From reading SW to reading spoken languages...

[Valerie Sutton]

SignWriting List
July 17, 2003

Thank you, James, for this thoughtful report about SignWriting in
Nicaragua...Your postscript below is important...stating that your Deaf
students, who are fluent, or at least skilled in SignWriting, are now
making a transition to reading the Spanish spoken language...If your
results are positive I am sure other teachers will want to know,
because one of the biggest concerns from new teachers, is the fear that
Deaf people will never learn to read and write a spoken language, if
they learn SignWriting first...I personally do not believe that is
true, but I have never had any official data to back up that
belief...Thanks for this -  Val ;-)

----------------------

On Wednesday, July 16, 2003, at 07:37 AM, James/Judy Shepard-Kegl wrote:

> Valerie,
>
> Thank you for the CD's.  We have two new volunteers coming to
> Bluefields
> next month.  I trained one in SW in April.  The second, a Deaf teacher
> from
> Copenhagen, will be staying with me in Maine at the end of July for a
> few
> days, to learn SW, before we all go together to Bluefields on August
> 3.  We
> will be met there by a Peace Corps volunteer who will be assigned to
> the
> Condega program (I started teaching her SW in May while I was in
> Condega.)
> So, since I will be busy with so much stuff in August, I suspect these
> three
> individuals will find the computer lessons invaluable.
>
> Thank you again.
>
> -- James
>
> Ps:  These volunteers will be working at a minimum of four months, so
> we are
> going to have an opportunity to seriously implement the Spanish Level
> One
> program.  The students all read SW well enough, so it is time to
> transition
> them.  I will be teaching Level Two to the Deaf teacher trainees
> myself in
> August.
>