When I was visiting HLID (mentioned in Mohammed's dissertation, but the English translation left the name in Arabic as "Al-Aradi Al-Mukadassa") there was a distinct hearing/Deaf divide among the faculty. The Hearing faculty (with the notable, and laudable, exception of Br. Andrew) would band together and talk in full view of the Deaf, sometimes signing every third word. And I almost never saw them signing without simultaneous speech. Perhaps Bernadet, who had more prolonged experience with HLID folks can correct my perception.
<br><br>I had no idea that MPI had worked on a Jordanian SL course. I'm glad they have, because as Bernadet said, there was much emphasis on vocabulary, and the vocabulary you learned depended on the club you attended. They offered long lists of vocabulary with no regard to usefulness, token frequency, etc., and often offered invented signs which their club had agreed upon, but which were unrecognized elsewhere. This same fixation on vocabulary was manifest in the theses and dissertation which focused nearly exclusively on vocabulary and not on structure (although things have hopefully changed since I was there). One of the main textbooks at the University of Jordan on Special Ed. traces the origins of all signing to de l'Epee! And talks about vocbulary and fingerspelling, but not much about structure.
<br><br>Again, thanks to the folks at MPI. :-)<br><br>Cheers,<br><br>-Dan<br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 9/26/07, <b class="gmail_sendername">Bernadet Hendriks</b> <<a href="mailto:bernie_hendriks@swissmail.org">
bernie_hendriks@swissmail.org</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
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<div><font face="Arial" size="2">When I visited Quweisma school for the Deaf several
years ago, there was certainly no sign language being used there, so this might
be a recent development, but I think it is more likely that a rather ad hoc
form of signed Arabic is meant here (which is often referred to in Jordan as
Total Communication, as Dan mentioned). To my knowledge, the only school in
Jordan in which experiments have been done with bilingualism using natural
Jordanian Sign Language has been the Holy Land Institute for the Deaf. Even
there, though, most teachers make up their own form of signed Arabic. In
2006 the Max Planck Institute in Nijmegen, in co-operation
with the Holy Land Institute for the Deaf produced a basic course in
Jordanian Sign Language which is now being taught for those with the aspiration
to become interpreters. Hopefully this course can in the future also be
used to train teachers of the Deaf in using Jordanian Sign Language. This
is, however, the first course of its kind. Sign language courses in Jordan have
thus far mainly focused on teaching vocabulary, which means most teachers are
not aware of the fact that Jordanian Sign Language has a grammar that is
completely different to the grammar of Arabic and that speaking Arabic and
signing grammatically at the same time is not possible. However, if anyone knows
of schools which do use natural Jordanian Sign Language, I would love to
hear...</font></div>
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<div><font face="Arial" size="2">Greetings,</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial" size="2"></font> </div>
<div><font face="Arial" size="2">Bernadet</font></div>
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<div><font face="Arial" size="2"></font> </div>
<div><font face="Arial" size="2"></font> </div></div>
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