ENGLISH FOR ALL AND ENGLISH FOR ONE -An analysis of the English subject syllabus for deaf upper secondary school students

Abstract: This study is focused on the deaf upper-secondary school students’ education in English. English is one of the core subjects in the Swedish school system and considered an important factor in students’ opportunities to participate in the global community. On this basis, the aim of this study is to understand how the English subject syllabus is adapted to cater for the deaf students’ needs, whether normative values are expressed in the English subject syllabus for the deaf, and whether those values might affect the deaf students’ opportunities to use English as a communicative language. More specifically, my questions are: What similarities and differences between the National Syllabus for English compared to the National Syllabus for English for the Deaf can be found under "English" and "Aim of the subject"?; what values and norms do these similarities and differences carry?; and how might those values and norms affect deaf students’ English education? To answer these questions a discourse analytic approach inspired by critical theory is conducted, where the two English subject syllabi, and the supplementary commentary material to the syllabi are compared. Analysis based on interviews of two upper-secondary school English teachers and a questionnaire answered by the students of the interviewees is provided as a supplement to the analysis of the syllabi. The findings show that the curricular texts contradict themselves on several occasions when applied to the deaf student as the intended learner, because they do not adapt to the plurilingual needs of the deaf students. The findings also show how the norm of spoken and written English is valued higher than the signed forms of the language. I argue that this might cause limitations to the discourse and development of an English education adapted to the needs of the deaf upper-secondary school students in Sweden.