming together and the u being pushed out. We can now return to the table and produce three-figure numerals, 562, 748, 981, etc., by starting with a numeral on the bottom line and making it pick up another on the middle line and one on the top line while the name extends itself by adding new words on the right. The screen can show a three-figure number in a box with its name at the side. 5

five

Hundred

six-TY

two

The name can be made to change either simultaneously with or a split second after the alteration of figures. The signs hundred and ty remain throughout all the changes.

Chapter II The Second Series Of Films: Nouns, Adjectives And Prepositions

Irregularities In The Formation Of Numerals To complete this study of numerals we have to introduce the irregular names. This is best done one at a time. Fifty instead of fivety will be accepted as forty was instead of fourty. But thirty instead of threety will require a trick animation to turn three into thir, and so will twenty instead of twoty. After each of these alterations practice with the new numeral can be given to ensure the mastery of the irregularities immersed in the regularities. Regularity permits economy but irregularity belongs to common usage. Hence we leave for a special study the ten and teens. Here too, we can increase the yield by not following the natural order but being guided by the names. 10 is shown and named ten. 10 picks up 9 in the way the ty's did before. 19 is the figure gestalt. Nine ten is shown for a second and then ten changed into teen and brought closer to nine to form nineteen. Then 1 ___teen appears on a line, the space in the box is filled with 9,8, 7, 6, 4 and the gap in front of teen is filled with the corresponding name. These names can afterwards be placed on the right of appropriate hundreds to form the names of three-figure numerals. A special exercise will draw attention to the order when we pass from the names ending with teen to the names ending in -ty. We are now left with the irregular teens, 13 and 15, and the two 39

Teaching Reading To The Deaf

numerals whose names have to be learned per se, eleven and twelve. As each is introduced and used in three-figure numerals there will be time to concentrate on the idiosyncrasies of numeration in the English language. If it is thought desirable, an extension of these films will serve the mathematical education of the deaf by showing "that when very little more is given to them it expands the mastery of the numerals to nine figures and more. If we name thousand the comma on the left of any three-figure numeral, e.g. 4, 372, there is no problem in reading it in the terms already encountered, and hence at this small additional cost to learning we can conquer up to 999,000 new numerals. If we name million the comma on the left of any six-figure numeral we can conquer 999.000,000 new ones. And so on.

Applications Of Numerals The meaning of the above is precisely at the level of language. If we want to provide another kind of meaning for the numerals we have two directions in which v/e can go. First, we can associate the names of the sequence of wellorganized signs that has been established to answer the question how many? i.e. we can use them for counting. Second, we can order the numerals so that when given two of them we can decide which one comes before the other in the

Chapter II The Second Series Of Films: Nouns, Adjectives And Prepositions

order and shift this know-how to settling questions of the relative magnitudes of two quantities. Our way of introducing the tables paid no attention to the numerical order with which we are familiar. Since 10 was introduced after 581, we cannot guarantee that being able to read nine-figure numbers makes one capable of saying "that 581 is larger than 12. Until larger is quantified through an order on the numerals this question has no meaning. We shall use two devices to bridge this gap. A well known table0

2 ......................9

12....................19

22....................29

32....................39

42....................49

52....................59

shows that a pattern exists among the numerals from 1 to 100. By using Algebricks it is easy to show that the length of a train of rods, given a name according to a well-defined system, provides a perceptible attribute with which to compare numerals. The longer length has a name which is governed by rules which can be made plain in a film.

Teaching Reading To The Deaf

Before coming to this question we will attach the names of the colors, white, red, green, pink, yellow, dark green, black, grown, blue and orange to the colored rods. A game already filmed shows how we can associate magnitude with the color label. For deaf viewers we can play the same game with a final phase in which the rod whose color name is shown on a card is the one to be brought out from behind one's back. Placing the rods in order to form a staircase gives a design such that on one side of it we can place the name of each rod and on the other the measure of each rod with white ones --so that if the white is labeled one (or 1), the successive rods can be labeled 2,3, ....9 and 10. The orange rod has been given the name 10, so placing one orange rod to make a train with each rod in the staircase in turn will give the chance to introduce 10+1 as 11, 10+2 as 12, etc., up to 10+10 as 20. A train of two orange rods can be placed on one side of the staircase to produce lengths v/hose names are 20+1, 20+2, up to 20+10, which can be written respectively 21, 22.....30, and so on. Because we now have trains to compare instead of numerals we can decide whether a train whose length is labeled 21 is longer or shorter than another whose length is labeled 12 or 13 or 19 or 31, etc. The words is larger than, is longer than, is smaller than, is shorter than, is the same length as, is equal to, can be introduced, as well as plus and the mathematical signs>and< .

