Regenerating marginalized voices: ESP skills in the Deaf community

Often creative and capable Deaf adults, both in English-speaking and ESL/EFL communities, find themselves marginalized in their work surroundings owing to their poor English language skills. Solutions are being sought for this problem in the form of stimulating online language courses for beginners but they often do not go further than the fledgling stages because of the relatively low number of prospective users and a lack of funds. The SignMEDIA Project aims to address the intermediate English language needs of Deaf students/operators in the multimedia community: starting from authentic documents in the pre-production, production and post-production stages of filming, an online course is being designed in which Deaf ESP learners will reinforce their intermediate English skills through a glossary in their national sign language and exercises which are explained and illustrated by actors using the local sign language.