William (Bill) Cooper, American Sign Language Instructor at the University of Central Florida, School of Communication Sciences and Disorders talks about the unique hurdles face masks impose on nonverbal communication especially for the hearing loss community. Interpreted by Crystal Mallozzi.
Bill, the first question I wanted to ask you is a little bit about yourself. Have you been deaf since birth or did you lose your hearing as you got older?
COOPER: Well, my mother let me know that, when she was pregnant – at that time and when she went to go give birth in the hospital, the doctor told my mother, hold on, because there was another woman that was giving birth at the same time. And so almost instantly, my face was blue as I was born, and they thought I was dead. But then, later on, they were able to save me. I opened my eyes and everything, and then they realized that I was deaf. So later on, when I was one – two – three years old or so, I had a tonsillectomy and, you know, I could hear when they, like, opened things up a little bit, but not really. When I was about five years old, my mom decided to send me to school for practice with speech and lip reading and speaking. And I can speak a little bit, but not great. And so, then when I went into my first school, it was like a general, like, hearing school. And the teacher started talking to me and I was like, I have no idea what’s happening right now. And then after that, we moved around to some different schools. My father was in the military at the time, so we moved around a lot. And then we settled sort of in California. And then when I was 11 or maybe 12, I went to the public school and, you know, they told my parents, Bill’s not a great student because he can’t hear. So, they sent me to a deaf school. And my father went to war in Vietnam, so my mom decided to move to Kansas. And that was where I went to my very first deaf residential school. And I was about 12 when I went there and learned how to sign. And and then, of course, we moved again after my father went MIA, he was missing in action. And then we moved to Florida. And I’ve been here since. And then I went to the Florida School for the Deaf, FSDB, and graduated and went to Gallaudet University. So, after that I came back here to Florida and I’ve been here since. I got married. And I have one son who is also deaf, and then I got married a second time and had two hearing children. So, I have three children all together. They’re all grown. And now I’ve been working with a private company, but that one closed, so then I decided to change my career path and become an educator. And so now I’m a teacher. I teach ASL. I started teaching ASL in high school. That was my first teaching experience. But it was not easy because I was the only deaf instructor. Like, how am I supposed to communicate, you know? How am I supposed to teach them my language? And so, I slowly learned how to improve my instructional skills. And after that, I transferred to another school, and then UCF hired me for a job here. So, since leaving the high schools, I started instructing here at UCF. I started with a fairly small class. It was like, I don’t know, maybe five classes to start – it was just a few of them. And then another teacher left, so I took over their classes. And then everything happened – you know, I took over all of the ASL classes and they just took off and became very, very popular. So now I teach seven classes and I think about maybe 45 to 50 students are on a waitlist, so – but they can’t access my class. So I have to – you know, they have to postpone until the spring and it is becoming a little bit more popular with ASL. So I’ve been teaching altogether maybe 15 years. And the deaf community, maybe 40 years or so. So, yeah, that’s – I’m here now.
Bill, I want to ask you what kind of a difference – how much of a difference did having – learning ASL and knowing that when you were younger – did that open up avenues for you? Did that open up another world for you, being able to communicate that much better?
COOPER: Well, for most of my ASL education, it really did open up opportunities for me for – and also for my students, it opens up, you know, ways to be able to communicate with the deaf, have different professions, work as audiologists, some may be speech language therapists, maybe – you know, people who have lost their hearing can learn to lipread but maybe can learn to sign so you have better communication. But some people like to learn and think it’s better to be able to just speak. So some of the students that are learning ASL are able to communicate with, you know, deaf folks. That’s a lot of the reason that folks do it.
You had mentioned, Bill, that your classes are skyrocketing. There’s a wait list. Why do so many students feel the need to learn? What are some of the reasons that they’re coming to your class?
COOPER: Well, I think, you know, as part of their major requirements, they do have to take, I think, a foreign language, so they are required. But, you know, maybe they want to take ASL rather than one of the others – I don’t know, you know, Spanish, French – ASL meets that requirement as well. I think the students think that ASL is maybe beautiful and that’s why a lot of folks are fascinated with it.
You had mentioned some jobs that they were in, but what kind of doors and opportunities does it open up for your students when they can communicate?
COOPER: Gosh, a lot of doors open. For example, students who are able to communicate in ASL – students become maybe nurses. You know, they have to be able to communicate with deaf patients who are in the hospital and maybe that’ll smooth their way for communication. Also, I have other students who want to become interpreters and they become interpreters as their profession, of course. And the interpreting perfection – profession has about four years for a bachelor’s degree. So I do teach at other colleges. I teach at Valencia College as well, and they do have a program that’s an interpreting program. It’s a two-year program, and then they can transfer to another university for their four-year degree. So I encourage them, if they have good signing skills, that it might be a good profession for them to go into to become an interpreter. So, you know, here in Orlando, we have about, gosh, 30 to 40,000 deaf in the community here. So a lot of deaf folks work in different places like Disney World, Universal Studios, Sea World – lots of really, really big companies. So they do have interpreters there because they need to, you know – and not only that, there’s also, out in the community – like, the state government or city government here, there are lots of deaf folks that work there as well. There’s lots of opportunity and lots of ways to get a job.