Chapter II The Second Series Of Films: Nouns, Adjectives And Prepositions

In my book "Teaching Mathematics to Deaf Children" written in 1955, published in 1958, and out of print today, I showed how much mathematics could be taught to the deaf without speaking a word but with a systematic use of writing and of actions on the rods. We have given all this space to an exercise in establishing "abstract" meanings so as to convey the conviction that it is possible to teach large chunks of language through particular situations which can be selected for their richness and ease of production.

Sentence Structures And, Transformations These same rods can serve to introduce learners to basic language patterns and vocabulary, as I showed in my book "Teaching Foreign Languages in Schools: The Silent Way." Indeed, the following example, that can readily be put on film (or film strip) and edited so as to interleave written forms and images, will suffice to show how easily we can distinguish concepts, give practice in them and extend them. Two rods of different colors are placed side by side. This can be verbalized, but the orientation of the pair in space requires the language to distinguish one on top of the other (or underneath) from one behind the other (or in front of), and from one on the left of the other (or on the right). Using a third rod, between can be introduced as a relation equivalent to a pair of the above

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relationships holding simultaneously, while another treatment allows us to introduce which is and practice the other prepositional expressions, as in: the red rod is on top of the green which is on top of the pink one, or, the pink rod is underneath the green which is underneath the red one. Putting more rods in the sequence only requires use of oneself in the manner required by speech, i.e. a flow of words (a temporal sequence of images of words triggered by the conscious passage of one's eyes over the specific objects and the boundaries between them) dictated by the perception and its mental interpretation. This means that not only does one notice which rods are part of the situation, but also their relative position, their order according to the end from which one starts scanning, etc. These prepositions are added to the perception of colors expressed through adjectives. In English both are invariant for number and gender and this can be illustrated in special situations: two red rods side-by-side are on top of three green ones side-by-side; two men standing side-by-side are behind three women sitting side-by-side, or such similar expressions. The rods can be used to introduce comparative and superlative adjectives. The adjectives long, short, little, big, closer, farther, are easiest to illustrate. To illustrate hard, soft, hot, cold, heavy, light, etc., we need other materials. Still, the exercises with rods will make understandable the transformation of adjectives into superlatives and comparatives that can be the subject of classroom lessons.

Chapter II The Second Series Of Films: Nouns, Adjectives And Prepositions

Adjectives that go in pairs must be illustrated together as can easily be done with bigger and smaller. If we start with a red rod it is smaller than all the others but the white. Any one of these will be bigger than the red. If we note that the word we use is triggered by the rod we choose to refer to first it will be easy to show that there are two words to describe the relationship because there are two possible starting points for the description. Younger, older; fatter, thinner; smoother, rougher; all are straightforward. To get from these to the superlative we need to add a third element and to show that the largest of the three is an equivalent expression for two relationships of the type this is larger than that just as we saw between as an equivalent expression for two relationships (e.g. simultaneously on the right of one and on the left of another). Because we can present this type of material early in our teaching and insist on an understanding based on perception we can keep the learners in contact with the dynamics of their mind. Retention is then equivalent to being triggered by perception. Hence it is more powerful because it is based on recognition and not memory. Recognition is a power of the mind because only some of the elements that form the total experience are required to trigger the experience whereas we usually assume that memory must be faithful and perfect. In fact in these terms memory is weak and we use much more recognition than memory to guide us in our true learnings. Recognition makes room for transformation; memory tries to deny or prevent transformation because it will alter what we believe would be retained. 45

Teaching Reading To The Deaf

All through our teaching we want to maintain at their center the dynamics in situations so that any one thing learned can become classes of adjacent learnings. Atoms of knowledge will not serve unless they become molecules and clusters. So from the beginning we strive to look again at situations, changing the viewpoint and proving that we have perceived more by having more to say than on the first contact.

Adjectives Adjectives correspond to awarenesses of attributes of situations. If several attributes are present in a situation our mind can stress one or more and ignore the others. In speech we put these perceptions together in a sequence by stringing the adjectives. Thus a red round shiny button can be picked up from a set of mixed buttons. We therefore see how we can generate situations to make plain how to teach carefully and quickly this peculiar use of language. Using a set of buttons, several of which have each of a number of attributes, we can show that the written command pick up a red button has many answers; there are fewer for pick up a red round button if our set has been chosen carefully, fewer still for pick up a red shiny button, and perhaps only one for pick up a round, red shiny one-holed button. The assumption that the presence of several attributes of one object creates difficulties for children is the result of careless

Chapter II The Second Series Of Films: Nouns, Adjectives And Prepositions

teaching and questioning, or of a priori judgments by psychologists. Perception is endowed with the power of both stressing and ignoring attributes. If labels exist for the various attributes thus put into evidence they become easily isolated and gain independent existence. Their being linked in existence in the object and perceived in succession in time suffices to permit the transfer to a sequence of labels. Sometimes euphony or some other criterion requires a specific order of the words. The first five years of service is better than the five first years because there may be several possibilities for five years of service and to stress the first at once eliminates an ambiguity. But red round or round red buttons are equally acceptable.

