A Deaf Adult Literacy Collective

Abstract

In this paper, we present a description of an adult Deaf Literacy project in South Africa. The project is under the auspices of the Deaf Community of Cape Town, a grassroots organisation run by Deaf people to serve the needs of the historically disadvantaged Deaf. The literacy project is staffed by Deaf signers, paired with hearing support teachers. This pairing facilitates the use of a bilingual model of English literacy acquisition, in this case enabling the accessing of written English through the medium of South African Sign Language (SASL). There are currently five classes, each consisting of between 8 and 10 learners. There are slightly more men than women; they have all attended schools for the deaf for at least 12 years and are almost all currently employed, albeit in jobs which are menial, and require less of them than they may be capable of. They grew up in hearing homes where the languages used were English, Afrikaans, and Xhosa, but all prefer to use SASL as their primary language of communication. Reading levels are low, apparently ranging between first and fourth grade, even though the learners have attended residential schools for the Deaf for an average of 10 years.