Professional Development for Educators Teaching English for Academic Purposes to Deaf Students of English as a Foreign Language

On the face of it, deaf learners' English language acquisition is quite similar to the acquisition of English by hearing second language (L2) learners. Among other examples, syntactic acquisition orders are similar for the two groups (Berent 1996), and inherent properties of English motivate parallel learning sequences in areas such as infinitive complement interpretation (Berent 1983). The similarities are also quite apparent in students' English language output. English essays written by deaf learners are generally indistinguishable, content and cultural perspective notwithstanding, from essays written by hearing students of English as a second language (ESL) at comparable proficiency levels. Not surprisingly, ESL methods and materials have long been advocated for use in teaching English to deaf students (Goldberg & Bordman 1974) and are employed widely in the field of deaf education.