Is it possible to educate deaf children bilingually in Poland?

Piotr Tomaszewski(University oj Warsaw)

Mariusz Sak(School and Education Centre Jor DeaJ in Warsaw)

Is It Possible to Educate Deaf ChildrenBilingually in Polandi"

1. Trends and changes in deaf educationDeaf education is a field of theoretieal and practieal knowledge covering educa-tion sensu stricto, psychology, technology, medieine and so on. For several dozenyears, we have been observing various changes in deaf education, some moredynamie than others, whieh occur in virtually every corner of the world. Theyare closely linked to two categories of change.

The first one refers to the medieal achievements and the technologieal innova-tions, with whieh we are being able to utilize the remnants ofhearing in the edu-cation of deaf children to a higher and high er extent by the decade. As a result,more and more children and teenagers reach a status of a rather functional hardof hearing than a deaf person, compared to the past years (see Knoors, Mar-schark 2012). In practiee, this means that more people who would be regarded as'deaf and dumb' only two and more decades ago are now able to speak relativelywell and be more active in using their individual abilities to perceive sounds.Technology and medieine offer more and more advanced deviees that allow usnot so much to educate deaf and hard ofhearing pupils in a better and better wayas to educate them in mainstream schools. Despite the continuous developmentof the auditory-oral method and the improvements in hearing aids and cochlearimplants (CI), the development of spoken language by deaf and hard ofhearingpupils still do es not proceed in the same order as in hearing pupils (Spencer,Marschark 2010). The success rate with CI is highly variable; this issue is stilldebated, and there are no reliable predietors for success with CI (see Humphries,et al. 2012).

This paper subsidized by the Principal Research Fund of the Faculty of Psychology,University ofWarsaw (BST 171223/2014).

PDF processed with CutePDF evaluation edition www.CutePDF.com

http://www.cutepdf.com

130 Piotr Tomaszewski, Mariusz Sak

The other category of change is the transformatlon in the internal and externalperception of deaf people and deafness. The recognition of sign language as a lin-guistic category and of deafness as a socio-cultural category has become the germof change. Deaf education does not any longer pursue the aims of educating deafchildren in the image of hearing people.

Early intervention is a certain bridge or a derivative of these both categories.It involves early medical diagnostics, thus allowing for quick implementation ofeducational, psychological and therapeutic, and, most importantly, language andcultural solutions.

The changes that occurred in the past half century are a sign of the trend fordeparting from education geared towards maximizing the effect of adaptationof the deaf to the hearing environment. However, it should be noted that, be-cause of the legislative, cultural and customary solutions applied in the particu-lar countries or regions, there are certain obstacles that sustain the theory andpractice of the deaf education focused on depreciation of deafness.

It is the same with Poland, a country that on one hand has a long tradition inthe education of deaf people and yet, on the other hand, has experienced muchhistorical turbulence that had a direct impact on deaf education. In the first Pol-ish school for the deaf, the Institute for the Deaf established in 1817, the manu-al method of education was introduced quite quickly. It was a natural means ofcommunication and teaching in this (and not only this) institution for over halfcentury. This is reflected in the first Polish sign language dictionary, originally ti-tled Słownik mimiczny dla głuchoniemych i osób z nimi styczność majqcych ('1heSign Dictionary Jor the DeaJ as well as Persons who Come in Contact with 1hem(Hollak, Jagodziński 1879). Unfortunately, the teaching ide al, models and meth-ods developed in that period have been lost. This has been due to the geopoliticaltransformations in Poland and Europe at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.It seems, however, that it was not the wars that were the most destructive but therehabilitative ideology, in line with which a number of educational principles weredeveloped. In respect of the deaf, the principles centred around the right to speakand to "be the same': However, the demand for equal rights (including educationalequality) was based on the foundations ofthe idea ofbenevolence that could notdefend itself: The deaf have the right be the equal of the hearing. The most im-portant measures taken included offering the deaf achance of getting vocationaltraining in quite a fair number of trades (ca. 20% of those available to the hearing),development of an extensive network of deaf education centres and as well as get-ting the deaf access to secondaryeducation (since late 1970s) and post-secondaryeducation (since late 1990s). In the shadow of these positive events, there were also

Is It Possible to Educate Deaf Children 131

other, less beneficial processes taking place. Such as logopaedisation, audisationand oralisation of deaf education as well as introduction of manual1y-coded Polishin deaf education as a "sign language"

As a result of al1these factors, the only deaf education model was rehabilitation.This was the organization ofthe educational process involving the "normalization"of deafness that was almost openly highlighted. In fact, it was nothing more thaneducation geared towards adapting the deaf to the hearing majority.

Because of the political factors which substantial1y restricted access to theachievements in the field of Deaf Studies, the mainstream of the academic andpopular knowledge of deafness focused mainly on issues corresponding to thethen policy-makers' views and arising in their field of interest.

One of the issues that virtual1y did not appear in academic discourse was thebilingual education. Admittedly, the phenomenon of better educational results,better behaviour and personality in deaf pupils from Deaf? families was discernedbut no significance was attache d to that. One can find many reasons for this butwe think the most essential one was that bilingualism was perceived as a trend thatwas not only strongly different from the popular rehabilitation theories but alsoas a novelty that stood in elear contradiction to the scientific knowledge and theachievements of the so cal1ed surdology of that time.'

2. Two models of deafnessWhen considering the concept ofbilingual education of deaf children, two mod-els of deafness are to be taken into account: the medical and the socio-cultural.The schema below (see Fig. 1) illustrates the key differences between the ap-proaches. Their possible consequences for the development of deaf children willbe presented from the psychosocial point of view.

2 In writing 'deaf" it is common convention to use a capital 'D' when talking about com-munities that use a sign language as their major language, and 'd' when talking aboutauditory status.

