Critical pedagogy and social justice education have gained increasing attention in recent years in many subject matters, and world language education has been no exception to this trend. There are a number of works dedicated to critical pedagogy in world language education. At the same time that such concerns have gained attention, another…

Experience with a visual-spatial language may influence certain cognitive processes (Keehner and Gathercole 2007). Spatial ability is an important cognitive skill (Linn and Petersen 1985). Some research has found that deaf signers outperform hearing nonsigners on certain spatial tasks (e.g., Emmorey, Kosslyn, and Bellugi 1993) and that hearing…

A significant gap has been identified in research-based findings and classroom instructional practices of hearing ASL teachers in high schools in the U.S. (Rosen, 2015). Research has shown the absence of standardized ASL instructional guidelines, rules, and procedures has created a significant gap in teaching and learning practices at the high…

Self-assessment is an emerging topic in ASL/English interpreter education that is being recognized as critical for students completing the degree-to-certification process and needs to be thoroughly explored. Using Scaffolding Theory and self-assessment drawn from Self-Directed Learning Theory, this exploratory, qualitative interview study…

In 1964, Deaf and hearing stakeholders convened at Ball State Teachers College in Muncie, Indiana, to discuss the state of signed language interpreting in the United States. One topic of discussion was the competencies these interpreters should exhibit. Four decades later, Witter-Merithew and Johnson (2005) described American Sign Language…

This article discusses how and why the lessons learned from research with hearing children can easily be applied to deaf and hard of hearing children. While educators have long advocated early use of American Sign Language (ASL) for deaf and hard of hearing children in order for them to experience the benefit of full language access, parents and…

This investigation aimed to explore the feasibility of implementing the strategic and interactive signing instruction (SISI) framework and its potential to enhance the signed composition skills of four deaf students in a first/second-grade classroom. SISI was adapted from the existing strategic and interactive writing instruction (SIWI) framework…

This paper discusses issues of language revitalization and linguistic prescriptivism related to the teaching of American Sign Language (ASL) in Canada. I describe the current and historical context for ASL teaching, including the increase in ASL course offerings at some postsecondary institutions, and discuss findings related to challenges in…

No formal Canadian curriculum presently exists for teaching American Sign Language (ASL) as a second language to parents of deaf and hard of hearing children. However, this group of ASL learners is in need of more comprehensive, research-based support, given the rapid expansion in Canada of universal neonatal hearing screening and the…

A large body of literature has characterized unimodal monolingual and bilingual lexicons and how neighborhood density affects lexical access; however there have been relatively fewer studies that generalize these findings to bimodal (M2) second language (L2) learners of sign languages. The goal of the current study was to investigate parallel…

This article discusses the joys, rewards, and challenges of using Deaf history as a framework for teaching Deaf studies, Deaf history and culture, and American Sign Language to hearing undergraduates in a liberal arts college oriented to social justice.

Students acquiring American Sign Language (ASL) as a second language (L2) struggle with fingerspelling comprehension more than skilled signers. These L2 learners might be attempting to perceive and comprehend fingerspelling in a way that is different from native signers, which could negatively impact their ability to comprehend fingerspelling.…

Deaf students are visual learners, and technology should be part of every bilingual classroom. However, deaf students need to learn to manipulate the hardware and software that allows them to express themselves and to advance their knowledge. Students need to understand what is meant when they are referred to "ASL text" or…

A study was conducted to examine production variability in American Sign Language (ASL) in order to gain insight into the development of motor control in a language produced in another modality. Production variability was characterized through the spatiotemporal index (STI), which represents production stability in whole utterances and is a…

This article puts forward a solution to the impending shortage of culturally and linguistically competent interpreters: the education of heritage signers as heritage language learners. It examines the current landscape of American Sign Language (ASL) as a course of study and the difficulties heritage signers report when they begin learning ASL. In…