What’s it like to come up against a sound barrier?
Within three chapters in my book, With Open Ears, I unpack the frustrations of someone who lives with a hearing loss. My source was my husband whose hearing loss has become quite severe in recent years. I tell the story of how I asked him, “What’s it like?” I would say his response was eye opening, but you might groan. Ear opening, perhaps? Sound reasoning?
After she read my book, my linguistics, multi-lingual, English-as-a-second-language (ESL) teaching daughter told me about another kind of sound barrier. “What you describe in your book is similar to the frustrations of second language speakers,” she told me. “And your suggested solutions are also similar.”
Say what?
Pause for a moment. Do you know anyone for whom English is their second language? Do you speak with them regularly? (If not, that would be a good friendship to cultivate for several reasons. But that’s a conversation for another day.) It’s easy to think if they speak English semi-fluently, they do fine. My daughter tells me otherwise. It’s still not easy. Like a hard of hearing person, the non-native speaker might catch every third word, and their brain guesses at the words based on the context.
Flip the equation. Have you ever been a situation where your English was the minority language?
I have. And I imagine my answer will surprise you.
It was in a deaf community.
I had traveled to collect research for an article for Focus on the Family’s Clubhouse magazine. My friends, Pam and Bryan, who directed a deaf ministry, connected me with a deaf teenager and then, wanting to give me the chance to meet their friends, invited ten deaf people to their home one evening.
Get the scene. Thirteen people. Three speak verbal English. Twelve communicate with American Sign Language. Then there was me. Not only do I not know sign language other than the signs for “I love you” (which is a good start), I couldn’t see the hands anyway. I was definitely in a minority of one.
Someone finally got the idea they needed to do revere interpreting–translate the signs into spoken words for my benefit, but that didn’t work out so well when multiple people talked at once. And oh my, deaf people really know how to talk over each other. The worst part was—I couldn’t get a word in edgewise and ten of those people would never understand me-unless someone was with it enough to realize they needed to interpret what I said. And when everyone is using sign language, how would they know ehter it was my words or the interpreter’s own words?
I quickly made up my own sign. I raised and waved my hand when I had something to say!
It was an intense lesson in humility.
I quickly learned that not everyone has to do life the way I do it just for my sake. And now I understood how those deaf friends felt in a room full of hearing people. Isolated. Confused. Left out. Frustrated with a capital F. No wonder hard of hearing and second language people seem more reserved. It’s easier to sit in the corenr and let the conversation flow around them.
A quote from With Open Ears says, “The first step toward compassion is understanding.” I go on to say the second step is having the humility to admit that our disability is the inability to understand the struggles others face.
The third step is to ask “How can I do a better job” and then to act on what we learn.
“How can I make it easier for a non-native speaker?” I asked my daughter.
Here is her list:
- Enunciate—but don’t overdue. Speak slower and distinctly.
- Rephrase. Use simpler words. If the person looks puzzled, turn on your mental thesaurus and come up with a synonym.
- Catch their attention. Like you would do for a hard of hearing person, make eye contact and continue to look at them. Using both sense of vision and hearing will help the catch the words.
- Watch out for slang and colloquial terms.
- Pause occasionally to give their brains a chance to catch up.
- If you know you are entering a situation where either you or the other person are in the minority, pray beforehand that the Lord will give you both wisdom to understand each other. both of you might struggle to know the words to say, but our God is Lord of all languages. He knows the words and His Holy Spirit can guide your word choices.
Capitalize on what you do share in common.
Language is not the only way we communicate. Music is often called the universal language, so I’ve heard. Hugs and handshakes work too. And—as my daughter recently discovered when she visited a neighbor in her adopted country—gifts of food certainly work as a connecting point. She took freshly baked muffins to her neighbor, who immediately brought out snacks to share. They had a lovely visit, just being together and sharing the food.
The hard of hearing and second language speakers are only two of many kinds of people who struggle keeping up with the rest of the world. Jesus calls us to compassion, understanding, and support. He asks us to sacrifice our own comfort and make life a little easier for those who carry heavy loads. As Galatians 6:2 says, “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.” And when we do, we begin to find out what we do have in common and we work together to capitalize on our strengths.
Sound good?
Who can you help this week?
Other posts that might interest you:
Ending Bible Poverty: Proclaiming God’s Love in Any Language
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