3 Surdology is a field dealing with various aspects of hearing disorders. It developedwith relation to the increasing interest in deafness, its causes and consequences. As aresult, research works were undertaken in this new fieldby physicians,psychologists,educationalists, speech therapists and technicians.


Figure 1: Description oj the mode/s.

medlcal model soclocultural model

deafness as pathology deafnes as soclal cognitlon

{J.deaf as hearlng-Impalred patlents

{J.deaf as IIngulstlc minority

{J.rehabIlitatlon treatment for deaf

{J.educating deaf billngually

{J.enculturation in hearing world enculturation In Deaf world

acculturatlon In hearlng world

From the perspective of the medical model, people with disabilities are one-sidedly perceived from the angle of their limitations, which creates the risk oftreating them as individuals condemned to limited personal and social devel-opment. This issue refers also to deaf people. In this case, we are dealing withthe medicalization of deafness: Within the early support system, children areidentified as deaf or hard of hearing based in their ability to hear. At present,the Polish early support programmes are airned at total medicalization of the"problem" of deaf and hard ofhearing children. Since the beginning of deaf edu-cation, but also at present, such children have been defined in almost all aspectsof educational administration by their degree of hearing loss. The vast majorityof professionals see a deaf child from the ang1e of what he is not able to hear. Itis their conviction that a deaf child is a "medical case" So, solutions to this k.indof "problem" consist in attempting to restore the chllds hearing function by pro-viding him with a hearing aid or - increasingly - with a cochlear implant. Therehabilitation plans, based on the principle of reducing the degree of hearingloss, are in certain measure limited because they do not allow for other, alterna-tive options, like early and permanent contact with sign language and other dlDeaf people or early bilingual education. Basing on such a system, professionalscan make an incompetent or incorrect diagnosis for the deaf child, and the wholeassessment involves the very concept of normality related to the hearing capacityand its derivatives, e.g. speech (Kyle 2009).

According to the medical model, it is recommended that deaf children aresubject to a process of enculturation into the hearing community, in line with theLeast Restrictive Environment principie that is to ensure multisensory stimula-tion of the deaf child's development through "immersion" in the language and


culture of the hearing. This kind of approach seems to assume that the only wayfor deaf people to develop their fuli humanity is to integrate into the majoritygroup (the hearing) as weli as to abandon their own language (the sign) and tocease interacting with Deaf people (Ladd 2003; Lane 2008). This phenomenonis retlected in the processes of adaptation of the minority" to the majority, whichis characteristic of the Polish culture where the stereotyp es of d/Deaf people asbeing unable to manage their problem s without other people's help develop. So,the medicalization of deafness may foster the vision of an ideal deaf person asone that is well adapted to meet the expectations of other people, which maysustain the professionals' beliefs and views showing what is appropriate for deafchildren and what is not. This is retlected in their view that the success of deafor hard of hearing pupils should be assessed from the angle of their ability (1) touse spoken language, (2) to lip-read and (3) to manage in the hearing world. Thismeans that the rehabilitation measures taken as part of the work with a deaf childare focused rather on what the child lacks than what his abilities are. As Ladd(2005) writes, the medical approach to deafness presupposes that a deaf child isa hearing child who cannot hear. The possibility of enculturation of deaf childreninto the hearing world raises certain doubts as, because of the deafness, and es-pecially of the incomplete access to spoken language, it is difficult to admit thatthe process of enculturation into the hearing world and of acquisition of culturalcompetence takes place in natural and painless circumstances, as is it required bythe rules of enculturation.

In opposition to the medical construct of deafness, the principles of whichcentre around monolingual education of deaf children through immersion inspoken language and the culture of hearing people, there is a socio-culturalmodel of deafness that emphasizes the existence of sign language and the cultureof the Deaf, a social group functioning as a linguistic minority.

Under this approach, deafness is considered as something additional, char-acteristic of a given individual and not as a deficiency compared to the norm ofthe social majority. To many Deaf people, the aetiology, type, age and even thedegree ofhearing loss are of no great significance for their later ability to managein the Deaf community (Padden, Humphries 1988,2005; Johnson, Erting 1989).What holds this community together is essentially the feeling of identity, spring-ing from shared experience, language, culture, behaviour as weli as the problems,with which the Deaf cope in their everyday life. Therefore, Ladd (2003, 2005) hascoined the term Deafhood that has a positive connotation. Because this concept

4 Theminority in question consists of the Deaf as the users of the PolishSignLanguage.


emphasizes the possibilities, not the deficiency, and involves the proces s of af-firmation and acceptance of deafness by the deaf person. This leads to the emer-gence and development of identity in the deaf person. In this phenomenon, thepositive values in being Deaf are emphasized and the need for curing deafnessas a disease is rejected. From the point of view of the cultural model of deaf-ness, the differences between Deaf and hearing people are regarded as culturaland not as resulting from deficiencies according the norms created by the hear-ing (Senghas, Monaghan 2002). The basie principle of the cultural model is theintegration with other d/Deaf people. According to this principle, Deaf adultsfunction as positive role model s and their involvement in the community life isaimed at promoting access to the same rights, opportunities and privileges thatare accessed by hearing people. In this model, sign languages, enjoying equalityin treatment with spoken languages, are of special importance.

