Dissertation Posted, Statistical Studies, Saudi Arabia and Jordan

[Dan Parvaz]

What I did notice is that nothing is said about the signed proficiency of
either the students or the instructors... only audiometric information on
the students. The school's Total Communication ("comprehensive style")
policy implies sign supported speech, based on the hearing teachers of the
deaf I've seen in Jordan (the only school I know of with Deaf instructors is
the Holy Land Institute for the Deaf in Salt). I also wonder what the effect
of the extra two month's instruction  (=two months indirect instruction on
the structure of signed language) had on the experimental group. Also, it
would have been nice to have a third group which used sign language without
sign writing (i.e., videotaped testing materials, etc.).

Perhaps some other time :-)

-Dan.

On 9/26/07, Shane Gilchrist O hEorpa <shane.gilchrist.oheorpa at gmail.com>
wrote:
>
> 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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> >
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