Ordinals And Time We now take some space for one more study: that of ordinal numerals and adverbs of time. We can ask someone to pick up rods one after the other: pick up a red rod first and after that a green rod. We can write the first rod was red, the second green. Altering the order ensures that there is no doubt that first means the one at the beginning, and second the one that follows. We can then give a multiple instruction: Pick up first a red rod and afterwards a green one and finally a pink one. What was the color of the first rod, of the second and of the third? Showing a card with the correct color name on it will indicate whether understanding has taken place and the alternation of the ordinal and the color to call for the appropriate reply will give feedback on the level of mastery of this vocabulary.

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In English after fourth (except for the irregularity of fifth) there is an easy correspondence between the ordinal and the cardinal adjectives that will help the retention of the names of ordinals. The same vocabulary serves to name fractional parts. Three times as big can be reversed to become one third as big, so that 3 x and 1/3 x (3 times and 1/3 of) correspond to the names of a relationship and its simultaneously perceived inverse. Exercises based on this duality ensure once and for all an awareness that the language of ordinals plays two roles in the qualification of the world.

Prepositions Since prepositions are vital words we will illustrate on film or film-strip above, across, along, among, around, before, below, beside, by, down, except, into, less, next, or, out, since, than, through, until, under, upon, with, without, and the other few left, in such a way as to convey the meanings unambiguously through perception. As often as possible contrasting shades of meaning will be explored, as in the case of in and. into, under and underneath, till and until, near and next (when referring to space) but and except. The last pair, for example, can be treated as follows. A set of rods is selected so that all are yellow except for one black rod. The black one then is removed: all these rods are yellow is shown and as the black rod is returned to the set the words

Chapter II The Second Series Of Films: Nouns, Adjectives And Prepositions

except one which is black with the word except flashed. A number of alternative sets will establish the meaning of except as referring to the exception. Then a handle is shown picking up yellow rods from a multicolor set of rods but leaving one yellow rod in the set; the sentence all the yellow rods but one have been picked up* is displayed with "but" flashing in the sentence.

Summary In this chapter we have suggested, that the acquisition of a vocabulary of nouns can be ensured through the explicit presentation of classes of objects usually included under the same label} that of a vocabulary of adjectives through the perception of attributes which themselves fall into classes according to finer or coarser discriminations; that of prepositions through the distinctive qualification of relationships.

* See the next chapter for a treatment of the uses of verbs.

Chapter III The Third Series Of Films: Verbs, Adverbs And The Rest

Verbs Denoting Action; Tenses The verbs easiest to illustrate are action verbs. For these it is helpful if the presentation includes a stage before the action starts, one when it takes place and one when it is over. With reference to such actions the future therefore precedes the present which precedes the past. The tenses of the indicative mood must conform to this state of fact. A scene shows a man moving towards a chair in which he sits and remains sitting. By reversing the film until we are back at the beginning again we can induce in the viewer the awareness that there are three stages in the action. On recapitulating the movement the words This man is going to sit down in that chair

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(provided the expression "is going" is the only one not yet illustrated) will be associated with the intention to sit that all viewers have known. By slowing down the movement of sitting when the man has reached the position that leads to sitting down in the chair, the above sentence is transformed into - This man is sitting down in that chair, and when he finishes this action, the sentence becomes This man has .just sat down in that chair. Perhaps the action of constructing a wall with rods shows more clearly that This man is going to put rods on top of each other becomes This man is putting rods on top of each other, which at the end of the action becomes This man has put rods on top of each other. Examples that can be used to obtain feedback are numerous and are left to the teachers to select and use. Three slide sequences can serve as a general approach to the objectification of the three components of time: future, present and past. The mere correlation of changing dates in a calendar extends the past and future as far as we want. Showing in quick succession on a film someone going to bed, turning out the light, waking up to an alarm and returning to bed with a changed numeral on the calendar will provide the basis for naming the future and, by reversal, the past more precisely. This background provides also the basis for a comparison of three past tenses the preterite, the imperfect and the compound past.

