Oralism

What is Oralism?

Oralism is a method of teaching the deaf. Instead of teaching in and using sign language, deaf students were taught how to read lips and speak.They would not use sign in or out of the classroom and learn things about speaking such as speech cues.

1860s and 1870s

Deaf Culture

This was when oralism was first getting introduced. Lip reading and speech classes were offered to the deaf community. When this started appearing, the combined method was formed using both sign language and hearing methods. This became fairly popular as oralism came into debate.

Many deaf people agree that signing is part of their culture. Without it, they would not be able to communicate with each other if they were not taught to read lips or speak. Back in the 1900s, deaf people lived very different lives than hearing people. Today, discrimination has greatly decreased, and the deaf culture is becoming more respected. A lot of deaf people agree that oralism was taking away the main part of deaf culture; signing.

What Oralists Thought About Sign

Oralism in the Deaf Community

Many people thought that oralism would help deaf people fit in, but many times, it did the opposite. Deaf students that were being taught oralism, but were still learning could not communicate with the hearing very well, and did not know sign, so could not communicate with the deaf very well. Because of this, oralsim isolated deaf students more than it helped them.

Oralists, people who supported oralism, did not like the use of sign in the deaf community. They thought that the use and teaching of sign language isolated the deaf community. They thought that sign would encourage deaf people to socialize primarily with other deaf people. Oralists judged that the use of sign would invite discrimination. By learning sign, they were worried that deaf people would marry each other and increase the popularity of deaf people.

Oralsim has lost it's popularity since the 1920's, but it us still used today. There is still lots of controversy on it, and technology like hearing aids and cochlear implants have made oralism more needed than before.

Hearing/Oralist

Community

Deaf Communiy

Oralist Debate

Signing

Oralists also thought that learning sign for the deaf community was "the easy way out". They thought that some deaf people learned to sign so they did not have to deal with the challenge of learning English. This started a fierce debate debate between combined method supporters and oralists. The oralists won the debate and accomplished thier goal od eliminating sign language from the classroom. By 1920, 80% of deaf students were being taught with oralism and without sign language.

Signing is part of the deaf culture and is generally passed down from one generation to the next. It is very important to the deaf community and to hearing people too. Technology like cochlear implants have made signing not as prominent, and oralsim s involved, but signing is still used very widely.

Oralism

THANK YOU!

By: Erin Sparro