Do you think sign language, brail reading and lip-reading should be taught in schools?

Answer 1

I think that it should be offered. Parents may not want their child to learn this and it should be given as a choice.

It is a great idea and I wish I had learned at least one of those when I was younger. Children are like sponges and grasp other languages (spoken or not) much quicker than adults do.

Answer 2

I have thought for years that sign language should, but have never really thought about lip reading and brail, but think maybe not to start with. My thoughts are that if sign language is taught and becomes the norm everywhere, then in years to come, all the people that have been taught can pass it on to their children, which could then lead to maybe a next stage of learning to lip read, which goes hand in hand with sign language. I think brail could be a bit harder as you have to remember, blind peoples senses are more acute than seeing people. There are quite a lot of things that are taught at school that are no use in normal life, teaching skills like these would not only benefit people who suffer from loss of hearing and speech, but also help make people more aware of these people and not treat them, as some people tend to, as misfits.

Answer 3

Whilst on one aspect I agree that sign lanuage woud be useful to be taught at schools, with provision for lip and brail. I consider also that our schools are there to teach the majority of children for the majority of situations or more importantly the job market and futher training for other subjects leading on to the job market again (after all that is primary use that people use education for). that said it renders the latter two almost completely pointless and the first near pointless.Finally theres cost money and time - by providing those subjects it will detract the values of money and time from being spent on others.

On the over all - taken that education is done for the sake of learning - I would love to see those subjects as a standard in school - particualrly sign (deaf and or mute people may not be able to communicate as well in the world at large with out it). tho lip reading I doubt would really change much, but I suspect may improve peoples attention to sounds used in language (where they can hear) and also their general attention to detail. Brail once again - there wouldnt i suspect be a direct benifit other than an increased sensitivty to touch and awarenesss of the detail in touch and possibly a side affect in the level of detail paid attention to with eye sight (due to the new awareness).

Over all tho our education system isnt set up for learning for the sake of learning - nor is that attitude encouraged in our society on the over all. which is the greatest shame, if it were people wouldnt need to have such subjects taught at school to increase their awareness.

Answer 4

Yes, I wholeheartedly agree that sign language should be taught in schools, at least to the degree that people would have a better understanding of Deaf culture and could actually have a limited conversation with a Deaf person. I have wondered why there isn't more of an effort made to educate Americans in American Sign Language. It is, after all, not a foreign language, but a domestic one.

Not so much with braille and lipreading.

Answer 5

Yes they should.
Sign language, brail and lip reading should all be part of the national curriculum.

How else are people suppose to communicate with the hard of hearing/deaf/hearing impaired people in the world.
Are we supposed to ignore such people?
I think not as this would be rather rude.

Children today are expected to learn different languages why not include sign language etc into the national curriculum.

Answer 6

We actually talked about that during lunch this year. (We had a boy who was hearing impaired, and his translator ate lunch with us.) The boy with the hearing impairment was in my reading, language arts, and homeroom classes, so the translator and I bounced a lot of teaching strategies off of each other.

When we did sign language activities, students who often struggle with school work really stood out. What's more, they were so excited by their accomplishment. Do you know what they all had in common? They are kinesthetic learners!! I think teaching sign language is an excellent idea. We do not do enough to address the needs of kinesthetic learners, and sign language would be right up their alley.

I ALWAYS have a huge problem with learning students names at the beginning of the year. On the first day, we went through the room to come up with names for each student in sign language. This is the first year that I have ever known all of the students' names by the end of the day! I could also tell you a little bit about each one, and it was repeating the signs that helped jog my memory. Research has shown that we can recall information that we've learned if we can replicate the way we learned it.

Answer 7

Yeah, sign language and the brail alphabet should definitely be taught, lip reading is a much more acquired skill and would be much harder to teach, but there definitely should be some time spent teaching people to interact with people who suffer from disabilities.

Answer 8

Sign language and lip reading - definitely, in fact some primary schools already do this.
Braille is only useful to a blind person, is a highly skilled task and would need to replace another language lesson such as French or Spanish for the pupil to become proficient enough to use it when they leave school - and very few sighted pupils would be able to make use of it. To teach appreciation of braille is a different matter, and all these should really be included in the PSHE syllabus.

Answer 9

Children should have access to sign language and braille, but I don't see why it should be mandatory. Also, there is not much reason to teach lip reading...that is something you can do or can't, and teaching lip reading is a very outdated strategy that was once used in oral deaf education. Please keep in mind that many people who are deaf or hard of hearing don't even use sign language or lip reading.

Answer 10

Yes to the sign language - in fact I make sure all my classes can at least sign the alphabet.

The others are more difficult. I think people can lip read far more than they realise.