Krister Schönström and Ingela Holmström
Writing is one of the necessary proficiencies in many areas of modern life. In our current era, many occupations including manual, non-academic labor require writing skills. Now that society in general has entered the internet, writing has become the main skill to be mastered in order to be able to participate in the internet and social media. Children need to develop writing abilities at schools in order to achieve academic success in various scholastic subjects. However, research literature has consistently reported that deaf learners experience difficulty in learning to read and write. Several studies report that deaf learners lag behind their hearing peers in writing skills (see, e.g., Traxler, 2000). At the same time, there are also studies indicating that there are skilled deaf readers and writers, so the difficulty may not simply be an issue of hearing loss, but rather a pedagogical problem (Hoffmeister & Caldwell-Harris, 2014; Kuntze, 1998).
One key issue for sign bilingual education, and deaf education in general, is the variations in deaf learners’ linguistic backgrounds, including their sign language proficiency. Deaf children of deaf parents often acquire a sign language as L1 in the course of natural language development, but most deaf children are born into hearing, non-signing families, and thus often acquire a sign language later in life, ultimately attaining lesser sign language proficiency (Mitchell & Karchmer, 2004). This suggests that the sign language skills of deaf children vary greatly when they begin schooling. In addition, the literature reports that deaf learners from deaf families attain greater academic success, including written language skills, than those born in hearing families (Israelite, Ewoldt, & Hoffmeister, 1992; Moores, 2001). There are also other factors that have been found to affect the linguistic development of deaf children, such as the demographics, culture, and the availability of and features in intervention programs. For example, some countries such as Norway and Sweden provide sign language programs to hearing parents, from whom their deaf children obtain a sufficient foundation in sign language (Swedish Ministry of Health and Social Affairs, 2006). Furthermore, the design of educational systems matters. Access to a signing environment with a rich input of language, peer interactions, and adult role models is a prerequisite for the children to develop communication skills and cognitive abilities (e.g., executive functions), which provides a foundation for them to develop written language skills.
Deaf learners with skills in sign language as a first or primary language (L1) are expected to learn a written language as a second or additional language (L2/Ln). In this chapter, we examine the central issues in the teaching of writing to L2/Ln learners, including the use of sign language as the children’s L1 to teach writing, and discuss different aspects of deaf signers’ writing. It should be mentioned that the settings where deaf learners are taught writing through sign languages are relatively rare worldwide (see, e.g., Strassman & Schirmer, 2012). As a consequence, examples of resources and methods, as well as reports on the efficiency of such bilingual practices, are rare. With few exceptions, such practices are found in sign bilingual programs, and to date these have not been established in every country of the world. The key questions addressed in this chapter are: What does it mean to teach writing to deaf learners using a sign language? And, in turn, what does it mean to learn to write as a deaf learner? The chapter begins with a theoretical overview of the subject, and continues with an overview of practical issues regarding the pedagogy of writing through the use of sign language. It ends with a discussion of the current situation and some considerations of future trends. It should be added that the accounts are limited primarily to the learning of English and several European languages.
This section is a discussion of the theoretical constructs that underlie current practices in the teaching of writing to the deaf learners using their L1 sign languages. The discussion draws from studies in writing, pedagogy, communication, cognition, bilingualism, and second language acquisition. It begins with an exposition of the constructs that are drawn from research studies on L2 writing by normally hearing children, and ends with an exposition of the constructs that pertain to the writing skills of the deaf learners.
Writing is an act of composing a text, involves a problem-solving, decision-making, and self-regulating process, and requires different skills. The study of writing includes describing different aspects of writing. Researchers in writing study the psychological, linguistic, pedagogical, social, motivational, and environmental aspects of writing, and memory processes and transcription skills (see MacArthur & Graham, 2016, for an overview). Writing requires linguistic knowledge in vocabulary and grammar, and as proposed in literacy studies, conceptual knowledge in the structures of discourse, rhetoric, and genres. Sociocultural studies explored writing as a social practice. In classrooms, the social practices include instruction methods, writing activities, and peer interactions. A review of the best practices of writing instruction suggests, among other things: (1) Engagement of learners to write; (2) creating a supportive writing environment; and (3) teaching writing skills, strategies, knowledge, and motivation (Graham, Harris, & Chambers, 2016). The concepts and skills associated with writing hold true for the signing deaf population. There are some differences, and they are mainly the mode of instruction and communication, and the poor access to spoken language by the deaf learners.