The fact that the Deaf are a linguistic minority using sign language doesnot, however, alter the other fact that they do not constitute a completely self-sufficient being and that they cannot be clearly separated from the hearing. AsLadd (2003) notes, the Deaf culture is a culture of aminority - one that is setin the culture of the majority. The Deaf and their culture are, at the same time,a culture of a minority in the majority community using spoken language. Thisresults in the majority of the members of the Deaf community or culture beingbilingual and bicultural to the extent that they share the values and language ofthe majority culture but also have the language and values of the other culturefunctioning within the majority one (Turner 1994). That is why the socio-cultur-al model of deafness places emphasis on bilingual education of deaf and hard ofhearing children that involves the sign language (e.g. Polish Sign language, PJM)used by the Deaf community as well as the spoken language (Polish) used by theHearing majority. As for biculturaHsm, in case of a deaf child of Deaf parents,there occurs, first of all, the process of enculturation into the Deaf communitywhere the child acquires the manners and styles of behaviour acceptable in theDeaf culture and expressed in PJM. At the time when deaf children encounterthe hearing culture, the process of acculturation takes place, during which thetwo cultural groups, the Hearing and the Deaf come into direct or indirect eon-tact with each other. The issue of bicultural education of a deaf child of hearingparents seems to be more complicated. Because it is considerably more dlffi-cult to create the conditions for the child's enculturation into the Deaf cultureas part of the socialization process since his parents are hearing, not Deaf. Somescholars suggest nevertheless that it is rather a matter of acculturation to boththe worlds, to which deaf children of hearing parents have the right to belong


(Grosjean 2008, Maxwell-McCaw, Zea 2010). The possible patterns of accultura-tion differ anyway, depending on the level of psychological identification withthe Deaf community and culture as well as with other cultures within the hear-ing community, with which Deaf individuals come into contact. The pattern ofacculturation is also affected by the ethnic and racial characteristics, religion,degree of involvement in activities typical of the community as well as by thefeeling of cultural competence (knowledge of the particular culture).

The lack of awareness of the comprehensive role of deafness can lead to eon-flicts between the hearing and the Deaf. Such conflicts may arise in the culturalcontext and involve intolerance of the language identity of the Deaf. Such a nega-tive attitude has an adverse effect on rehabilitation and education of deaf chil-dren or youth. This is reflected in the fact that the Polish early care programmesfor deaf and hard of hearing children are still carried out and developed basedon the above mentioned principie of medicalization of deafness, without takingits socio-cultural aspects into account.

3. Bilingual education for the Deaf: Is it possible?As mentioned above, today, many Polish professionals who deal with the issuesof deaf education consider the loss ofhearing merely a disability or a pathologicalstate that should be detected, cured or rehabilitated by all available means. Theirview is expressed in many programmes for curing deafness. In one of them, thefollowing statements can be found (Ministry of Health 2004: 2-3). "Deafness isa very essential limitation on development (especially in children) - both theintellectual and emotional development and that in respect of human speech",or "In case of newly bom children, [deafness lmake them completely unable todevelop human speech, inner speech or abstract thinking, thus preventing theirnormal emotional and intellectual development"

The transfer of this medical aspect of the approach in question onto the socialand cultural area can, however, involve adverse effects: A one-sided look at deaf-ness as the onIy deficiency can adversely affect the socialization of deaf people.

In opposition to the medicalization of deafness, there is a process of its de-pathologisation in the form of introduction ofbilingual education in schools fordeaf children. In many countries, this process is already advanced but in Poland,it is still, unofficially, in a very early stage. Historically, until the time when re-search on PJM as the cultural characteristic of the Polish Deaf community wasfirst undertaken in our country - which was onIy in the 1990s - sign language wasseen as a system of manual signs used for general communication, without anygrammatical forms. Following the same reasoning, spoken language was used


in schools for the Deaf as the basie means of communication. However, becauseof the unsatisfactory learning outcomes of the deaf education programmes, amanually-coded Polish language system (system językowo-migowy, SJM; SignedPolish) was introduced and popularized in the late 1980s and in the early 1990sas a communication method in the teaching process. This method allowed for,among other things, the benefits of the sign. This system is used to visualizethe grammatical structure of Polish. It consists in assigning manual signs to thespoken language according to its grammar. SO,SJM is no sign language but thespoken Polish supported by signs. In a word, it functions as a visual transcriptionof spoken Polish. The attempts to expose deaf children to communication in SJMare oriented to provide them with full visual reception of the visual structure ofPolish.

SJM courses have been organized all over Poland since the 1980s. Amongsthearing teachers, Signed Polish has become an acceptable form of communica-tion with deaf pupils. In the meantime, indeed, PJM was developing within thePolish Deaf community but had no formal role in deaf education. The teachersstill were not provided with favourable conditions (no standard programmes forteaching PJM as a foreign language) to be able to achieve language and commu-nicative competence in PJM - at alevel sufficient for easy communication withdeaf pupils as PJM users. Therefore, instead of that, they learned during SJMcourses how to use the visual variant of the Polish language.

It was only in the early 1990s, when news about big changes in the deaf edu-cation systems were coming from Western countries to Poland, that the Polishprofessionals had begun to realize what the essence of bilingual education of theDeaf was. The foundations of bilingual education of the Deaf were created underexperimental conditions. They are still under development, and one of the maininitiators is the Warsaw Institute for the Deaf (see Świdziński, Adamiec 1999).Nevertheless, the current Polish dead education system is still in the stage of usingtotal communication, a method involving the use of SJM to communicate withthe deaf. This also involves the bimodal approach which, however, has nothing incommon with the bilingual approach. As the bimodal approach presupposes thatit is possible to combine two modalities: the visual-gestural and the auditory-vocalwith a simultaneous use of manual signs and spoken words, which gives an effectof visual transcription of the Polish. Whereas, in the bilingual approach, it is notpossible to combine two languages. One only can use one in parallel with anotherwhen learning two languages separately. Unfortunately, some teachers or profes-sionals mistake bimodal education for a bilingual model.

