Monthly Archives: Sep 2016

Another campaign messages: Equal Employment Opportunities and Bilingual Education

Bilingual Education: Urges stakeholders to accept the need for bilingual education for a deaf child and to understand how quality bilingual education should be provided in a sign language environment. Bilingual education is a social-cultural approach of using sign language as the language of instruction in all subjects with a parallel strong emphasis on teaching reading and writing of the language used in the country or society.

 

Prince Harry visited to a Deaf school in Africa

Zero Project in Asia Deaf schools

The Bilingual Education around the world, do you realise that there are many urgent needs for the teachers, principals including Prime Minister/MPs to continue teaching sign language for the deaf children in bilingual education or not?

Deaf children have the right to access to be in their school by having a teacher aide with sign language skill and Deaf culture, equipment such as flashing lights, Ipad for recording from teacher like homework to do and to teach new friends to learn to sign language. In New Zealand, there will be shortage of teacher aide/support worker for the special needs children/deaf children due to funding by the Government. It will be frustrating for many deaf children who can not access to education materials and without interpreters/teacher aides because they will be lost and unable to catch up with learning abilities when they reaches adult even during in the transition to work place or stay home. I was a deaf teacher aide for two teenager boys in the past and I discovered their learning problems where the teachers did not picked up. These two teenagers developed more fluency in sign language by using NZSL (and English Signed for literacy) by me. One of these teenager boys have got a Deaf mother and their first language was NZSL. The second teenager boy’s parent were one of the migrant people and his parents came to live in New Zealand from Laos. Because the parents want the best education for their two boys in New Zealand. The second teenager and his parents’s first language was a tonal language – Tai-Kadal language family and it is the official language of Laos and closely related to Thai language. Our NZSL is listed in the school curriculum and the children will have the right to access any language including NZSL they choose to learn in bilingual education. BUT we need more resources such as video of story telling along with interpreters and closed captioning and special technology such as Skype for video conferencing.

You will be amazed to read this details from my own experience when I was working with people who come from oversea. I am continuing to work with a Deaf Somalia lady for her literacy today.

Equal Employment Opportunities: Sign language competency for communication and provision of interpreters mean that deaf people can do almost any job. It is important for deaf people to equally aspire securing jobs that reflect their interest and competency. The main barriers to employment arise from inaccessible work environments rather than an inability to hear.

There are 360 million people worldwide who have hearing loss/deaf. A rough idea of how many D/deaf people are working in the USA and there are around 46%-58% according to the research by the Galluadet Unvierstiy in 2011 and leaving around 4%-5% of Deaf people who are not working in USA.  US Deaf people who are working or not     One person wrote a blog and he mention that there are 67% of Australian Deaf people who are unemployed while in the developed countries there are 90% of unemployed Deaf people.

Over the last few years, there has been increasing awareness to hire deaf people to workforce such as working in a cafe, runs a Deaf cafe, coffee cafe, McDonalds, offices and factories. In Europe, England, Canada and USA, I visited friends and family of mine during my OE/holiday for many years and I popped in one of many cafe where there was a deaf person working there. It was pleasures to see that the business hired deaf person and able to interacted with many customers. I recalled one time when I was in Paris and I was signing to a few deaf people who are not from France, in the cafe and pizza restaurants. My deaf friends do not understand French language let alone leaving me to read and ordered for them. One of the waiter did not realise that I was deaf even he noticed that I was signing to my deaf friends. He communicated with me through body gesture and spoken French langauge (simple French phrases) to me. We understood well and ordered the meal no problem as all. The manager noticed us and out of the blue I was given a free dinner one evening when I walked back to the hotel via this cafe after the conference. This waiter and the manager knew about Deaf people and the Deaf history in Paris. In Lyon, I was staying there and I visited many cafe during my walk about around the countryside. I mention to the staff in Lyon that I am deaf. Out of blue, they signed to me even they were not deaf. I asked them how did they know deaf people or sign language. Their replied was there is a large Deaf families living in Lyon for many years. Simple that is the way how staff should hire deaf people to work or to learn to sign.

