Open AccessTeaching Irish Sign Language in Contact Zones: An Autoethnography
Author(s) -
Noel O’Connell
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
the qualitative report
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2160-3715
DOI - 10.46743/2160-3715/2017.2511
Subject(s) - autoethnography , irish , sign language , sign (mathematics) , psychology , institution , sociology , pedagogy , american sign language , linguistics , gender studies , social science , mathematical analysis , philosophy , mathematics
The central purpose of this autoethnographic study is to provide an account of my experiences as a deaf teacher teaching Irish Sign Language (ISL) to hearing students in a higher education institution. My cultural and linguistic background and personal history guided the way I interacted with students who found themselves confronted by a unique culture quite separate from what they had known before. By engaging in autoethnographic journal writing recorded over a period of three months, I reveal the complex social and historical relations manifested in the contact between deaf and hearing cultures in the classroom. More specifically, I consider how language conflict and different communication modes might affect teaching and learning in concrete situations. In particular, I advocate an understanding of Pratt’s (1991) “contact zone” theory to see deaf-hearing contacts not just as challenges but possibilities for new ways of understanding the experience of sign language teaching and learning.