Is It Possible to Educate Deaf Children l37

So, bimodal teaching is what monolingual education is marked by and can fos-ter the development of submersion, a situation where PJM is not recognized as alanguage of equal status with Polish. The, PJM as the first language (11) of a deafchild is, deliberately or not deliberately, ignored in favour of the Polish language inits signed form (L2), due to which 11 can be completely excluded from the educa-tional process. In this way, the possibility of using PJM in schools is minimized oreven ruled out by replacing PJM with the sign-supported spoken language. None-theless, sign language can be used in the educational process but it is used rathernot as a language of instruction but as a methodological measure to support thedeaf child's language and speech development. What's more, some teachers andprofessionals claim that the principle of the "golden age for PJM acquisition" losesits significance because, in their opinion, the structure of PJM must be consider-ably simpler than that ofPolish, if deaf pupils master PJM within the peer environ-ment much more easily and quickly than Polish. This kind of thinking may fosterthe phenomenon of submersion. Under such conditions, deaf pupils' progress inlanguage skills and learning are assessed chiefly from the point of view of the spo-ken language.

There is also an issue of psycho-social nature that is worth considering: Thecurrent deaf education in Poland is in the character of more or less deliberatesocial oppression in the form of belittling PJM as aminority language which,paradoxically, functions unhindered amongst deaf pupils as a rightful form oftheir everyday communication in the residential Deaf schools that, as Reagan(1990) notes, are at the root of the Deaf community. This can affect their percep-tion of themselves as deaf people: They unconsciously learn to look at themselvesthrough the eyes of the dominating culture of hearing people, because they getlittle information on PJM and the culture and history of the Deaf if PJM is nottaught as part of the curriculum in the context of Deaf social studies. As a result,senses of passivity, inferiority and powerlessness may arise in deaf pupils: Theymay see their group as oflesser value and not so desirable than the hearing world(see Gertz 2008).

This problem becomes part of the concept of pedagogy of the oppressed ac-cording to Paulo Freire (2000). From this perspective, the representatives of themajority culture make use of their opportunity to have authority over the pupils todominate and control the pupils from non-dominant cultures as well as to main-tain the language domination for them, which can more or less eonfirm them intheir belief that the majority language is more desirable than the minority one.This problem also refers to the Polish Deaf community, which historically involvesthe oralist approach to deaf education: Many hearing teachers and professionals


considered that sign language was inferior to spoken language and that deaf pupilshad to learn how to use speech in order to be able to cognitively function at thelevel of abstraction. At that time, there was no realization that it is the language,not sound or speech that is indispensable to normal development of deaf children.

So, such a situation makes it hard to discern the equality issues, and conse-quently, to propagate and enforce the idea of bilingualism in Poland. Indeed, thelanguage submersion policy has been maintained in most countries to this day inorder to prevent the promotion of the Deaf culture among the future generationsof deaf children. However, during the last twenty years, the movement demand-ing restoration of sign language and popularization ofbilingual education for theDeafhas had an impact on some countries, such as the United States or Sweden(see Mahshie 1995).

In order to avoid a situation of submersion, a bilingual, not a birnodal methodof irnmersion should be applied. With the bilingual method, PJM is considered tobe of equal status with Polish, and as a language of instruction, it is to be used toteach other subjects and not as a supporting method of teaching. According to theconcept of irnmersive bilingualism, deaf children should be irnmersed in PJM as11 and in the new language to them, Polish as L2 in the written, spoken or signedform as early as possible so that they are able to master both the languages, 11 as'their' language and L2 as a foreign/second one. Moreover, the creating of favour-able conditions for deaf children to early identify with their peers and Deaf adultsof high social status and members of the Deaf community would favour not fosternot only the childrens development of communicative competence in PJM butalso of their emotional, social and cognitive spheres.

The above outlined premises provoke us to attempt to answer the questionthat becomes the aim of our discussion: Is bilingual education of the deaf pos-sible in Poland? The short description of the most essential barriers to not somuch introduction of bilingual education for deaf children in Poland as to thecommon thinking about bilingual education for the Deaf as a linguistic and edu-cational strategy shows that this task may seem to be both a distant and recklessaim. But, contrary to appearances, it is neither particularly distant nor unfeasi-ble. There would be a num ber of conditions to be met. The most important ofthese, the ones that should absolutely be included in the strategy for implemen-tation of deaf education in Poland are the folIowing:

- Teachers having comprehensive factual knowledge of Deaf Studies coveringthe linguistic, cognitive, social and cultural aspects of deafness;

- Teachers having comprehensive language skills and experience with respectto 11 and L2, gained through long-term language skills training;

Is It Possible to Educate Deaf Children l39

- Creating a possibility for bilingual deaf education to legally function withinthe Polish legal system;

- Creating a coherent language planning system for deaf children in Poland.

Ali these plans are currently under way but in different stages of implementa-tions. Talks with government organs have been initiated with the aim to establishan educational frarnework that would allow for formal bilingual education inPoland.

4. Towards bilingual education: The project of anew language policy

As Cooper (1989: 45) notes, "Language planning refers to deliberate efforts toinfluence the behaviour of others with respect to the acquisition, structure, orfunctional allocation of their language codes" This kind of action reflects interalia the decisions or politieal criteria, the historieal genesis of the use of a givenlanguage, the socio-economic situation in countries where languages as weli asdemographie and cultural factors are used. Ali that is of considerable importancefor the creation of strategies for actions aimed at both the forming of an attitudeto a given language and to the shaping of the face of communieation in a certaincommunity, as weli as in contacts with other communities.

The actions related to language planning refer not only to spoken languagesbut also to the signed one s (see Reagan 2010). The history of the Deaf com-mu nity and education provides around the world many exarnples of more orless successful interference in the natural development of sign languages. Aslong as this kind of interference relates to the existing natural sign language, wecan talk about language policy and planning. This happens when the Deaf andhearing communities try to create a common means of social communieation.However, for many years, Deaf communities have been perceived by hearingpolicy-makers as "burdening" on account of their language problems, especiallyin education, for an obvious reason: Deaf children were not given fuli access tothe majority spoken language as a means of communieation in education.

