Half-time seminar: Maike Beyer, PhD student at the Department of Linguistics, Stockholm University
Language Learning Among Immigrant Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Learners in Germany
Abstact
Studies have repeatedly noted limitations in language education for immigrant deaf and hard-of-hearing multilingual learners (IDML) in Germany (Kösler et al., 2025; Marx & Urbann, 2022) and internationally (Cannon & Guardino, 2022; Duggan, 2024; Holmström, 2024).
IDML refers to individuals who have migrated to a country after the age at which formal education would typically have started and who are deaf or hard-of-hearing (Marx & Urbann, 2022). The IDML population is heterogeneous in semiotic repertoires and educational background, among other factors (Marx & Urbann, 2022). This heterogeneity requires different language learning pathways. In school, exposure to new signed, spoken, and written languages poses distinct challenges for language acquisition and development among IDML.
Little is known about how IDML draw on their semiotic resources, such as sign, spoken, written, and other resources, as part of their semiotic repertoire during language learning and interaction in educational settings. Teachers have reported major uncertainties and a strong need for information about students’ language trajectories and development (Begon, 2024; Marx & Urbann, 2022).
Often, teachers are expected to use learning approaches and materials designed for hearing students or DHH students (non-IDML), which neglect the students' varying levels of access to and experience with different semiotic resources such as sign, spoken, or written resources (Di Perri, 2021; Holmström, 2024).
This limited availability of language education guidelines for supporting IDML in acquiring and developing German and German Sign Language (DGS) demonstrates a clear need: a better understanding of IDML’s everyday experiences and their language acquisition and development in classroom settings (Marx & Urbann, 2023).
To address this gap, my dissertation project examines the heterogeneous multimodal-multilingual practices of IDML and their teachers. Using (linguistic) ethnography, including video recordings, field notes, and semi-structured teacher interviews, I identify and analyze how IDML navigate learning German and DGS.
This presentation offers a deeper look at classroom practice with IDML. I will begin with a brief overview of recent developments in language education policy in Deaf Education in Germany. I will then focus on two central aspects of the classroom situations observed: first, the general semiotic resources used by three teachers with different semiotic repertoires to construct meaning to facilitate IDML’s learning (Beyer, 2026); and second, the specific vocabulary practices employed by one teacher with a semiotic repertoire similar to the students’, who supports IDML in lexical development of written German through targeted fingerspelling activities.
Taken together, these observations highlight how IDML language-learning processes unfold in multimodal-multilingual practices with teachers and peers.
The seminar is interpreted into Swedish Sign Language.
Last updated: 2026-09-11
Source: Department of Linguistics