Chapter III The Third Series Of Films: Verbs, Adverbs And The Rest

Similarly the present and the continuous present, as well as the future conditional and the future, can be distinguished unambiguously. a film or video-tape tells the following story In the presence of his guests a host is busy, after they have left he drops into an armchair to rest. He is taking a nap. The door bell rings, he wakes up and goes to the door. He opens it and stands in front of it. One of his guests forgot to take, his briefcase. The guest steps inside, goes to the closet where he left it, picks it up and departs. After closing the front door the host returns to his armchair. He falls fast asleep again. He is still asleep when the telephone bell rings. It is his mother asking him: "Will you come to dinner tomorrow?" He thinks for a minute, looks at his diary and says, "I will be there at 12:45 for lunch." It had been a tiring day and. the man goes to bed to sleep the rest of the night. To draw attention to the change of words when awareness of a change of time and mood, takes place we need very specific situations that eliminate any doubt that something new is needed. It is to meet this challenge that films and other innovations are principally required. The techniques of video-taping make it possible to divide the screen vertically into two parts and we can run on one side the written commentary while the film is shown on the other.

Teaching Reading To The Deaf

We can then show the written story on the whole screen using the technique of flashing to indicate the verbs according to some convention -- such as flashing on the left of the word if it relates to the past, near the middle if it relates to the present and on the right if to the future. We could even use a vertical third of the screen to show the infinitive form and flash it and the corresponding word alternately. In three minutes of film we can put a great deal of visual information and leave to speech to express what it can, which is only a fraction of the visible and is expressed in general terms. To learn speech includes these two awarenesses. To teach speech includes these two awarenesses. To teach speech is to make deaf students quite clear from the start that they can only put into words a small amount of experience in terms that are shared by everybody. The stamp of the individual is in the wealth of images evoked by words. Since most words have many meanings associated with them the context of a sentence has to establish which is meant. The network TV program "Make a Wish" illustrates many examples. To serve the deaf these programs could be shown with captions rather than with commentary as at present.

Adverbs And Articles Since adverbs affect verbs it is easy to illustrate a number of them by associating the appearance of the required word to the

Chapter III The Third Series Of Films: Verbs, Adverbs And The Rest

alteration of the action. Deaf people know that their actions change and will easily associate the set of adverbs that we want them to know with the modified actions shown on film. We show a man walking and make him walk faster and faster while flashing the sentence This man is walking quickly, then slow him down and when he is really moving nonchalantly we flash the sentence This man is now walking slowly. We show a segment in slow motion to indicate the attribute slow, and another segment in which a car on a slope is slowed down, flashing the verb slow followed by the ed of the past tense (shown with the convention used above). In quick succession we show the word slow as an adjective, as a verb and, by adding ly at the end, the adverb. We now return to a number of adjectives already studied and illustrate how by absorbing the suffix ly they become representatives of adverbs and can qualify other verbs. neat

becomes

neatly

a neat crease neatly pressed

sudden

„

suddenly

a sudden encounter; they meet suddenly

quick

„

quickly

a quick pass moves quickly

tender

„

tenderly

a tender embrace holds one tenderly

light

„

lightly

a light hand strokes lightly

Teaching Reading To The Deaf

gentle

â&#x20AC;&#x17E;

gently

a gentle man gives his hand gently

heavy

â&#x20AC;&#x17E;

heavily

a heavy weight presses heavily.

But many adverbs are not made in this way and not all adverbs qualify verbs. Fast, small, too, twice, much, now, and. many others will have to be illustrated differently. For example too can be illustrated together with small and fast and much to give the awareness of what it adds to the meaning of these adverbs. Twice as much can easily be shown with containers marked with amounts of sand, or of money, and. contrasted with - Twice as many which applies to discrete, quantities, in which case pennies, dimes, rods, etc., can be used. Before, now, after, can be illustrated together. This man took a red rod before he took a yellow one and he took a yellow rod after he took the red one; now he is taking three green ones. Some, many, lots, a few, a handful, several, one, another can be illustrated by contrasting each of these quantifiers with another. From a heap of rods, for example, a hand takes as much as it can hold: a handful. Letting some fall so that only up to 3 or 4 are left, a few are left in the hand. These are put back in the heap. When both hands are plunged again into the heap one sees that

Chapter III The Third Series Of Films: Verbs, Adverbs And The Rest

many rods have been taken, lots fall in a clumsy removal of these, most were green and several were white. Give me some of these rods. So few? (as one gets, say, two). Give me more, several more (and one is satisfied in getting three or four more). Give me back a few (two or three are returned) and I will give you plenty (more than a handful). Take a green rod and another and another and another (contrast another and other). There are two rods here; one is red, the other blue. I took three rods; one is yellow, the other two are brown. To distinguish the definite from the indefinite articles we can ask someone to pick rods out of selected sets. If a set contains, say, three red, two brown, four blue, one white and one green, then by showing students the following sentences and obtaining the correct action for each and then asking the students to show the sentences that correspond to a particular action, it is possible to ensure mastery of these words and their function. - Take a blue rod - Take the white rod - Take a brown rod and a red one

Teaching Reading To The Deaf

- Take a blue rod and the green one - Take the white rod and a red one - Take the green rod, a red one and the white one and many more examples.