One model of L2 writing instruction is genre-based pedagogy, which was developed by Green and Lee in 1994 at the Sydney School in Australia (Rose & Martin, 2012). Hyland (2003) pointed out that genre is
based on the assumptions that the features of a similar group of texts depend on the social context of their creation and use, and that those features can be described in a way that relates a text to others like it and to the choices and constraints acting on text producers.
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Various genres occur in different societies, and different cultures privilege different genres. Each genre has overarching structures and language features (Gibbons, 2014). A genre-based pedagogy requires teachers to have a deep knowledge of language, culture, and context in order to teach learners the different genres and how texts are created within them (Gibbons, 2014; Hyland, 2003; Rose & Martin, 2012). Rothery (1996) outlined a teaching and learning cycle (TLC) model that consists of the stages of deconstruction, joint construction, and independent construction. Gibbons (2014) extended this model to include the following stages: (1) Building knowledge concerning the subject, field, and theme, and its words and concepts; (2) modeling and deconstructing texts, that is, examining texts from the genre in order to find representative models; (3) joint construction of texts, whereby teachers and learners work together; and (4) independent constructions, where learners write their own texts (see also Rose & Martin, 2012).
Scaffolding is central in genre-based pedagogy. It is a process where teachers guide and support the learners in their writing development. One way to use scaffolding is through the whole language approach, an approach that “emphasizes learning to read and write naturally with a focus on real communication and reading and writing for pleasure” (Richards & Rodgers, 2001: 108). In this approach, the teachers write for, to, and with their learners in different genres. According to Albertini (1993), writing is used for communication, self-expression, thinking, and reflection. Also, writing in a whole language approach is considered as being best learned through meaningful interaction with other (native) writers. This is in line with sociocultural theories, which emphasize that learning occurs through social interaction with others (Säljö, 2010; Vygotsky, 1978). Through the use of language, participants communicate their own experiences, knowledge, and perspectives, and learn about those of others. They discuss, imitate, negotiate, and play, while learning a great deal about the world, scholastic subjects, and ways of thinking. The language(s) used in school settings is critical for learner development.
The genre-based pedagogy is a common approach in general L2 writing instruction. However, it has not been reported in the scholarly literature that this pedagogy is used in sign bilingual education. For those who cannot acquire or use spoken languages, such as the signing deaf learners, sign languages are easily accessible and, when used as a medium of instruction in classrooms, the genre-based pedagogy has the potential to provide opportunities for teachers to teach and deaf learners to learn how to write.
A theory that is frequently used in supporting sign bilingualism and the learning of written language through sign language is Linguistic Interdependence Theory (LIT) (Cummins, 1996). A presumption of LIT is that there is a set of different cognitive skills associated with a common underlying proficiency (CUP) in performing cognitive demanding tasks, for example, performing academic tasks, that is common across languages. According to the percepts of LIT and CUP, if a learner has acquired those skills in L1, these skills will be transferred to the L2/Ln as well. The percepts of CUP contrast with the percepts of separate underlying proficiency (SUP), which contends that the skills the learner acquires in learning a L1 cannot be transferred to the learning of a L2/Ln.
The LIT explains why sign languages can be used to support the development of written language skills. It has gained some empirical support. Several studies have shown correlations between proficiency in sign language and proficiency in a written and spoken language (Chamberlain & Mayberry, 2008; Freel et al., 2011; Strong & Prinz, 1997). According to these studies, sign languages help connect the signing deaf learners to written languages. However, the use of sign language knowledge and skills to learn written language has been questioned by some researchers, who pointed to the fact that sign languages have no written form, that deaf children have no access to spoken languages, and that sign language cannot be used to learn a written language (e.g., Mayer & Wells, 1996). We contend that sign language can be used to support the development of the conceptual knowledge that signing deaf learners need to write. For example, an explanation of narrative structures using sign language can help the deaf learners to understand it and be able to compose narratives in written languages (see, e.g., Grosjean, 2001; Rathmann, Mann, & Morgan, 2007).
The schooling experiences of signing deaf learners may influence their written production. Svartholm (2008) reported differences in written production among the signing deaf learners depending on their educational background. The learners who had been exposed to sign bilingual curricula at schools wrote texts that were longer, creative, and contained more content than those who were exposed to a non-bilingual curriculum. The bilingual learners have a stronger foundation in sign language, and sign language served as a pathway to a set of knowledge and skills that are needed for writing (see also Kuntze, Golos, & Enns, 2014).