One might say that there has been language planning for the deaf in Polandfor years. The Sign Dietionary by Hollak and Jagodziński, quoted earlier in thispaper is one but not the only one exarnple of historie evidence of appreciationof the role of a language - especially the sign language - in the socio-cognitivedevelopment of the deaf. The gradual decline of the role and significance of signlanguage in deaf children's development that has arisen about one and a half cen-turies ago, resulted in almost total elimination of sign language from the Polish


deaf education system. One can hazard a guess that the germs oflanguage plan-ning for Polish Sign Language have been replaced with the germs of languageplanning for Polish. Why are we talking about hazarding? Because, the assump-tion that language planning has taken place (in the form appropriate to the 19thcentury reality) is unverifiable as a vast part of the documentation of that timehas been lost as a result of hostilities. The hazard concerning in tum the ut-terances in regard to language planning as related to the Polish language refersto the general reservation that, despite the language limitations in the deaf, noactivities beyond - generally speaking - the reading, writing and speaking skillswere undertaken. Hence, is it is rather a matter oflanguage education that can beconsidered as a form of language education planning connected with the coun-tering of illiteracy than about language planning sensu stricto. The introductionof manual means of communication into the education system has not changedmuch, either. For that reason, we should assume that in Poland, there is still alack of a policy for constructive language planning in respect of the Polish SignLanguage.

In order to better understand the influence of language planning on the de-velopment of the deaf education system in Poland with respect to the idea ofbilingualism, it is worthwhile examining the stages of this process in detail. Theactivities undertaken as part oflanguage planning can, to alI intents and purpos-es, relate to various areas of use or presence of the language: (1) status planning,(2) acquisition planning and (3) corpus planning (Cooper 1989).

Status planning refers to the choice of a dialect that is to be granted the statusof a language, and to its codification and standardization if need be. The bet-ter and better access to wider and wider information about sign languages, intowhich research has been carried out in some European countries for several doz-en years, has resulted in the legal recognition of these languages as having equalstatus with spoken languages, and of the groups of Deaf users of sign language -as a cultural and language minority (Timmermans 2005). So, to date, a thingimportant to the Deaf has been done in some countries: The language of Deafcitizens was made equal to the language ofhearing citizens. As far as the politicalsituation in Poland is concerned, indeed, a relevant act (Act on Sign Languageand Other Forms ojCommunications) was passed bythe Polish Parliament on 19August 2011, with effect from l April2012.5 However, a number of important

5 As seen above, the first act on sign language was adopted in Poland late, comparedwith other countries. It is noteworthy that there are other delaysin adopting language-related acts which reflects the specificityof the language policy in Poland. The delaysprobably involvewith the historical context of the collapseof the communist regime.


provisions regulating the terminological, minority and educational issues weremissing in the adopted act. The Act on Sign Language does not clarify the ba-sic terminological distinction: the recognition of PJM as a natural minority lan-guage of the Polish Deaf community and of SJM as manually-coded Polish. Itdoes not cover the area of education, either, thus ensuring no education in PJMor through PJM and no bilingual education. It says, however, that d/Deaf peoplehave the right to communicate in sign language and that sign interpreting ser-vices should be made available to them.

The Act still do es not match the social, cultural, language and educationalneeds of the Deaf community, and PJM still functions as its informallanguage.Therefore, it is necessary to take further steps involving language status planningin order to amend the Act. Firstly, it is essential to adopt alegal act recognizingboth the Polish Sign Language and the Deaf as a language minority - accordingto the resolution adopted by the European Parliament on 12 June 1988. Secondly,it is recommended that the Act include a provision to respect deaf children'sright to education in bilingual environment. For d/Deaf citizens have the rightto be bilingual within the Polish society, and this right should be guaranteed tothem and secured by the Polish government - as soon as possible, too.

As far as acquisition planning is concerned, this process refers to all meas-ures regulating the teaching of a language in education as well as to the issuesof the institutional anchoring of some element s of the cultural transmissionprocess. Unfortunately, the legal acts and related documents that are currentlyin force in Poland do not meet the needs and demands of the Deaf for theirright to bilingual education that would distinctly stress the importance of thePolish Sign Language and the existence of the Deaf community. The Ordi-nance of the Minister of National Education of 12 February 2002 on curricu-lum frameworks for public schools contains a provision made for one of theneeds of deaf pupils as disabled persons. Namely, the provision says that theycan take sign language lessons as remedial classes or use alternative methodsof communication (it is not spelled out explicitly which language it is about,

In our country, it was only in 1999 that Polish was granted the status of an officiallanguage The relevantact entered into force in 2000and its aim is to protect the Polishlanguage against the globalization process as well as to spread information about thePolish language and culture as well as to help develop language skilIs.Thishas alreadybeen the caseas regards the regulation of national minority languages:The considera-tions over the relevant bill had lasted for 7 years as it was it was submitted for consid-eration by the Sejm on 29 September 1998and it was not unti! 6 January 2005 (sic!)that the act was adopted.


