Signing the Future
Empowering Multilingual Education with Sign Language
Ever since I can remember, I’ve wanted to become a teacher. I thought that with my bachelor’s degree and the internships I’ve completed, I would be fully prepared to manage a classroom efficiently. However, my first job as an educator - covering for a maternity leave - quickly shattered that belief. As I was briefed about the daily routine, I tried to maintain a calm and happy facade, but a sense of unease grew within me, almost as if I were being punched in the stomach with each word.
“We have a deaf child in the classroom…”, followed by explanations of visual alarms, the schedule for the learning support teacher, and an old book to learn the Sign Language used in the class.
Four years at a higher school of education, and yet not a single course had prepared me to welcome a deaf child into the classroom!
The benefits of multilingual education go far beyond just learning new languages. Research has shown that embracing multiple languages enhances cognitive abilities, fosters cultural understanding, and opens doors to diverse career opportunities, but… here’s a question: how often do we think about sign languages when we talk about bilingualism and multilingualism?
Sign languages plays a crucial role in promoting inclusivity and accessibility. Unlike spoken language, which rely on auditory communication, sign languages are visual gestural, making it accessible to deaf and hard of hearing individuals (remember, not all deaf people have profound hearing loss). Now bear with me… by incorporating sign languages into multilingual education programs, educators can create more inclusive learning environments where all students, regardless of hearing ability, can fully participate and engage.
We recently found out that my little cousin is deaf. While we were determining the degree of deafness, I learned sign language to encourage the rest of my family to learn it as well, so we could all communicate. I noticed that, similar to how some parents are afraid to teach their children multiple languages for fear they will mix them up, some of my family members were apprehensive that using sign language might inhibit my little cousin’s use of oral language. However, using both sign and spoken language can complement each other and enhance overall communication, fostering a more inclusive and supportive environment for everyone.
I currently work at an international trilingual school where all students are exposed to a minimum of two languages from as early as one year old. We introduce basic signs to facilitate communication among children. Having worked in other schools where only verbal communication was used, I’ve noticed a significant difference in children’s behavior. There are fewer tantrums in the classroom because children are able to express themselves and communicate, even when they lack the vocabulary. Children learn to sign much sooner than they learn to speak! Most children’s songs include gestures, and children will mimic these gestures faster than they sing along. The same goes for signing — children sign much sooner than they speak!
Their tiny fingers are super cute, but they can really sign ideas. I had this little girl in the classroom, the youngest in the group, who could only say “nana” for banana. She would say ‘nana’ for every type of food and get super frustrated when others got kiwi and she got a banana. She quickly learned the sign for “more”, so she would get our attention, point to the food she wanted, and sign “more”.
Sign languages have unique characteristics that make them a valuable addition to the multilingual education framework. For example, they promote spatial awareness, fine motor skills, and cognitive development, benefiting both deaf and hearing students. Moreover, recent research highlights the benefits of teaching sign language to babies and toddlers. It helps children and caregivers overcome frustration and communication barriers more quickly. Teaching signing to hearing infants who haven’t started talking yet offers numerous advantages.
Despite all these advantages, and the fact that 41 countries recognise Sign Language as an official language, it continues to be overlooked. Schools often allocate more resources into teaching foreign languages than they do to sign languages. People are generally more inclined to invest in spoken language courses than in sign language courses, indicating a prioritization of communication with foreigners over members of their local deaf community. While there’s growing awareness, it’s still the deaf community that often bears the responsibility of inclusion, as society tends to expect them to accommodate hearing needs first.
For instance, in 2017, a team of undergraduate students at the University of Washington won the Lemelson-MIT Student Prize for creating gloves that translate American Sign Language (ASL), known as “SignAloud”. While this innovation sounds like something out of a Sci-Fi movie and offers hope for resolving communication barriers between the deaf and hearing communities, the reality is that these gloves come with a significant financial cost for the deaf individual. Moreover, they do not address the fundamental issue that the deaf person still needs to rely on lip-reading or written communication to understand others. In essence, these gloves facilitate understanding of ASL, they do NOT enable full communication in ASL.
Meanwhile, incorporating sign languages into school curricula could greatly enhance communication with the deaf community. Additionally, it has the potential to educate people about deafness, as sometimes even well intentioned attempts at inclusion can inadvertently come across as rude. For example, while most people wouldn’t interrupt a conversation to boast about knowing the same alphabet or speaking the same language as someone else (even in a foreign country), it’s unfortunately not uncommon for people to interrupt when Signing is involved… or become defensive: “You should be thankful, I tried to Sign for you”. These reactions reflect a misunderstanding of the challenges faced by the deaf community, such as the reliance on cochlear implants (which require surgeries) or lip-reading on a daily basis.
By including sign languages in schools curricula, we can foster greater understanding and empathy, paving the way for more respectful and inclusive communication practices in addition to all the benefits previously mentioned.