Early studies in deaf learners’ writing looked at the linguistic accuracy in their written production. The lexical and grammatical structures the deaf writers used were analyzed and compared to the structures used in hearing learners’ writings, and lexical and grammatical errors, deviations, and variations in the written production of the deaf learners were reported. Research consistently demonstrated that signing deaf learners have difficulties with vocabulary and grammar, that is, they used limited vocabulary and cohesion markers, and made erroneous use of inflectional morphology (see Albertini & Schley, 2010, and Antia, Reed, & Kreimeyer, 2005, for an overview).
As some researchers have pointed out, poor access to spoken language places deaf learners in a different L2 acquisition situation (Hoffmeister & Caldwell-Harris, 2014; see also Kuntze, 1998). The domains, stages, and varieties that are associated with hearing learners’ written language skill development are different for the signing deaf learners. Research in the signing deaf learners’ L2 acquisition, generally speaking, has been restricted to linguistic domains of written language and formal learning situations (see also Koutsoubou, Herman & Woll, 2007; Plaza-Pust, 2008). The sign bilingual situation of the deaf has also been described as a kind of “diglossia,” that is, a bilingualism in which the choice of language that is used at any given time is rigidly based on the linguistic domain (cf. Svartholm, 2008). Against this background, deaf signing learners’ learning of written language differs in several ways from that of hearing learners; sign language (L1) does not have a written form, and the deaf learners largely learn to write with poor access to spoken language that they are learning as another language (L2/Ln) (e.g., Kuntze, 1998). By comparison, hearing learners usually have a developed spoken language competence before starting to write, that is, they learn to write in a language in which they have acquired age-appropriate basic linguistic knowledge and skills. In addition, phonological awareness and phonological decoding are often mentioned in studies as contributing factors in the hearing learners’ writing skill development. Deaf children, however, require different modes, pathways, and processes in learning how to write because of their hearing absence (Hoffmeister & Caldwell-Harris, 2014; Mayberry, del Giudice, & Lieberman, 2011).
Other researchers analyzed deaf learners’ writing productions within the theoretical and methodological framework of L2 acquisition. They saw that deaf learners’ written productions are similar to that of hearing learners of L2 written languages, including lexical and grammatical errors, borrowings, and overuse (Berent, Kelly, & Schueler-Choukairi, 2012; Plaza-Pust, 2008; Svartholm, 2008). Deaf written language learners have been reported to follow the developmental stages in L2 grammar that is proposed by the Processability Theory (Pienemann, 1998). Processability Theory is a universal model of L2 grammar development, and contains a hierarchy of grammatical structures each of which is acquired in a specific and gradual order (Schönström, 2014). Schönström (2014) found that the development of grammar in the deaf sign bilingual children’s written production in Swedish showed the same pattern as in the development of grammar in hearing L2 learners of written Swedish. Plaza-Pust (2008) studied written German productions by the DGS-signing deaf bilinguals, and found that they were bound to similar learning processes. She also found variations in their written productions, and explained that they were influenced by different degrees of multilanguage contact and multilingual competence among the deaf learners.
Research has consistently found cross-linguistic influences in L2 writing. For instance, learners were seen to use a linguistic feature from their L1 in their L2 writing (Odlin, 1989). Likewise, features in sign language are found in signing deaf learners’ written productions. The use of the sign language features in written productions is also found to vary by the proficiency levels of the learners. Early studies with unimodal bilinguals showed that their writing were facilitated by an L1 translation (transfer) model whereby their L2 written texts contained the content, organization, syntactic complexity, and textual cohesion in L1 sign language, but only for low-proficiency writers. High-proficiency writers did not do translations; they made direct composition, that is, they used L2 features in their writing. Koutsoubou, Herman and Woll (2007) found that neither translation nor direct composition had any effect on the signing deaf learners’ writing, however, they conducted the study with a small writing sample size.
This section provides examples of pedagogical practices in the use of sign language to teach writing. It begins with broader pedagogical perspectives on sign language and written texts, teacher-learner and peer interactions and writing development, and scaffolding and the teaching of writing. The section continues with an exposition of approaches and techniques in using sign languages in different written composition tasks.