Many D/deaf people have got the skill during the transition from school to training college or University. It was their choice to studying carpentry, farming, barista, lawyer, linguist or teacher for the Deaf etc. I was one of them in New Zealand. Not every Deaf person got a good job to their liking because they need money to pay mortgage, bills, rents and foods etc. I know some Deaf people who are working as a welder, mechanics, farmers, home care assistants, cleaners, draftsman even a courier. One of my friends, he works for one company and he works this company over 46 years in Hamilton. His formates are excellent with him and they have no problem working with him. His disabilities are deaf, speech impaired and cerebral palsy. His workplace adapted the equipment and installed a new technology that matched him to work over the period of times. The latest technology, his manager asked me to visit and discussed over the technology that will suit this disabled friend of mine. So far, there have been no problem at work.

We, Deaf people completed the work by deadline time than normal people who can not completed their deadline works. I do know why because many normal people chatted so long, tend to forget where the information are, using more over the phone lines than checking emails/faxes more often etc. We have visual contact on every details to get the work done. There are many other issues which I can not mention here.

What about the rest of the Deaf people in New Zealand? There is one lady who I know and her qualification is a law. She can not get a job because of the cost to support her in the workplace.  There is another Deaf lady who is a doctor and she is lucky to have some special equipment that support her around workplace. It cost her a lot of money to buy equipments. In New Zealand, many workplaces are slow to learn to understand about Deaf culture, sign language and getting the equipment into workplaces. The other problems are attitude and financial BUT that problems should be removed and start looking at yourself to change your attitude. Do not embarrasses yourself if you have a deaf person working with you!

There is a guideline about Equal Employment Opportunity in USA and have a good read it.

Equal Employment Opportunity in USA

Simple solution for you all – starting learning about Deaf people and what their skill are. Do not worry about financial to get special equipment even get a flashing fire alarm in workplace. A flashing fire alarm is a part of the rule for Occupation Health and Safety and it is equal for everyone. Technology is growing and improving better for us to access in workplace. You will realise that it is only one-off by getting equipment than hiring and firing many people in the workplace.

Here are the example of sign language from Somali Deaf person who I am supporting over four years.

This picture of sign recorded in Egypt and it is a one hand manual alphabets. Around the world it is a universal sign language and it is the same for spoken language. But some countries have the similar signs that related to the earliest days for example USA sign language traced back to France and it produced the first old French-American sign language in 1817. But it has been proposed that ASL (American Sign Language) is a creole with LSF (French Sign Language) as the superstrate language and with the native village sign languages as substrate languages. Our NZSL is not the same way as in the literacy way for example deaf people write in sentence by signing like – School, I go. Me go home., me, have two children home., 3pm movie Hamilton. These sentences when deaf people wrote down on the paper or email, are linked to their NZSL conversation. It does not show that they are bad in writing in English because it is their communicate methods. They do not realise that there is a rule when writing in full English grammar because no one explained to them during the school. In NZSL, yes there are full morphology, syntax and structures.

There are so much to say to you all in this blog. I just want to give you some ideas on how D/deaf people develop sign language around the world. I will do some more stories on this one in the future…

Accessibility – We have the right to access anywhere such as public buildings, government buildings, car parks, home, transports, laws and technology. For example, we have televisions, Internet, YouTube, video in our homes and in public buildings such as in the library, movie theatre for many years.

Captioning in television/video. No one thought about captioning/subtitles for the D/deaf and Hearing Impaired people because they presume that we could hear or lip read a bit or well. The answer is wrong and we can not lip read well, let alone we can not hear the sound or voice over the phone, mobile, by watching the television/video or to see singers in music video etc. We do not feel the same right as the other people who can and we feel left out for many years. We were privilege to have some wonderful people established the idea to produced captioned television programme series, music video over 40 years ago. That is a start, but we need more because technology keep changing and updating for everyone.

