Dissertation Posted, Statistical Studies, Saudi Arabia and Jordan

[Shane Gilchrist O hEorpa]

Valerie,

The Holy Land Institute for the Deaf in Jordan do use sign language -
its run by a Br Andrew and they have employed several deaf teachers
and they have used Deaf volunteers from England several times who are
advocates of bilingualism.

Shane Gilchrist O hEorpa
Ulster Institute for the Deaf

On 26/09/2007, Valerie Sutton <sutton at signwriting.org> wrote:
> Everyone, Bernadet, Gerard -
> I just received a telephone call from Saudi Arabia, from Dr.
> AbuShaira, who is now teaching at King Saud University, in Riyadh,
> and he tells me that both schools, where both his SignWriting
> experiments were held (Saudi Arabia in 2002 and Jordan in 2007) are
> both schools that use Sign Language daily. All the students that took
> part in his experiments were already signers...so none of them were
> new to signing. The only thing that was new, was SignWriting, which
> was taught to the experimental group, while the control group did not
> learn SignWriting. The group that learned SignWriting, in both
> schools, did better on their exams overall. So the better results do
> point to SignWriting, according to Dr. AbuShaira...
>
> I asked him if the school system in Jordan was oral, and he told me
> that there are some schools that are, of course, but the classes he
> chose to do his experiments in, were ones that use Sign Language
> daily....
>
> Val ;-)
>
> Valerie Sutton
> Sutton at SignWriting.org
> www.SignWriting.org
>
> -------------
>
>
> On Sep 25, 2007, at 3:18 AM, Bernadet Hendriks wrote:
>
> > Hi Gerard,
> >
> > I must admist I didn't read through the entire PhD (certainly not
> > because most of it is still in Arabic and it would take me a lot of
> > time trying to read through it), but I skimmed through the English
> > translation. However I know from my experience of 6 years in Jordan
> > working with the Deaf that these al-Amal schools don't normally use
> > sign language...so my remark is more than just speculation. Also,
> > I'm not saying sign writing might not have been useful (I think it
> > could be very useful and I tried myself to teach it to a few Deaf
> > people in Jordan), but I am saying that I doubt these better
> > results stem from the use of sign writing only. If sign writing was
> > used, that means sign language was used, and that in itself may
> > have caused better results in the students. In the school where I
> > worked in Jordan bilingual education was introduced as a test and
> > this caused significantly better results in the reading skills of
> > students...without the use of sign writing.
> >
> > Greetings,
> >
> > Bernadet
> > _______________________________________________
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