PJM or SJM). As seen above, in this approach to deaf education, deafness is stilltreated only as a disability requiring rehabilitation, which functionally delegit-imizes the Polish Sign Language and the Deaf community. As Reagan (2001:157) suggests, .Janguage planning as an applied sociolinguistic activity has thepotential to function either as a tool for empowerment and liberation or as ameans of oppression and domination" In language planning, the educationalpolicy often covers both the open and the latent aims. Therefore, within thePolish deaf education system, rehabilitation still remains a high priority. Ac-cording to this system, the only disability the Deafhave is their "predispositionto use the [sign]language in a modality different from that ofthe social majori-ties" (Kowal 2011: 98). In term s of ideology, this may lead to activities beingundertakenwith the aim to delegitimize the presence and status ofthe culturalcommunity of the Deaf and their language as well. This is reflected in the factthat, under the current rules, deaf schools' teachers and principals organizesign language lessons as remedial elasses or as part of the so called hours atthe principal's disposal. The latter are organized as elasses aimed at meetingthe needs and interest of the pupils or as educational elasses aimed developingthe pupils' interests and talents. Unfortunately, it is very often the case that thelanguage that is used during such remedial elasses is just the spoken one sup-ported with manual signs, and not PJM in its pure form. As mentioned earlierin this paper, the concept of using total communication, and especially theManual Codes for Polish is dominant in the Polish education of the deaf. Theintention of this is to teach deaf pupils Polish (in its spoken, written or signedform) as the first language but a [oreign, not the second one. As some scholarssuggest, this kind of language planning in the form of using this system in deafeducation can be a kind of colonial oppression where the dominant (hear-ing) people eonduet a language policy as a tool to maintain their cultural andlanguage dominance, and it is their conviction that they do so for the good ofthe oppressed; this controversially place s the Deaf in unfavourable situation(Johnson et al. 1989; Lane 1992; Reagan 1988,2001,2010; Ladd 2003, 2008).

Therefore, as part of acquisition planning, action should be taken at the levelof the Ministry of Education with the aim to develop and implement system forthe teaching of Polish based on foreign-language teaching and PJM as a minor-ity language in all schools for the deaf. The Ministry's regulations should eon-tain a elear and specific provision stating that PJM should be the language ofinstruction for most school subject and spoken and written teaching should bedone separately, but simultaneously, in parallel - as is common in bilingual ormultilingual teaching curricula. An important part in this language planning


is also a necessary arnendment to the government's Act on Sign Language andOther Forms oj Communication in terms of the course of introdudng the bilin-gual education of the deaf in educational and cultural institutions.

The process of corpus planning includes activities focused around the stand-ardization of language, its codification and normisation, and thus is aimed atexpanding the language's functional scope through the expansion of vocabularyand creating mechanisms to promote and control the standard style, for exarn-ple, through the publication of dictionaries. In Poland, corpus planning is in itsinfancy, because research on sign language thus far has been carried out in anirregular manner. There is a lack of a complete textual corpus and an establishedbody of methods for analysing research materiał. This is due to the complexityof research processes for PJM of as a language based on the visual-gestural mo-dality and having no standard written form. Thus, until now, a normal standarddictionary has not been published for PJM, but dictionaries that are instead alexical presentation of the Manual Codes for Polish or a sign language hybridwere created. At the moment, however, in different research centres there are at-tempts to find solutions for the issue of corpus planning due to the intention ofcreating a PJM Corpus (Tomaszewski 2010; Rutkowski et al. in press).

In discussing the issue of corpus planning, the crucial fact that today somesign languages around the world are in danger of extinction from lack of users,particularly from the younger generation, should be emphasized. As noted byJohnston (2004), this trend is quite visible in Australia, where Australian SignLanguage is in the process of withering away - according to a 2004 report, thereare approximately 6,500 users. According to this researcher, it may disappearalong with the local Deaf culture in the space of the next few generations due tohigher levels of normalization, the use of cochlear implants, genetic counselling,the influence oflanguage politics on the level oflanguage atrophy and educatingdeaf children in spoken language only, etc. This situation is taking place in otherareas, including in Poland, and so the question arises: is PJM "safe" and if thesociety's children use it, will it be used in 100 years? As Szczepankowski (1999)notes, the number of users of PJM in Poland is approximately 50,000 people andfor most ofthem PJM is used as the basie form of communication, but this num-ber should now be statistically verified. It can, however, be argued that there is ahigh probability that PJM is in danger of losing its generational continuity firstbecause for many years the status of the language of the Polish Deaf communityas a fully naturallanguage system was disputed in Poland, and secondly becausethe medicalization of deafness is still going on here and is bound to languagepolitics, which may affect the fate of PJM and Deaf culture in the future.


Therefore, the maximum acceleration of activities in the creation of the docu-mentation of contemporary PJM, thus fostering the development of a policy ofequality towards deaf Poles and their language, is necessary. This would supportand strengthen the still-functioning PJM, whieh is still employed byyounger us-ers, but whose use has begun to wane. It is also necessary to implement a socialprogramme promoting the respect ofPJM as part ofPolish cultural heritage andnot only as a burden for the state and society. This is all related to the possibilityof introducing bilingual education for the deaf in Poland.

Summing up the language planning possibilities in Polish conditions men-tioned above, it seems important to give a brief description of the barriers andobstacles in the way of introducing bilingual education.

Linguistie prejudiees and stereotyp es of the deaf: the primary barrier stand-ing in the way to implementing bilingual education is the perception of signlanguage and deaf people in Polish society. It is dominated by the attitude thatsign language has negative characteristics, whieh - in popular opinion - makesit more of a prosthesis for communieation than a language. Related to this is thestereotyp e of deaf individuals as "sick" "disabled" "having disturbed develop-ment", "having difficulties reading and writing" etc. - someone who suffers fromthe inability to speak and whose greatest dream is to hear. The conventional eon-struction of deafness, based on the motivations of charitable and social organisa-tions, and the lack of even a superficial understanding of the current knowledgeabout deafness, results in the Polish reality in the type of situations where "signlanguage is unnecessary" is uttered by an expert who has decades of experienceworking with the deaf during a meeting regarding the education of the deaf atthe Ministry of Education, as well as the official "model of working with deaf pu-pils" from the same Ministry being without a single mention of sign language (l).

The over representation of the scientific paradigm of rehabilitation in earlyintervention practiees: early intervention and early support in the developmentof young children in Poland is a process oriented towards diagnostics, medi-calization and then rehabilitation (mainly consisting of the logopaedisation ofthe patient). Despite that legally there is a possibility of including deaf people inthis process, there are no known examples that such people were added to thegro up s of experts working directly with the parents of deaf children. As a result,the parents are almost completely cut off from critical information for languageplanning (whieh should be an integral part of early intervention), informationabout alternatives to implants in children as well as tedious and sometimes inef-fective speech therapy.