Pronouns Pronouns and their corresponding adjectives can be studied in groups. The possessive pronouns can be studied in the classroom and video-taped. A teacher and four students, two boys and two girls, exchange various rods and the teacher, pointing to a boy says what we see in the words - His rod is red. Then he moves to a girl and. says - Her rod is blue. When he turns to both girls he can say - Their rods are blue, and showing the rod he holds, My rod is yellow. Then each student in turn can say My rod is blue, My rod is red, My rod is green etc. One of the students may even say or write My rod is blue too, but only if she follows someone else showing a blue rod. The word too may have been studied as a preposition and. an adverb when this rod too is green was first met. The teacher turns to one student and says, pointing to himself first and then to the student - My rod is yellow and yours is blue. Then, changing the order, Your rod is blue; mine is yellow. Your and yours, my and mine are taken up again with another student and. then used by them. Pointing to one of them and speaking to

Chapter III The Third Series Of Films: Verbs, Adverbs And The Rest

the others, he may say - My rod is yellow but his is green or hers is blue, afterwards giving practice on him and his; her and hers; your and yours. For their and theirs, we reverse the order, i.e. the teacher talks to one and points to the others. Changing his own rod he can now introduce our and ours by simply including a student with himself in the group that have the same colored rod, repeating it a number of times with different students. He then lets the students choose the actions among themselves and choose the words to write for what they wish to convey. Practice for the viewers of the tape can easily be arranged in the classroom. Demonstrative adjectives have been used quite early. Pronouns are easily introduced. This rod is red and this blue. That rod is green and that yellow. These rods are here and Those rods are there. Those rods are black and these brown. Personal pronouns have been used with verbs to write, say, Now he is sitting on the floor. He was standing near the door. She knits quickly. It is not Dad. They were running when we saw them. They are not at home to me. I say goodbye to you. I prefer my tea with milk and sugar. Let us go. Mom came in with her. It is she who is sorry now. She lost him at the market. I like you. You like me. From sentences like the last one we can classify object and subject pronouns and form sentences with gaps to be filled by one or the other. We shall thus make sure that students know 59

Teaching Reading To The Deaf

the characteristics of the correct pronouns to use because of their function in the sentence. Relative and interrogative pronouns and adjectives have been met in previous contexts -- for instance, who, whose, which, that and what. Who is easily illustrated by Who is the father of this boy? Which likewise: Which of these is a cat or The rod which is behind the black one is red. Whose tie is this? What is your address? What are you eating? Is this all that you are going to give me? The main contribution of the films is to bring to the fore the different meanings of these key words and to convey that grammatical functions relate to a sensitivity to particular aspects of situations associated with an awareness of the dynamics within the language.

Summary Our way of working on the language for the deaf has been: 1

to make them attain the certainty that what they can become aware of and experience as an intellectual activity can be transmuted into a system of signs which are arbitrary only in the very beginning because they keep some consistency;

2 to make them notice that the consistencies are often translated into regularities of form;

Chapter III The Third Series Of Films: Verbs, Adverbs And The Rest

3 to make them master the irregular by accepting it for its idiosyncrasies. Grammar has been treated as a matter of sensitivity and not memorization, and we have taken the trouble to generate first a perceptual situation in which changes could be perceived and then offered labels for the changes. We have noticed that words have no meaning of their own and that the major obstacle for the deaf in meeting language is the dual fact that words do not shout nor tell their meaning but the same word may be used to express a number of meanings and have a number of functions. We have therefore acted on these assumptions from the start and let the deaf into this secret so that they are not puzzled on this account at any moment. Our treatment of teaching through film has varied with the kind of challenge and has mainly used the dynamics of the mind to produce as much as possible out of as little as possible. By achieving this we have managed to become the allies of the learners and they can feel that our work has made sense to them all the time simply because we took them into account as learning systems and not as handicapped people. Our treatment has deliberately been synthetic-analytic rather than purely analytic and fragmentary as in traditional education. Each question we have asked has taken the point of view of the learner and we have therefore been stimulated by the problems we were confronting. A large number of questions have dictated their own special treatment and therefore there is little chance that we shall miss reaching the students if they come to be helped. 61