Phones/faxes.  Many mobile phones are wonderful for us to use by sending/receiving texts and video conferencing through signing each others than using voice mails/messages which was impossible for us. Many landline phones are no good for us which it is the same for mobile phones except texting/video. In the old days, fax machines were excellent tools for us and we write out on paper to send out or to received in. Sadly there are not many fax machines available for elderly Deaf people because they do not like computer or never want to try out internet/email. It cost them too much money on their superannuation because they do not receive a lot of money even they will say it is wasting money on buying expensvie computers/tablets.

Interpreters – What a wonderful example to use an interpreter available for us during the public meetings, job interview, News/Parliament broadcasting in Europe, Canada and USA but not in New Zealand and Australia. The only time we have is to watch Emergency new breaking on Television and there will be an interpreter available. For example, during the Christchurch Earthquake, in the earliest television breaking news, there was no interpreter to tell many Deaf people around New Zealand and no one had no idea what happened. It was a major crisis and it made impact on the Deaf community because there was no access to information. Our Government staffs including MPs and the Broadcasting Media accepted that we need the information via interpreters because it was our right to access information through media such as Internet and television than listening on the radio.

What about fire alarms in public/government buildings and in our homes? We have been told to installed a fire alarm, yeh BUT what about the flashing light? The service people and the technicians people have forgotten about us again because they never thought about our deafness. We can not hear the sound from the fire alarm and we do not want to depended on other people in the house or in the buildings even workplace. We want to be independent because we CAN DO ourselves just like everyone. The main problem is the cost of making flashing fire alarm for us and the price tag range from $500 to $900 for one equipment. In the shops, the products – smoke/fire alarm are from $20 to $50 and these products does not have flashing light systems.

 

Today we will be thinking and looking at the campaign messages:

Equal Language and Accessibility

I promised you about the photo of my old-fashioned hearing aid…

In the pictures, you will see there are three different type of hearing aids.. The dark brown one hearing aid was the first one which I wore everyday. The second grey with clip hearing aid was the model of changing to small type from 1980s.. Both of these hearing aids had an ear piece attached to ear mould which can be see in the photo. Finally the latest changing of hearing aid which called ‘over the ear’ and it showed in the photo. It amazed me how the hearing aid change a lot over the period of times. I hated the first two hearing aids because I have to wear like a ‘harness type with a pocket’ to hold the hearing aid everywhere I go. I know some of my D/deaf friends hated those as well. The pictures of children and clothes were used for us to learn at school. These materials were given to me by two teachers for the Deaf children at Kelston Education for the Deaf Centre, Auckland. Because I was doing researching and making into our Deaf History for the community. My project on Deaf History is on hold due to no funding and income for me to continue. Both of the teachers passed away.

Now looking at the topics in Equal Language and Accessibility.

Equal Language – recognises sign language as a valid linguistic means of conveying thoughts, ideas and emotions. it is a fully operating language with its own syntax, morphology and structure. it fulfils all features serve to define the notion of a language. this has been confirmed in many systematic linguistic research on sign language since the late 1970s.

Accessibility – Stresses that deaf people need access to public information and service via sign language, interpreting, subtitling and/or close captioning. A key factor to accessibility to public service such as health care, employment, social welfare or any other government services is provision of and access to sign language.

As a deaf linguist, before I became a deaf linguist and I tried to understand why many D/deaf people signs as their first language, does it have a genuine language like English, French, Italian etc? Are our sign language the same to the rest of the world or not? There was so many answers for me to explore and to research. ….

will continue later..

 

World Federation for the Deaf

An exciting week: starting from today – “With Sign Language, I am Equal” and this is a strong message to everyone to share with their colleagues, family and friends..

Ten years there was an official language – New Zealand Sign Language in New Zealand and today we have got three official languages which are Maori, English and New Zealand Sign Language.