Zero verifiable assumptions associated with current language aims: it is naturaland understandable that each method for working with deaf children has a short-or long-term aim. It is also normal that when it is dear its purpose has not beenachieved, it should be verified - not only in terms of its nuances, but the methoditself. Polish deaf education lacks such verification. The massive inefficiency of thesystem for educating the deafbased on teaching in Polish, whose current form hasbeen used for more than 60 years, has not aroused among specialists any criticalreflection on the assumptions and paradigms associated with it - originally, thiswas oral and, relatively recently, oral supported by manual methods of educatingthe deaf. Children, young people and adults who leave educational institutes forthe deaf, often with a superficial knowledge of Polish, are not behind the hearingwith their cognitive learning. However their linguistic discriInination is affectedand forces them to function at a poorer standard than hearing people: in lowersocial roles, and they are often pushed into the roles of welfare recipients.

A lack professional preparation as widely understood: in the debate on bilingualeducation in Poland, there are no voices from people who work on an everyday,professional basis with the deaf. We should not be surprised about this - for manypeople, it is more comfortable to preserve the status quo, which is often more thansimply the question of changing attitudes or supplementing knowledge. For manyspecialists, their well-being is far more important than that of the deaf.

The analysis of the principles mentioned in this text in creating a linguisticstrategy and a conception of bilingual deaf education in Poland based upon itresulted in the need to introduce parallellanguage-learning strategies that, atminiInum, indude

- The provision of formal options for language immersion in the LI (PolishSign Language) from the moment that the child's deafness is diagnosed;

- The construction of diagnostic and informational tools for the early interven-tion process;

- The construction of diagnostic tools for the needs of selecting bilingual edu-cation;

- The development of a language-learning programme as well as for other sub-jects in the curriculum resulting from the educational system for deaf childrenbased on LI (Polish Sign Language) as well as a programme for teaching theL2 (Polish) as a foreign/second language along with the creation of a learningsupport structure for teachers (lesson plans, textbooks, teaching aids, etc.).

- The development of a complete system for training teachers for necessitiesof bilingual education as well as for a deaf child's environment (fami1y andprofessional environments).


The practical implementation of a number of the constructed practiceswill enable the next stage of language planning analysis - the verification andmodification stage.

5. SummaryDeafness is a liquid concept, and its construction can vary depending on manydifferent factors. However, there is a need to develop a holistic approach todeafness (taking all models into account), which would favour a competentdetermination of a deaf child's needs and thus be adjusted to his/her cognitive,linguistic and socio-emotional abilities. In this process, both specialists andparents play an important role. In assessing deaf children and developing an ap-propriate programme to support their professional development, one should beaware of possible socio-cultural factors that may influence the diagnostic processas well as the entire course of implementing the programme of early childhooddevelopment to support deaf children's bilingualism.

While the issue of education is an area that is closely regulated in the Polishschool system, there are no coercive factors for a specific type of child-rearing.In Poland, many parents of deaf children often do not know of alternatives thatwould give them the opportunity to raise the child based on the socio-culturalmodel of deafness. As noted by Hoffmeister (2007), this lack of knowledge re-sults from "ethnocentric transmission": from the perspective of the dominanthearing culture, many doctors, speech therapists, educators and psychologistspresent the medical model of deafness to parents of deaf children whilst omit-ting its socio-cultural aspect - the re ality of life of Deaf users of PJM as a visualcarrier of their culture. Nevertheless, as in the case of both education and up-bringing, there is a need for a uniform and obligatory language planning systemfor the d/Deaf in Poland. The positions of the Deaf community and the hearingparents of deaf children, while they differ from one another, are undoubtedlythe most understandable: some defending their right to a language and culture,protecting it from domination by the majority; others wanting their child tohave access to spoken language that is dominant in the society in which theylive. Hence, it is necessary for a compromise on both sides where both PJM andPolish can play a role in the process of bilingual education, which is a viablealternative. Deaf activist, Roslyn Rosen accurately accounts this problem: "Wesay that they (hearing parents - authors' note) need to have contact with deafpeople if they're going to make educated decisions. The way the system worksnow is that the first people the parents see are doctors and audiologists, who seedeafness as pathology. What we need are partnerships between hearing parents


and the deaf community, so that parents can meet deaf people who are doingwell" (Dolnick 1993: 7).

The social policy of the Polish state and offering of medical care are directlyrelated to the adoption of the medical versus the socio-cultural model of deaf-ness. The adopted model also is reflected in what is considered normal anddesirable as well as in terms of the construction of deafness - and all this doesnot remain indifferent to the arising of social oppression and the irnposition ofcircumstances shaping Deaf identity and culture, as well as the alternative intro-duction of bilingual teaching in schools for the Deaf.

ReferencesCOOPER, R. L. (1989), Language Planning and Social Change. Cambridge.

DOLNICK, E. (1993), Deafness as Culture. Atlantic Monthly (September). Re-trieved from http://people. uncw.edu/laniers/Dolnick.pdf

FREIRE, P. (2000), Pedagog y oj the Oppressed. New York.

GERTZ, G. (2008), Dysconscious Audism: A 1heoretical Proposition. In: H-Dirksen, L. Bauman (ed.), Open Your Eyes. Deaf Studies Talking. UniversityOf Minnesota Press.

GROSJEAN, F. (2008), Studying Bilinguals. New York.

HOFFMEISTER, R. (2007), Language and the DeaJWorld: Difference not Disabil-ity. In: M. Brisk, P. Mattai (eds.), Culturally Responsive Teacher Education:Language, Curriculum & Community. Mahwah, NJ.