Teaching Reading To The Deaf

The suggestion that we use cassettes (video or super 8 films) will make the students able to decide on their own whether they want to go over the same challenge again in order to gain the awareness required and encounter the set of signs that go with it. Because learning has two poles â&#x20AC;&#x201D; awareness and facility -- and because 1 films are expensive, and 2 there are teachers in schools, we have kept films for the acquisition of awareness and proposed classroom work with materials and writing equipment for the acquisition of facility. The aim is to make deaf students autonomous and independent. We can achieve this if the know-how is all theirs, if they own the proper criteria and use them as we do but even though, they must pass directly from meaning to the written word. There now remains one problem: the extension of the awareness of speech gained through writing to the spoken word. This we tackle in the next chapter.

ÂŠ C. Gattegno 1973

Chapter IV Spoken Speech

The Intellectual Control Of Speech This short discussion must be at the level of assumptions for the evidence for its thesis remains to be gathered. In fact I present a guide to some experimentation rather than a deduction from results already obtained in classrooms. I am however convinced from all my studies of learning and teaching that much of what I say here will be found to have roots in reality. Indeed if we have succeeded in conveying to deaf people that a system of signs has the power to reflect some of the attributes of complex living, which involves perception, feelings, actions, thoughts, intentions, reactions, sensations and modifications of some functionings, we have already done much more than remains to be done. For now we only have to convey to the deaf that there is a system of willed utterances (sounds produced by the voice) that is isomorphic to the system of sets of signs they have already studied. 63

Teaching Reading To The Deaf

We must therefore find out here too, which are the awarenesses we want to convey, and which are the exercises that will give the necessary facility, and then arrange the lessons so that both become part of the student's endowment. As babies, the deaf can reach the voluntary muscles which are part of phonation as easily as the hearing. They can make themselves utter noises and experience them as changes in the energy levels in their soma. If we can expand this somatic knowledge and develop a set of conventions which link it to intellectual activity, the intelligence of the deaf person will remain a part of his functioning although he is deprived of the feedback through the ear used by hearing people. The substitute feedbacks can be located in the intellect alone, rather than in the intellect together with that part of the brain which responds to the education of hearing. It is not absurd to assume that a deaf person can educate his brain to do with part of itself what the brain of a hearing person does with those parts associated with the ear. Severe brain injuries, in accidents and wars, have led to a transfer of knowhows from the missing tissues to the remaining tissues. In fact the miracle of lip-reading can only occur if the person looking at a mouth shifts from his sight to his intelligence and comes into contact with the invisible somatic elements in himself which are compatible with these lip movements. After all, one's chest, throat and tongue are engaged in the production of sound as well as the lips. Somatic awareness is needed to produce a change in the shape of one's lips. These changes can be surveyed from within, in one's sensitivity, and. only thus can be said to be known. 64

Chapter IV Spoken Speech

Many of the exercises used in schools for the deaf to teach them spoken speech can be described in terms of somatic awareness or somatic-cum-intellectual awareness. Only when a deaf student gives significance to the flow of air that goes from his lungs through his throat and mouth to his lips can he form a set of criteria about this part of speech and learn to make distinctions which will serve as a frame of reference for his spoken speech. The use of this frame of reference leads to a change from somatic awareness to intellectual awareness. This permits the person to be liberated from the continuous monitoring with his whole self of what one part is doing and allows him to shift to the processing of visible signals instead of the phenomenon itself. The intellect being swift, the deaf can learn to lip-read and, at the same time, utter sounds that are judged as equivalent by the soma. These sounds show what can be reached somatically and intellectually and what is specifically the job of the ear. Since there is no energy input through the ears and therefore an absence of the elements directly derived from these amounts of energy and the harmonic analysis that the basilar membrane is capable of, the speech of the deaf does not display the melody and the intonations that hearing speakers develop. It is an intellectual language, i.e., the stuff of their speech is for intellectual dialogues, leaving affectivity to other media of expression. We need to learn to teach the deaf what we do with ourselves as hearing people by means other than lip-reading or reading written language when we speak. A whole field of promising research is to be found in this challenge. There is 65

Teaching Reading To The Deaf

enough to be gained already in the intellectual field for us not to lament that we cannot do everything for the deaf as if they were not born deaf.