I’m going to ask you a couple of questions regarding COVID and the additional challenges with communication. Do you lipread in addition to to watching the sign as part of your communication? And can you tell me about that?
COOPER: OK. So, yes, before the COVID situation happened – gosh – last spring, I was teaching in face-to-face classes. And that’s what I typically do because I like seeing. It’s a visual language, you know, when you’re signing with someone. And also you’re able to sort of see their speech and everything. So when the COVID interruption happened, it turned into online classes. And that’s a bit of a challenge for me because I don’t see students signing, I don’t see how they’re improving, everybody’s in a little box. So it’s a big challenge. You know, maybe another student can’t see some of the students on screen and things like that. So it’s a pretty big challenge.
How are you overcoming those challenges? How are you getting around that?
COOPER: So, OK, one way to resolve that problem – I tell students, go to class online and look – I also have Zoom, and they have a recording. So there’s a record function. And the students will watch – if they miss something, then they can watch the video again later and see what they missed and see what I’m signing. And then hopefully that will help them remember. Or another way – another opportunity so that they don’t miss anything, you know?
One of the things I wanted to ask you: you’re watching Crystal, she has the plastic cutout in her mask so that you can see her lips. How helpful is that for you?
COOPER: Well, masks are not great. But, for safety reasons, of course, are most important. It’s important to see facial expression. You know, I can see your facial expression if your eyebrows go up or down. I can see if you’re happy or upset. It very clearly shows. So, yeah.
What’s the challenge with the mask then, Bill? Because you can still see eyes, but…
COOPER: So most of it is right there in the eyebrows. You can see if they go up or down or whatever, so it’s not too too bad. But, you know, like I said, it takes practice to really learn those facial expressions. So, like, you know, for example, I show my students – oh, if your eyebrows go down and you look sad – but you won’t be able to see the frown, you know? So it’s hard to see everything just out of eyebrows. The masks are kind of killing our facial expressions a little bit.
What would you say to others in the deaf community or hard of hearing community in Orlando? You mentioned there’s as many as 40,000 people. It’s a frustrating time for everyone. Is it especially frustrating when you’re hard of hearing and when you have this additional challenge? And what do you suggest to them?
COOPER: Well, some deaf communities do suggest, just like the interpreter has, a clear panel or a clear mask for people who would like – who depend on oral cues and speech. Other deaf folks are fine. They’re like, eh, I’ll just sign. I’ll just sign it. It’s fine. Most folks will just sign with their mask on and we get through.
Is it particularly hard for younger kids right now who are learning – and tell me a little bit about that.
COOPER: Oh, yes, it’s been very hard for young folks. Well, let me think – OK, so if they’re young and they have a mask on, it’s going to be hard. It’s just – it’s going to be hard. Yep. Well, hopefully it’ll go away and resolve sometime in the future, but I am happy that ASL is still there, it’s still a visual language, you can still see the signs. So mask or no mask, you can still sign.
Can you tell me about some of the lectures or classes or projects that your students have done so far this year?
COOPER: OK, well, in ASL Two, we have a project to describe how to go to a Halloween party. So you describe how to get from UCF to that friend’s house to have a party and, you know, explain the whole – all the directions, which road you need to go, go right, go straight, turn left, turn right – whatever,- so that you end up at the right place. And then when you go in, you need to be able to see three people and describe their costumes. What do they look like? Explain what they’re using. Like, do they have – what does their face look like? Their hair? All their costume stuff? So we’ve got ASL Two doing that. ASL Three is a little bit different. They’ve got one that’s called an ABC Story, and it’s A to Z and they have their own science story and they use the hand shapes for letters – A, B, C. For ASL Four, we have groups that do some deaf community service. Also they perform songs in groups on a stage and they show everyone that – you know, that things can be interpreted beautifully for music – movies and music or, you know, musicals. And so they practice quite a bit and then they get to show their skills.
How are you getting around the challenges with Zoom? Are there additional things that you’re doing – something you’re doing special to get around the fact that kids are just in a box?
COOPER: So my computer – you know, mine is nice and big, so I can see everybody, you know, and all their pictures, so – which is nice. So I can see all of them clearly. So I have a nice big monitor and that helps a lot. If it were smaller, we might have some more problems. You have this little tiny thumbnail of people. So I have one that’s called – oh, I have a spotlight setting where you can see one person at a time, but I’ve got 30 students, so I don’t use that setting so much. I like seeing everyone. And then their assignments, they’re required to sign. So, you know, their homework is signing and then videotaping themselves so I can kind of, you know, analyze things that way, let them know what mistakes they’ve made and how they can fix it and I can sort of analyze their videotapes after the fact.
Is there anything I didn’t ask you, Bill, that you would want people to know?
COOPER: Take ASL. Take ASL. It’s a beautiful language, and you would be surprised at, you know, how fluidly you’re able to communicate with the deaf community in ASL language. Just keep it in mind, you know, and you’ll remember it forever. It’s not going to go away. You will remember how to sign.
Interview conducted by Ivanhoe Broadcast News.
END OF INTERVIEW
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