Sign language: Education Must Not Be Derailed by Language

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Where to look? How to communicate? Cornelia Ruppert, a deaf research associate at the Chair of Special Education – Focus on Hearing and Communication & Inclusive Education, knows the uncertainty that hearing people feel on first contact. As she warmly welcomes us for the interview, she explains how to act when a sign language interpreter is present: You look at the person who is signing– not the interpreter simultaneously translating into spoken or sign language. It is obvious once you think about it, but the situation is unfamiliar to many hearing people.

Cornelia Ruppert is adept at making people feel comfortable in each other’s presence. As well as managing a sign language school, she has been a research associate at LMU since October 2023. In this role, she trains aspiring teachers and other education professionals to work with deaf and hard-of-hearing children, adolescents, and adults. “Improving sign language training – that is my passion,” she explains. In addition, she is involved in a DFG-funded research project at the chair, which investigates the linguistic, cognitive, and socio-emotional development of deaf, hard-of-hearing, and hearing children of pre-school age.

Cornelia Ruppert was born deaf to parents who were also deaf. This gave her an advantage over many other deaf children: “It allowed me to communicate in sign language from the beginning. That really helped with language acquisition!”

Traumatic memories

At school, however, she had traumatic experiences. Although deaf, she attended a “school for the hearing impaired” (in today’s terminology, a school with a special educational focus on hearing and communication). “Everybody in my class used spoken language, and the teachers couldn’t sign. It was all very stressful and frustrating.”

Chair Professor Laura Avemarie adds that deaf and hard-of-hearing people were often subjected to physical and psychological violence in the past. “Both at school and in private contexts, children and adolescents faced violence – sometimes in relation to the learning of spoken language. And there was also a massive suppression of sign language.”

This was Cornelia Ruppert’s experience as well. While other children played outside in the schoolyard in the afternoon, she sat with a teacher in the classroom, blowing balls of cotton wool across the table and articulating syllables. Again and again, “the teacher repeatedly used a wooden tongue depressor in her mouth. A degrading practice of the ‘pedagogy’ of the time – and performed on children no less! At the top of her school reports would be all the things she could not do: articulate, form sounds, speak. This period was marked by feelings of inadequacy – less due to deafness itself than to how society dealt with deafness, which often led to her being deprived of educational opportunities.

For a long time, it was thought that sign language impedes the acquisition of spoken language. To be able to take part in social life, therefore, children who were deaf or hard of hearing should learn spoken language. Research has since demonstrated that sign language does not inhibit spoken language acquisition, but promotes it. Moreover, German Sign Language has been recognized as an independent language in Germany since 2002.

Improving Classroom Quality

The main goal today, according to Avemarie, is to give children who are deaf or hard of hearing the earliest possible access to both sign and spoken language, thus offering them the potential to grow up multilingual. This applies especially to children who grow up in families with hearing parents. However, this depends on the presence of professionals who are competent in sign language in early intervention, daycare, and school.

Data from the research project “ReaDi” carried out at the chair show that there remains significant need for action here: Only around a quarter of professionals at schools with a special educational focus on hearing and communication possess sufficient sign language skills to read to children in German Sign Language. A lack of sign language skills not only makes it more difficult to communicate with the children, but also affects lesson quality. “When communication between teachers and learners is limited, it strongly affects the educational chances of deaf children,” says Avemarie.

The 15-strong team at the chair wants to change this. Avemarie has introduced ongoing German Sign Language courses that run alongside the regular degree program to better prepare students for their subsequent professional life. In addition, the team is committed to actively involving deaf and hard-of-hearing people in research.

The expertise of deaf people has been undervalued to date – and not just in research, says Cornelia Ruppert: “The deaf community is a minority among the hearing majority. Despite years of raising awareness, we often remain invisible. This makes our participation in research all the more important,” she explains.

In the long term, she would like deaf and hard-of-hearing children to receive access to sign language from the beginning, and for German Sign Language to be taught at general schools as a matter of course – like English or French. “Genuine change only begins when sign language is established as a school subject across the board,” says Ruppert.

This would also make the potential of language more apparent – its power to facilitate understanding between all and create connections. Communication barriers do not in fact arise with deaf people, but in a society that is predominantly geared toward hearing people. “This is easier to understand through a shift in perspective,” emphasizes Avemarie. “We could just as well say: It’s not Cornelia Ruppert that needs an interpreter – it’s hearing people.”