The Analytical Study Of The Sounds Of Speech Using film or video-taping we can attempt to put the analytic study of English within the reach of the mind of the deaf person as the extent of the challenge we want him to conquer. (The analysis displayed in the Fidel for the Words in Color system of teaching reading is used as the basis of the following proposals.) Vowels and syllables being the bricks of speech we can use a vertically divided screen to show on one side the sign or signs corresponding to a vowel and its spellings and on the other a mouth uttering the vowel a number of times. When two, three or five vowels (a, i, or a, u, i, or a, u, i, e, o) have been recognized and uttered, a consonant appears, the mouth remaining closed. As soon as s syllable is formed, the utterance is made and again becomes visible on the screen. The viewer studies the mouth saying, for example, up and attempts to render the sign. He already knows a meaning for the sign and will therefore retain it easily. So also he would if at or it was the first syllable introduced, or in or on or arm. So there is a choice. The subsequent choice of syllables involving the same consonant must be left to the learner who will give the feedback that he can make use of his intellectual knowledge because he is intelligent.

Chapter IV Spoken Speech

This is a test both for the student and the teacher. If the student manages to utter sounds that he can neither see nor hear he gives proof of his progress. If he cannot, the delayed image which serves to confirm the successful students that they have done well, will in his case serve as the presentation of an additional example in order to illumine his mind further. The work we are now doing may in some ways resemble the actual work done "by hearing people when they form their auditory criteria "by working on sound as a substance involving the whole self, except that now we by-pass sound and involve the self intellectually. As soon as a few syllables have been introduced and their reversals elicited from the students, the merging of syllables with each other or with vowels becomes an intellectual factory of words. The divided screen can be used for a new purpose. After a picture of the mouth has been projected to elicit sounds or confirm awareness, the word on the left, if it is an English word, is illustrated in the ways we used in the previous chapters. In this way viewers can now link the new activity with one which is already familiar and lend to the new activity the support of the one already mastered. At this stage we have a store of experience to guide us. What we know of the learning achieved through the first films may suggest that the th of this and that should be one of the first consonants introduced: this is a man is already a program. If the meaning and the design of the sentence are

Teaching Reading To The Deaf

available, and if we have introduced the consonants th, .s, s, m and n through appropriate illustrations of words involving them, together with the vowels i and a and the neutral schwa, when the mouth produces this is a man it will be recognized by lip-reading and will now draw its meaning from the signs and the images this evokes. A test of understanding can be the mouthing of That is a man before showing the writing or the illustration in Chapter I and asking the student to write what was said. Passing on to These are men can be done without introducing the sound for the sign e in these, and for the signs in are. But it can also be postponed until the introduction of this and that. The color of s in is and of se in these and of s; in this can give another clue to the viewer investigating the connection between signs and sounds in the English language. We want to insert a new dimension into words; we want to generate the total association of the somatic awareness of utterance to the visual trigger of meaning through written speech and end up with the direct triggering of meaning through the interpretation of lip movements. We also want the converse: utterances through awareness of meaning. If this can be done we can say we have taught the deaf to speak at the level of his reading and his understanding.

Chapter IV Spoken Speech

The Limitations Of Lip-Reading A systematic development of a number of lessons on film and in classrooms can be provided because the Words in Color materials have already done much of the work. Nevertheless a new program is perhaps preferable for the deaf because of the presence of lip-reading which poses three hurdles. 1

The sounds of English must all be triggered when their form on lips has been shown and there are 21 vowels and 32 consonants (which sound with vowels)to recognize.

2 The thousands of possible combinations of consonants and vowels to form syllables need to be specifically recognized visually, uttered distinctly and only then can words be formed, and, with them, sentences. 3 The phrasing of sentences being a temporal phenomenon not translated by the equal spacing of the printed words needs to be solved visually for the utterance of sentences by the deaf to be justified as communication as well as sound. When we examine the oral part of the language we find â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 1

that besides the conventional sounds associated with the signs of English in each word that has more than one syllable,

Teaching Reading To The Deaf

2 one vowel is stressed and emphasized and, in general, the other vowels distorted into or Ó&#x2122; (the schwi and the schwa), 3 that some words are run together as if they formed one word, and 4 that a melody sustains all these components. Together they convey the non-verbal side of language and are carried by the voice. In contrast to words which are written, the voice has to be added and much of our understanding in oral communication results from that. In the case of the deaf the contribution of the voice must be conquered and approximated by additional signs. They way the voice expresses emotions, questions, doubts, irony, sarcasm, etc., needs to be made objective to the deaf. Perhaps the atmosphere of a film capable of creating a certain state in the viewer can be used to suggest that some non-verbal signs must be added to the words describing the situation. The written language has too few of these signs at present. An ad hoc notation (far less complicated than the Braille system for the blind) may be needed by the deaf and a consideration of this challenge may be part of the solution we are seeking to arrive at. The study of the facial and bodily expression of emotions may provide the source of such a notation. Just as warnings on highways are understood by drivers, readers who have no access to the voice may need to be warned that the words they read are not to be taken literally or need to be interpreted with this or that ingredient added. 70

Chapter IV Spoken Speech

It is not impossible that if we consider such tasks seriously we will end up having deaf people able to modulate their voices in addition to having gained the intellectual mastery of speech.