“International Week of the Deaf is an initiative of the WFD and was first launched in 1958 in Rome, Italy. It is celebrated annually by the global Deaf Community on the last week of September to commemorate the same month the first World Congress of the WFD was held. IWD is celebrated through various activities by the respective Deaf Communities worldwide. These activities call for participation and involvements of various stakeholders including families, peers, governmental bodies, professional sign language interpreters, and DPOs.”

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/tvdrp4rittw623k/AACjcAthvtHtjyiRldqrrv09a/1.%20IWD%20TOOLKIT%202016.pdf?dl=0

Let see the campaign messages are:

Birth Right – Draws upon the principle of basic human rights in relation to language acquisition at birth. When acquired fast, it enables deaf children to have full communication with people, improving their cognitive and social skills. Deaf children need access to sign language from birth.

Deaf identity – Identifies deaf people as belonging to a cultural and linguistic community, who use sign language as a mother tongue or natural language to communicate.

Many D/deaf people born D/deaf from birth or in the later life and their parents were referred to the medical clinic for the diagnosed on the hearing loss. The parents will decide on what kind of communicate for their D/deaf child and it can be sign language, oral or both of the communication. It can be difficult for a D/deaf child to be placed in a mainstream school where there are no other D/deaf children there. The school must provide a teacher aide with a skill which called NZSL (New Zealand Sign Language), full or partially understand in the Deaf culture and the community. As well, the staff of the school must provide any equipment such as Ipad with special tools such as captioning, recording the teacher’s message for homework and flashing fire alarm for the D/deaf child during the school terms. Every child in the mainstream school must learn to communicate in sign language with a D/deaf child and it will strength bond of friendship and trust.

It can be difficult for a D/deaf child to be placed in a mainstream school where there are no other D/deaf children there. The school must provide a teacher aide with a skill which called NZSL (New Zealand Sign Language), full or partially understand in the Deaf culture and the community. As well, the staff of the school must provide any equipment such as Ipad with special tools such as captioning, recording the teacher’s message for homework and flashing fire alarm for the D/deaf child during the school terms. Every child in the mainstream school must learn to communicate in sign language with a D/deaf child and it will strength bond of friendship and trust. If the parent chose to have their D/deaf child to speak, therefore a speech therapist need to be there and to teach the D/deaf child.

It would be good for the parent placed their D/deaf child in the Deaf Education School because of many D/deaf children are there and have the same communicating methods such as NZSL/English Signed. In this school where D/deaf children will communicating easily and there are plenty of special equipment available for their needs. The teachers have got their skills in NZSL/English Signed and of course, the teachers can be either Deaf or hearing. The parents of the D/deaf child would need to learn to sign early so they can communicate with their children including a D/deaf child in the household, school and in the Deaf community.

It is really come down to a D/deaf child to develop their mother’s tongue as a first language which can be either NZSL/English Signed or English language.It is the D/deaf child’s right to make the decision on what their Deaf identity is.

For an example – I was born deaf from rubella via my sister and mum. My parents were unaware of my deafness since birth until my late grandmother noticed the problem I have. Of course, I suffered a slow delayed in speech and balance problem right up to 18 months old. I wore an old-fashioned hearing aid even I hated the sounds and I tried to throw the hearing aid down in the toilet. A picture of my old-fashioned hearing aid will be following in the next day. I learnt to speak through my speech therapist until I was at Hamilton West School. There was a speech therapy clinic from 1950s to 1980s and every Deaf children went to have a speech therapy. We did not use sign language until later but we did use sign language which called body gesture signs in the playground times. We developed our own gesture signs which formed into New Zealand sign language and share with other Deaf children throughout many schools around the regional of New Zealand during the social visitings. This sign language is our own linguistic in New Zealand and we borrow other sign languages from USA, Australia and Europe such as England and France (Old French-USA sign language). I do not identify myself as a Deaf when I was young until I was in  Melville High and this is when I realised that I am deaf.  Yes, I do notice that I wear hearing aid and speak three languages – English and TC (Total Communicate Signs)/NZSL for many years even I can not hear myself at night.

More to follow…….