Throughout Jean’s life as a deaf blogger/historian researcher/advocator, her first language is English, and the second language is sign language. Jean was lucky that her parents encouraged her to choose the path she wants to go, to learn and choose the life she wants to be.

Jean’s grammar was not so good in the past when she was at the mainstream school because the teacher of the Deaf does not give out any training skill in English grammar, for example, how do we recognise the singular and plural in sentences, past and present more often in the classroom. Jean was fortunate to have her mother, teacher aides, and a sister assisted through her homework, but it was a massive amount of hours explaining and correcting the assignments.

Jean noticed the barrier of the lack of literacy education for all Deaf and Hard Hearing children/teenagers where they struggled to read and write in the classroom while Jean was a deaf teacher aide for four years to two Deaf students. One Deaf student came from a family – a solo Deaf mother and an older hearing brother. The second Deaf student came from a refugee family of Laos whose hearing parents do not want to speak full English at their home, leaving their older hearing brother/son with two languages. Both of these parents of the Deaf students applied for the funding under the Ministry of Education, which called the IEP – Individuals Education Plan in New Zealand. A qualified teacher aide with sign language skills and background certification in a teacher aide course is a ‘must essential’ for all Deaf students; however, the hours with a Deaf student was not enough to cover the school hours except PE (Physical Education).

Today there is a shortage of teachers, interpreters and ESOL teachers without skill or limited skill in sign language, which leads to the lack of awareness in Deaf people with their culture, sign language, and needs. In New Zealand, we have three official languages which passed the Bill Act. The three languages are:- Māori, NZSL (New Zealand Sign Language and English. Yes, English is a number three, where else Māori is a number one.

Let go back to Deaf babies and their cognitive development before six months, and it is critical to start teaching Deaf babies in sign language than spoken language. Jean believe and agreed that sign language improves all Deaf babies to learn and understand sign language communication plus reading and writing quickly than unable to hear the speaking word by word, which take lengthy processing through cognitive development. Why is that? Deaf babies are more unable to hear the sound of each word and unable to familiar with the difference from another similar word, for example, ‘pull – Paul’, ‘here – hair’, ‘sixty – sixteenth. Many Deaf people and children around the world pick up around thirty-thirty-six percents of lip reading. It does not matter if they wear a hearing aid, cochlear implant or without hearing aids. Note Jean is a deaf linguist who completed the BA in History with supporting subjects in Linguistics and Anthropology.

Many audiologists, doctors, specialists in Hearing Therapy even scientists, create advanced hearing aid and cochlear implants in the medical world. Many Deaf parents wish these people must listen to Deaf people and try to accept that sign language is beneficial for all Deaf children and babies. Perhaps the best option to encourage these people to be involved with the Deaf community as well. It is about choosing what is best for a Deaf child to lead his/her life through school, family, and community. Yes, this Deaf child can change their mind over wearing a hearing aid or not to wear a hearing aid in later life, such as working in the job for safety (wearing a hearing aid).

Jean pasted this short video where she works in the office and teaching a Deaf (profoundly) Korean mother of two hearings students and a Deaf (profoundly) husband. The parents have a limit of New Zealand English which different to Korea, where they learnt English-Korean. The ESOL (English of the Second Language) teacher in Hamilton does not have full skill in NZSL, and the parents choose to come to Jean, where the Deaf mother continues to improve her English because Jean has the ability to teach through NZSL/English Sign language and to understand the difference from Korean-English language. The Deaf mother uses her Korean-English translator app if she does not understand the English word. The Deaf parents are a delight to meet Jean and continue to visit. Their need for assistance in reading literacy from the newspapers, school letters, government letters, and other information.