I had some thoughts this morning about hearing teachers, researchers, or professionals in deaf-related fields who do not possess fluency in ASL. A thread... (1/8)

They judge deaf students & adults' English & expect us to put in the effort to continually improve our skills. Yet, those teachers, researchers, or professionals often say ASL is too hard for them to become fluent in. "Accept my crappy signing while I judge your writing" (2/8)

If hearing people can't (or won't) put in the effort to continually improve their ASL skills across their lifetime because "it is too hard", then why do they expect deaf people to do the same for our English skills? I am over this double standard. (3/8)

Hearing writers who write beautifully are praised while skilled signers are told "Oh, it's just because you are native signers." There's no recognition of the fact that native signers do continually work on their own signing skills. (4/8)

Why don't hearing teachers present themselves as first & second language learners invested in growing their English *and* ASL skills & model strategies and efforts in modifying their ASL for greater clarity? This modelling from hearing teachers could be humbling & powerful. (5/8)

Hearing teachers often say they don't use ASL cos it is too hard or they don't know the language. In my opinion, it is a cop-out of the work involved to become fluent in any language & a missed opportunity to model second language learning processes to deaf students. (6/8)

The common saying of "Oh, I use Pidgin Signed English. I don't do pure ASL" misses the point of language learning. What if deaf people said "Oh, I use Pidign Written ASL. I don't do pure English. Pure English is reserved only for native speakers? This sounds absurd. (7/8)

With that said, I believe we all could do more to embrace the variations of ASL and English and value the natural existence of translanguaging *AND* continually grow in crafting our language expressions for greater clarity and brilliance. (8/8)