The role of pinyin and fingerspelling systems in Chinese deaf education: hearing educators’ perspectives

Multiple studies have linked fingerspelling to literacy learning for deaf students in the US [Padden, C., &amp; Ramsey, C. (2000). American Sign Language and reading ability in deaf children. In C. Chamberlain, J. P. Morford, &amp; R. I. Mayberry (Eds.), <i>Language acquisition by eye</i> (pp. 165–189). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers; Stone, A., Kartheiser, G., Hauser, P. C., Petitto, L. A., &amp; Allen, T. E. (2015). Fingerspelling as a novel gateway into reading fluency in deaf bilinguals. <i>PloS One</i>, <i>10</i>(10), e0139610]. However, there are no significant empirical studies in China addressing the role of fingerspelling in language and literacy teaching. The Chinese context is complex. The emphasis on oral and aural philosophy plays a decisive role in Chinese Deaf education. Two types of fingerspelling systems – one-handed and two-handed – spell out Pinyin (拼音), a written phonetic system that maps Putonghua sounds to the Roman alphabet [Taylor, I. &amp; Taylor, M. (2014). <i>Writing literacy in Chinese, Korean, and Japanese</i>. 2nd edition. John Benjamins Publishing Company (130-149)]. Pinyin is a standard language and literacy teaching practice with hearing children [Shu, H., Chen, X., Anderson, R. C., Wu, N., &amp; Xuan, Y. (2003). Properties of School Chinese: Implications for Learning to Read. <i>Child Development</i>, 74, 27–47]. This study aims to describe these fingerspelling systems, collecting hearing educators’ perspectives through semi-structured interviews. Seven hearing educators from Chinese deaf schools using fingerspelling systems were videotaped using spoken Chinese. The data were transcribed into written Chinese and English for analysis. Five themes emerged using an intrinsic case study design and thematic analysis, resulting in the core category “language versus literacy mapping tool.” Findings reveal that the role of the fingerspelling system in teaching Chinese reading and writing skills is unclear and does not meet the expectations of educators. Further research evidence is needed. Discussion, limitations, and research directions are provided.