HOLLAK, J., JAGODZIŃSKI, T. (1879), Słownik Mimiczny dla głuchoniemych iosób z nimi styczność mających. Warszawa.

HUMPHRIES, T., KUSHALNAGAR, P., MATHUR, G., NAPOLI, D. J., PAD-DEN, c, RATHMANN, Ch., SMITH, S. R. (2012). Language AcquisitionJorDeaJ Children: Reducing the Harms oj Zero Tolerance to the Use oj Altetna-tive Approaches. In: Harm Reduction Journal9: 16. doi:1O.1l86/1477-7517-9-16.

JOHNSON, R.E., ERTING, C. (1989), Ethnicity and Socialization in a ClassroomJor DeaJ Children. In: C. Lucas (ed.) The Sociolinguistics of the Deaf Com-munity. Academic Press, Inc.

JOHNSON, R., LIDDELL, S., ERTING, C. (1989), Unlocking the Curriculum:Principles Jor Achieving Access in DeaJ Education. Gallaudet Research InstituteWorking Paper 89-3. Washington.


JOHNSTON, T. A. (2004), W(h)ither the DeaJCommunity? Population, Genetics,and the Puture oj Australian Sign Language. In: Arnerican Annals of the Deaf148 (5). 358-375.

KNOORS, H., MARSCHARK, M. (2012), Language PlanningJor the 21st Centu-ry: Revisiting Bilingual Language Policy Jor DeaJ Chi/dren. In: Journal of DeafStudies and DeafEducation 17 (3). 291-305.

KOWAL, J. (2011), Język polski jako obcy a edukacja niesłyszqcych. In: E. Twar-dowska, M. Kowalska (eds.), Edukacja niesłyszących - publikacja konferen-cyjna. Łódź.

KYLE, J. (2009), Assessing deaJ chi/dren. In: E. Pisula, P.Tomaszewski (eds.), NewIdea in Supporting Exceptional People. Warszawa.

LADD, P. (2003), Understanding DeaJ Culture. In Search oj Deajhood. Multilin-gual Matters LTD.

LADD, P. (2005), Deajhood: A Concept Stressing Possibilities, not Deficits. In:Scandinavian Journal ofPublic Health 33.12-17.

LADD, P. (2008), Colonialism and Resistance: A BrieJ History oj Deajhood. In:H-Dirksen L. Bauman (eds.), Open Your Eyes. Deaf Studies Talking.University Of Minnesota Press.

LANE, H. (1992), The Mask oj Benevolence: Disabling the DeaJ Community. NewYork.

LANE, H. (2008), Do DeaJ People Have a Disability? In: H-Dirksen L. Bau-man (eds.), Open Your Eyes. DeafStudies Talking. University OfMinnesotaPress.

MAHSHIE, S.N. (1995), Educating DeaJChildren Bilingually. Washington.

MAXWELL-MCCAW, D., ZEA, M. C. (2010). The DeaJ Acculturation Scale(DAS): Development and Validation oj 58-Item Measure. In: Journal of DeafStudies and DeafEducation 16:(3),325-342.

MINISTERSTWO ZDROWIA [Ministry of Health] (2004), Program lecze-nia głuchoty metodq wielokanałowych wszczepów implantów ślimakowych ipniowych. Retrieved from http://www2.mz.gov.pl/wwwfiles/ma_struktura/docs/pl glchoty _implanty _slimakowe_2004. pdf

PADDEN, C; HURPHIERS, T. (1988), DeaJ in America. Voice Prom a Culture.Harvard University Press.

PADDEN, C; HURPHIERS, T. (2005), Inside DeaJ Culture. Harvard UniversityPress.


REAGAN, T. (1988). Multiculturalism and the Deaf An Educational Manifesto.In: Iournal of Research and Development in Education 22. 1-6.

REAGAN, T. (1990), Cultural Considerations in the Education oj DeaJ Children.In: D. F.Moores, K.P. Meadow-Orlans (eds.), Educational and DevelopmentalAspects of Deafness. Washington.

REAGAN, T. (2001), Language Planning and Policy. In: C. Lucas (ed.), The So-ciolinguistics of Sign Languages. Cambridge.

REAGAN, T. (2010), Language Policy and Planning Jor Sign Languages. Wash-ington.

RUTKOWSKI, P.,ŁOZIŃSKA, S., FILIPCZAK, J., ŁACHETA, J.,MOSTOWSKI,P. (in press). Korpus polskiego języka migowego (P/M): założenia - procedury-metodologia. In: M. Sak (ed.), Stan badań nad głuchotą w Polsce. Łódź.

SENGHAS, R.J., MONAGHAN, L. (2002), Signs oJ1heir Times: Deaf Communi-ties and the Culture oj Language. In: The Annual Review of Anthropology 31.69-97.

SPENCER, P.E.,MARSCHARK, M. (2010), Evidence-Based Practice in EducatingDeaJ and Hard oj Hearing Students. Oxford.

SZCZEPANKOWSKI, B. (1999), Niesłyszqcy-głusi-głuchoniemi. Warszawa.

ŚWIDZIŃSKI M., ADAMIEC T. (1999), Education in Poland: 1he Past and theFuture. European Days DeafEducation. Orebro, Sweden, September 23-26 IX.

TIMMERMANS, N. (2005), 1he Status of Sign Languages in Europe. Strasbourg.

TOMASZEWSKI, P. (2010), Fonologia wizualna polskiego języka migowego.Warszawa.

TURNER, G. (1994), How Is DeaJ Culture? Toward a Revised Notion oj a Funda-mental Concept. In: Sign Language Studies (Summer). 103-126.

Is it possible to educate deaf children bilingually in Poland?

Documents

Transcript of Is it possible to educate deaf children bilingually in Poland?