Welcome to California School for the Deaf

Welcome to California School for the Deaf!

For the last several months I have been facing many difficult obstacles. Teaching is a rewarding and challenging career – but it can be incredibly difficult when both the teacher and her students are Deaf. I have learned to overcome several obstacles as a Deaf teacher, but I fear that the road ahead will never be without some added challenges.

My biggest barrier to teaching, and one of my pet peeves, is finding so many teacher resources and videos online for hearing teachers and students. It is difficult for me to come across so many videos online that I cannot access because the videos do not provide close captioned. In fact, I found one good video that discussed teaching ASL to high school students and guess what!  It did not include close captioning! This is a strange irony to me. If someone is going to create sign language videos, they should be aware of the importance of turning the captions on so that the Deaf can understand the material!!!  As a Deaf person, how will I be able to use these resources, which are related to my profession as an ASL teacher? How? Tell me!

I am currently working with a group of ASL teachers and a committee from Gallaudet University to create a set of ASL standards for K-12 students. These standards will apply to Deaf students who use ASL as their primary language. Once these ASL Standards are determined, we will release them to the public. Then I will be able to continue working with other ASL teachers to develop and establish an ASL curriculum.

This is long over due. Dr. William Stokoe Jr., Professor Emeritus at Gallaudet University, recognized ASL as an official language back in the 1960s! Nearly 55 years later, there are still no ASL standards or curriculum for students in K-12.

Now you may be wondering why I am sharing this information. I plan on sharing what I have learned from these online courses with the people who serve on this committee. I will make sure that we as a committee cover some of the topics that I have learned from these classes.

Next month a new school year will begin, and I am looking forward paying even more attention to the all of the students in my classes. When my students find out that they are required to take ASL as one of their course requirements, they often complain and ask “Why do I have to take ASL, I already know ASL!” Then one year later, these same students leave my class feeling empowered. They now have enough understanding to be able to debate with others who choose to only teach their Deaf children in Spoken English. These students now have the skills to argue the benefit of providing a child with two languages at a very young age: ASL and Spoken English. My students now understand that providing two languages can begin at a very young age – even with newborns! When my students understand that a child is getting a late start on learning ASL when they begin at the age of 5, then I know I am heading in the right direction with their learning!

Week 1 A

As of today, Tom, my husband and I have been in Washington, D.C. for two weeks.  We came here to visit our son who works here as a US Marine.  Tomorrow, we will both fly back to California and return to our regular daily routine.  My husband and I have hiked a lot all over the country.  Hiking is one of our favorite things to do.  Hopefully, we will also begin sailing together on the San Francisco Bay.

This is my tenth class. Yay!  Only one more class to go!  I am working to obtain a single subject teacher credential in World Language: American Sign Language (ASL).   I work at the California School for the Deaf (CSD) in Fremont.  Two years ago I was teaching ASL classes to high school Special Need students.  Last year I taught ASL immersion classes to 4th and 5th grade students.  I was pulled in to cover the immersion class at elementary department when the previous teacher quit. This coming year I have no idea which department I will be working for.  I would prefer to know in advance rather than find out at the last minute that I have time to mentally prepare myself for the upcoming school year.

The biggest challenge in teaching American Sign Language to Deaf students as a first language is that there are not a lot of resources available for these first language learners.  There is an ASL curriculum that has been established for for students who are learning ASL as a second language; however, this curriculum is mainly used at the college level.  Another issue is that there are no ASL standards for students in grades for K-12.

We are very fortunate that our CSD has several ASL teachers on staff.  We meet every Wednesday to work on an ASL ‘spiral’ curriculum from students in grades K to 12.  We are also working to develop a set of ASL standards that we hope to release this Fall on a nationwide level for Deaf students who are learning ASL as their first language.  We hope to release the standards this Fall for students in grades K to 6; and will release the 7th -12th grade standards next Fall.  We have based our time line on a schedule agreement that we have with a committee from Gallaudet University, Washington, D.C. 

I have also taught ASL classes to adults at both the college and university levels.  Currently my teaching career has moved me from working with adults to working with K-12 students.  And, not only that, now I am teaching these students ASL as their primary language.  Some of you wonder why Deaf students have to take ASL classes even though they may already know and communicate with ASL.  That’s a good question.  We follow the same principal for learning ASL that hearing do.  Hearing students already know how to communicate with English, but they still have to take English classes!

I took the personality test from the Kisa.ca website and my result is ISFP:  Introverted, Sensing, Feeling and Perceiving.  The results did not surprise me at all because I took a similar test 15 years ago and came up with similar results.  How does my personality affect my choice of content area?  As a teacher, I take my job seriously and I focus on the analysis of ASL linguistics – this is my passion.  I love to teach ASL because I always find the language to be a fascinating way to communicate.

How will my personality affect my relationship with my students?  I have had many conversations with my students about the linguistics of ASL.  My students like to bring ASL topics into the classroom for discussions about various things like language or grammar rules, non-manual signs (facial expressions) and other related topics.  Sometimes, I pretend that I do not know the answers to their questions!  This gives the students an opportunity to try and convince me what they think the correct answer is.  This shows that they are learning valuable skills that are necessary in analyzing ASL.

How will your teaching and learning style affect your teaching and your students' abilities to be successful?  I took the Teaching and Learning Styles test and it showed that I am an Active, Sensing, Visual and Sequential learner.  This makes sense to me because I am Deaf; I prefer hands on activities rather than having to sit and listen to a teacher's presentation.  My Sensing ability is also high because I am a Deaf person living in a Hearing world – as a result, I have to be able to determine, or “sense” situations without the benefit of a spoken language.  The visual section showed that I am a highly visual learner who scored a 9 in this section.  This means that I have a very strong preference for visual learning and that I might have “real difficulty learning in an environment which does not support this preference.”  This does not surprise me at all. In the past, most of my classes that I had to take did not provide enough visual aids and I think I struggled in some ways because of this.  I am also a Sequential learner; I tend to either focus on the big picture and ignore the little details or focus too much on the details and ignore the big picture.  This is when I find that I need to go and ask the instructor or professor for additional help in order to help me get back on track and stay focused.

My teaching and learning styles will be a great benefit to my students because I think that most Deaf students can relate well to a Deaf teacher.  Deaf students need to have positive Deaf role models and it is important that they can meet and work with Deaf adults who have successful careers.  As a lifelong educator, I want to be able to positively influence my students both inside and outside of the classroom.

In summary, I have always enjoyed teaching ASL because I find this language to be amazing.  In 355 B.C., Aristotle, the Greek philosopher believed that “Deaf people could not be educated without [the help of ]hearing people.”  We Deaf people proved him wrong!  I am looking forward to learning from this class and working with you all!

Happy summer!




Lorraine Flores