What I knew while talking to deaf-mute students...

I have seen Aisara’s blog on deaf people and want to share my experience in collecting data. I went to the research site and could not gain the access, because the director of that college was extremely busy. The next day I met some young people communicating in sign language in the shopping mall. I decided to talk to them. I knew that they had hearing impairment, but I did not have any knowledge or experience in talking to such people. Anyway I came up to them and texted on my mobile “ My name is Zhuldyz, let’s have a conversation (in Russian)?” They looked at each other strangely, and then at me and nodded. I joined them, they were all now staring at me. I told them who I was and what I was doing, which somehow softened the situation and helped to get responses from them. Then I realized that they were all the students of that college where I was going for several days. First I had a lot of fun talking to them, I wrote everything on the paper and they answered. It was ok in the beginning, but when they had to answer more complex questions, my troubles began. The problem was in their language acquisition; they were supposed to know any other language besides the sign language. Most of them told they had a sufficient level of Russian, but no one spoke Kazakh. The level of Russian was really low, they write only separate words without any grammatical structure or cohesion, which really made the process of an interview complicated and too long. After I realized that not only the language was suffering but the general education of these young adults as well…

For some time during the interview, I felt like it was me, who is having an impairment- as if I was deaf or blind, because I could see them talking and couldn’t understand what I see. And I thought we have the opportunity to learn this sign language and talk to them, but they… They could have better education and better life…