In educational settings where sign languages are used, it is typical for teacher instructions, explanations, and discussions to be conducted in sign language, and learners read texts, take notes, and perform tasks in written language (see, e.g., Bagga-Gupta, 2004; Lindahl, 2015; Mahshie, 1995; Mason & Ewoldt, 1996; Tapio, 2013). This is the content- or meaning-based instructional approach. This approach has been used in sign bilingual education where sign languages are used to teach writing to signing deaf learners. For instance, Mahshie (1995) illustrated how deaf learners in Sweden and Denmark received content information in both the national sign and written languages by watching sign language videos and reading the same narratives in written language. This was followed by class discussions on similarities and differences in text structure, content, and lexicon between the languages. In line with this approach are practices where teachers use text excerpts, written sentences, or concepts that are visually accessible, either on a PowerPoint slide or a whiteboard, and guide the learners through them while giving explanations and expanded descriptions in sign language (see, e.g., Bagga-Gupta, 2004; Lindahl, 2015). Furthermore, the teachers and learners discuss the meaning of different concepts or utterances to ensure that the learners understand the teaching content. Mason and Ewoldt (1996) described another form of instruction whereby a teacher lectured on a topic and the learners discussed it in sign language. After the discussion, the learners wrote their own essays, reports, and narratives on the topic, and presented their written works with other learners in sign language. The learners gave feedbacks to each other with suggestions on the topic, the linguistic structures, and the cohesion in their written texts.
Another approach to improving learners’ skills in writing words, sentences and discourses is Strategic and Interactive Writing Instruction (SIWI). The SIWI approach was developed in the 2000s (Dostal & Wolbers, 2014), and shares similar features with the genre-based pedagogy for L2 writing instruction described earlier. According to Dostal and Wolbers (2014), SIWI consists of seven driving principles. They are (1) strategic, whereby learners are explicitly taught to follow writing processes used by expert writers; (2) interactive, whereby learners and their teachers cooperate and share ideas; (3) linguistic and metalinguistic, in which the learners develop competence in the L2/Ln at both linguistic and metalinguistic levels through natural acquisition and explicit learning; (4) balanced, whereby the teachers establish literacy objectives that the learners can meet; (5) independent control, whereby teachers first guided the learners in their writing process, and then step back and transfer control to their learners to complete their writing; (6) visual scaffolding, in which the teachers and learners use visual means to provide information and support during the writing process; and (7) authentic, in which the learners with the assistance of teachers generate, revise, and publish pieces of text for an audience.
The above forms of content-based instruction provide the learners with opportunities to use sign languages to talk about topics, construct their writing, and interact with teachers and peers during the writing process. Sign language is seen here as a driving force for building knowledge and skills in the learners on how to write. Teachers use sign language to explain concepts and skills that are required to master in writing, and give feedback to the learners during their writing tasks. The above forms of content-based instruction provides the learners with opportunities to use sign languages to talk about topics, construct their writing, and interact with teachers and peers during the writing process. Such content-based instruction is not unique to deaf education, but is common in other L2/Ln instruction in writing (see, e.g., Gibbons, 2003).
Social interaction plays a role in fostering young children’s writing development (see, e.g., Dyson, 1983, 1989, 1993). Children play, talk, sign, and draw together, and, in such activities and using sign language, they learn from each other on what and how to write. Williams (1999) described an early morning activity in a classroom of four- and five-year-old deaf preschoolers where they drew, discussed about their drawings, negotiated how different the parts in the pictures are spelled in written language, including the choice of crayon color they will use, and “read” the texts on the drawings. Williams (1999) saw that the children “interacted socially around their evolving texts … talked about the spelling of specific words, the names of the letters of the alphabet and how they are formed, the relationship of written letters to fingerspelling, and the relationship of written words to signed words” (ibid.: 207). Williams argued that the social interactions between the children helped them develop their writing skills. Interactional activities that facilitate writing skill development and are conducted in sign language are also found among learners in higher-grade levels. In higher grades, for instance, learners tend to write alone or in groups, and give suggestions, feedback, and support to each other during the writing process. In making suggestions and giving feedbacks, the learners use sign language to fingerspell words, sign sentences in written order, and explain content and text structure.