Communication Of The Deaf With Each Other Although much of the above seems to link the deaf to the world of the hearing, there is room for consideration of the relationship of the deaf with each other. Hearing people parted from each other write letters, memos and notes. They read books to know what other people think, feel and hope. Could the deaf resort to the use of the written word to relate to each other? The answer would be yes, if 1

it were convenient, and

2 faster and more explicit than the communication through sign language or lip-reading. To tackle this matter of convenience may be to design a pad that retains the written forms as if they were the fleeting sounds of speech, can be indefinitely re-used, and can be handed to someone in exchange for his.

Teaching Reading To The Deaf

In the practice of Words in Color, students learn to read upside down. If the deaf acquired this easy skill they would benefit from it, reading statements as they are put down by the writer, giving the semblance of listening to speech while looking at its unfolding on a writing surface.

Techniques For Teaching Speech To The Deaf And The Partially Deaf Nowhere has it been said in this text that spoken speech comes at the very end of the apprenticeship to the written language. In fact since there is no end to that task any station on the road to mastery could be the opportunity to introduce the deaf student to the muscular system isomorphic to the written system. The only condition actually required by the task is that we assure ourselves that the mastery of the particular skill worked on is available before another request is put to the student. We must aim at avoiding distraction, confusion and interference with the learning, and instead offer fields of application for completed learning. Since we have given to fill the function of eliciting awareness and to the classroom the function of ensuring facility, we can easily decide each day whether it is the right moment to shift from writing and reading to the exercises for uttering and lipreading that we have been concentrating on.

Chapter IV Spoken Speech

Only experimentation can decide which ways are most profitable for particular learners. Since we see a much larger role for intelligence than usual in our solutions to the problems learners have, we must give ourselves flexible approaches to the successive encounters between students and particular aspects of speech. The approaches become flexible if we have numerous techniques at our disposal. It may be advisable for instance, to expose deaf students to techniques which are successful with hearing students and to note which functionings of this group exist in the other, particularly because preconceptions exist in everyone's mind and educators may miss something obvious. There are many Words in Color techniques that were discovered after the materials had been created, sometimes years later. When working with deaf students and some of these materials it is likely that new discoveries will be made. In particular, if we consider classes of the hard of hearing instead of the totally deaf, there is no doubt that Words in Color will make more sense to them than the existing approaches. The colors alone serve as noticeable criteria for the permanence of different sounds which are not totally separated by weak hearing. They can serve as reinforcers to the sense that certain sounds are alike or different and the differences stabilized, to the benefit of the hearer. The classification of the sounds in the Fidel and the algebraic connections between words on the charts permit the knitting of associations between them wider than the similarities of sounds and permit the establishment of mental links which will trigger clusters of words at the same time.

Teaching Reading To The Deaf

Spelling The visual techniques of Words in Color which make sense to seeing people can also help the hard of hearing, and possibly, as we stated earlier, the totally deaf. In the area of spelling in particular nothing is more helpful than to take good "photographs" of each word with one's mental camera. We are equal in this, deaf or not, as soon as the meaning of making these pictures is understood. There are games in Words in Color which do precisely this. For example, if the design of a word is covered up and then uncovered for a split second so that it can be seen, a drawing of the image of the word can be asked for and compared with the original. Once the request for the copy is understood, deaf students can play the game with each other and produce their own pictures on paper, checking them afterwards against the originals until good, photographing is obtained. After that it can become second nature. In the case where transformations of spellings arise because of changes in number, person, etc., the correct spellings result from the comprehension of what causes the alteration. Exercises leading to such awarenesses as we described them in earlier chapters will take care of these demands.

Summary In this chapter we have considered more particularly the transition from reading and writing to speaking the words and

reading the lips. It is in the exercises suggested that the pedagogy of teaching speech to the deaf can be seen. For them, speaking may remain an incomplete performance so long as we only manage to make them reach the intellectual language. If this is much more than they get at present for many more than succeed today, we shall rest satisfied, although as investigators the channels that have been opened may be challenging and fascinating. In this chapter we considered for the first time those students who through hearing aids and early diagnosis and cure have almost rejoined the ranks of the hearing.