Dear Scholar, Researcher, Practitioner:
Like me, you are vested and perhaps even passionate, about heritage signers. I invite you to join me in a new collaborative project, Heritage Sign Consortium.
The purpose of the Heritage Sign Consortium is to provide resources for individuals, families and educators to support the development of sign language among heritage signers.
These curated resources are research-based, and translated for target audiences by collaborators like you. They consist of:
- 6-7 minute VLOGs;
- One-page research briefs; and
- Infographics
All content should address issues applicable to heritage signers, such as:
- Sign Language Linguistics: Language Development, Attrition, Maintenance
- Sociology: Culture, Inequalities and Stratification, Social Change, Identity Development
- Education: Teaching Heritage Language, Heritage Language Learners, Instructional Strategies, Student Motivation
Target audiences for resources are:
- Parents: Whose goal is to maintain sign language as the home language
- Educators: Whose goal is to learn about heritage language learners of sign language, heritage signers as learners in interpreter education and related teaching strategies
- Heritage Signers: Whose goal is to explore their identity, language use and relationship to the Deaf community
- Heritage Signers as Service Providers: Whose goal is to explore their identity, language use and relationship to the Deaf community as professionals
To contribute a resource, please complete the online proposal form.
All proposals topics will be reviewed for applicability to the issues related to heritage signers and the recommended translation to the target audience. Contributors will be contacted upon a completed review for content development.