Vygotsky’s (1978) zone of proximal development (ZPD) is an important consideration for deaf learners to develop written language abilities. ZPD is a mediated interaction approach between a learner and a more knowledgeable person that is generated by the difference between what a learner can do independently and what he or she can achieve with guidance and encouragement from the more skilled peer. Deaf learners, like all other learners, should be given opportunities to learn and interact with more skilled peers in order to gain the knowledge and skills that they need to write. One problem in deaf education is, however, that class sizes are often very small, and, as a consequence, the number of peers with different levels of knowledge can be very limited (see, e.g., Easterbrooks & Baker, 2002). One solution is to bring older and younger learners together. Mason and Ewoldt (1996) described such a situation where deaf high school learners read books to younger learners, pointing to pictures and words, and signing them. Nonetheless, it is more typical that teachers work as more skilled interactional partners in classrooms.
The instructional strategies that are described above are scaffolding; they give learners the opportunity to perform tasks successfully before moving on to more difficult tasks, and mitigate the risk of frustration. However, scaffolding may be time-consuming, and learners may learn at different paces and constantly ask the teacher about, for instance, how sign language signs are spelled in written language. This process often dictates the teachers’ management of lesson content and time. Swanwick (2002) observed three primary-aged learners’ attempt to translate a British Sign Language (BSL) story into written English. The teacher took the time to review the BSL story repetitively with the learners. Swanwick found that the learners have different approaches to writing and asked different questions when they worked on their writing.
A common approach in instructing deaf learners is the use of fingerspelling. Research has found that fingerspelling facilitates the reading skills of deaf children. For example, Padden and Ramsey (2000) found that children’s knowledge of fingerspelling in addition to sign language structures positively correlated with reading achievement (see also Leybaert, 2005; Musselman, 2000; Puente, Alvarado, & Herrera, 2006), which may influence their ability to write. Roos (2014) found that fingerspelling played a role in deaf children’s writing development; the children in her study used fingerspelling when they established the order of letters in Swedish words, memorized names, and recalled words from their memory. Roos also found that the children used fingerspelling as a kinesthetic memorization technique for spelling words by holding or freezing a fingerspelled word in their hand while writing it down. The children also recalled the pronunciation of a word or a name by fingerspelling it.
An instructional strategy that employs fingerspelling is chaining (Bagga-Gupta, 2004; Humphries & MacDougall, 1999; Tapio, 2013). Chaining involves connecting written words, pointing, fingerspelling, and signs into a chain. For instance, a teacher may point to a written word on the whiteboard, fingerspell it, show its signed counterpart, and again point to the written word. This technique is particularly used when teachers introduce new words and highlight them in different ways to ensure that the learners understand. Humphries and MacDougall (1999) found that deaf teachers use chaining to a much greater extent than hearing teachers, suggesting that deaf teachers build upon their own experiences of learning a written language. They use sign language to discuss, explain, and interact with deaf learners, while also writing on the whiteboard, pointing to words or sentences in textbooks, on paper, and PowerPoint slides, in effect creating linkages between the different languages that are in play in the actual classroom (see, e.g., Bagga-Gupta, 2004; Holmström & Schönström, 2018; Lindahl, 2015).
Another approach within sign bilingual education is the use of contrastive methods, whereby a written language is compared and contrasted with a sign language in terms of the linguistic properties of vocabulary, grammar, and discourse (see Hoffmeister & Caldwell-Harris, 2014; Svartholm, 2008). The text content and genre can also be compared and contrasted across languages (cf. Mahshie, 1995). The purpose of such an approach is to facilitate the learners’ metalinguistic awareness of the languages. Teachers who employ the contrastive technique illustrate the similarities and differences in linguistic structures and modalities between a sign language and a written language. One illustrative example is a marked subject in Swedish. Swedish requires a marked subject in all clauses and Swedish Sign Language (STS) does not. Such difference needs to be taken into consideration when teaching learners to self-monitor and eliminate possible influence from STS when writing in Swedish. Another illustrative example is vocabulary; it is misleading to treat lexical signs and depicting signs (such as classifier constructions) in a one sign-one word correspondence with written words (Hoffmeister & Caldwell-Harris, 2014).
Hoffmeister and Caldwell-Harris (2014) suggest a model for learning by reading a written language such as English. They propose three stages. The first stage is the translation of vocabulary and phrases to sign language such as American Sign Language (ASL). In the second stage, the learners work with more complex structures, for example, idiomatic utterances, such as “look over” or “take the bus.” In the third stage, differences between ASL and English are discussed in ASL. Children use their metalinguistic knowledge to compare ASL and English. Their metalinguistic knowledge becomes a source when teaching and learning to write. When teachers give feedback to learners’ writing, they refer to lexical, phrasal, and sentential structures of written English using ASL and the learners’ metalinguistic knowledge.
