New Techniques for Teaching Deaf People

Glasgow charity “Deaf Connections” (founded in 1822, and the oldest
established charity for Deaf people in the UK) recently became the first
organisation in Europe to pilot a new method for teaching English-language
reading and writing skills to Deaf people, namely “Manipulative Visual
Language (MVL)”.
The Deaf Connections pilot involved twelve Deaf Glasgow citizens,
all volunteers and all patrons of Deaf Connections facilities. Trials began
in January and at the half-way stage in the pilot-study, results are
immensely promising, and have hugely impressed Literacy Tutor, Lucy Cole (pictured) who oversaw the project.
She said: ‘Basically, it can be very difficult for people who are Deaf to
grasp the grammatical rules underpinning English language. The MVL system
breaks down this difficulty by making use of tactile wooden blocks, all
coded to symbolise different aspects of English grammar. It addresses the
unique learning needs of our profoundly Deaf literacy students. Many people
who are born Deaf and have grown up before learning speech. Deaf use British Sign Language as their first language and this may have huge implications on
their English language development. BSL is very different from English in
relation to grammatical concepts and structures. These shapes are part of a
visual and tactile teaching philosophy: one of which is a far more intuitive
and enjoyable way of learning sentence structure than simply staring at a
page of text.” MVL has been developed over the past decade by Jimmy Challis Gore, a professor at Gallaudet University in Washington State and Rob Gillies, a teacher at the Governor Baxter School for the Deaf in Maine, both have set up a non-profit organisation called “Greenbridge” to allow them to develop the system further. They very kindly provided the materials for the Glasgow study, and are taking a keen interest in the Glasgow Pilot. For more
information about MVL visit the website at www.green-bridge.org