Foreign language teaching approaches and strategies can be employed in the teaching of writing to deaf learners. For instance, teachers can use computer-mediated communication such as live chats for written language tasks. Translation is an activity that occurs in both foreign language and sign bilingual education. In sign bilingual classrooms teachers and learners translate written language into sign language (e.g., Holmström & Schönström, forthcoming). However, translation in this case does not involve the creation of word for word correspondences between the languages. It is conceptual, whereby the meaning of words gets translated, not the words. One example of the conceptual translation approach is given by Evans (2004), who studied a 4th to 6th grade classroom in Canada. The teachers translated conceptually between ASL and English, and discussed similarities and differences in meaning in the two languages. Armed with this information, the learners then begin to write.
Literal translation is another activity that is found in foreign language and sign bilingual classrooms. It involves the creation of one sign-one word correspondence. Learners sign their thoughts and translate them into a written language. This process has the potential to provide the learners with a deeper understanding of the similarities and differences between the languages. In this situation, sign language translations serve as a pathway for developing writing skills. An opposite translation procedure, that is translating written texts into sign language, has been particularly observed in reading aloud activity. For example, one study shows deaf mothers of deaf children using this strategy to support their children’s written language skills (Berke, 2013). The deaf mothers used chaining and provided definitions. Translations of written texts into sign language also serves as another pathway for developing writing skills.
In many countries, deaf learners are taught not one written language but several foreign written languages. A model of teaching a foreign language using a foreign sign language is adopted in several countries. One example is teaching English as a foreign language through the use of ASL or BSL at schools in a non-English speaking country (Pritchard, 2016). The purpose of using a foreign sign language is grounded in the assumption that the English words that are produced orally, as well as fingerspelling in a sign language, aid in the development of English writing skills. The use of another foreign sign language could also have scaffolding as well as a motivational effect in learners’ learning.
There is a relative lack of research in the use of sign language to teach writing to L1 sign language-using deaf learners. This is probably caused by the rarity of sign-based educational programs worldwide. We have identified some approaches in the instruction of writing to signing deaf learners. Teachers may use different methods during different phases and topics in their lessons. In addition, there are a lack of efficacy studies in the scholarly literature.
As shown in this chapter, there are many different ways to teach deaf learners writing. However, it should be noted that approaches and practices for instructing writing using sign languages have been researched far too little to make any broad claims. Therefore, we cannot state enough the importance of ascertaining the effectiveness of the different approaches. As previously mentioned, efficacy studies in different sign language approaches and methods that are used in the teaching of writing are lacking and remain in need. The approaches and methods need to be continually evaluated and improved in order to effectively teach writing to signing deaf learners. In a sign language-based classroom, variability in the deaf learners has been observed. Teachers would need to develop different pedagogies for different learners. Future research should address this issue and assess the approaches and methods that contribute to successful writing by different ability groups of learners.
Pedagogical practices for general L2 writing instruction are, however, genre-based, and this pedagogy may be further developed and implemented in the writing instruction of deaf learners. It may also be beneficial to work bilingually across different school subjects (e.g., STEM), in order to link between sign language and written language (cf. Holmström & Schönström, 2018; Lindahl, 2015). It is thus highly desirable that further development of methods, teaching materials, and new practices in sign bilingual pedagogy continues. With the rapid development of technology in recent decades, there are increased opportunities for communication, for example, through social media, as there are greater possibilities for using sign language, for example, via vlogs, announcements, and YouTube, as well as for communicating in written mode through direct messages, for example, emails and online chatrooms. This greater accessibility to written communication modes through technology could also be an important source on which to build better practices and materials for sign language pedagogy.
With the increase in the number of deaf learners with cochlear implants (CI), this generation of learners may have more opportunities for learning the spoken language when compared with the opportunities that were given to previous generations of learners. This will obviously impact on their writing and the teaching of writing. However, given the variability in speech and hearing skills as well as in linguistic foundation among children with CI (Humphries et al., 2012), as well as in literacy (Mayer & Trezek, 2018), teaching them to write will remain a challenge for the foreseeable future. It is possible that many children with CI would still benefit from sign language pedagogy in order to take advantage of their full visual capacity together with their (limited) hearing capacity.
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