This chapter reports the results of a classroom research study on the use of visual input enhancement in the teaching of grammatical form to college-level deaf students of English as a second language (L2). Deaf learners of English share many similarities with hearing learners of L2 English. In the case of deaf learners, restricted access to English input results from restricted auditory access to spoken language, which ranges from severely reduced access to no access at all, depending on the degree of hearing loss. As a result, many deaf learners' meaningful exposure to English begins only with the commencement of formal education. In the case of hearing L2 learners, restricted access to English input results from the cognitive and neurobiological factors that constrain later (i.e. L2) acquisition generally. Therefore, irrespective of the factors that contribute to restricting access to linguistic input, any demonstrated efficacy of visual input enhancement (Sharwood Smith, 1993, this volume) in enabling later learners – deaf or hearing – to notice English input supports an L2 theory (e.g. Gass, 1997) in which noticing is a prerequisite to the ultimate acquisition of form–meaning connections.

With respect to the visual processing and the acquisition of a first language (L1), deaf learners acquire visual–spatial languages such as American Sign Language (ASL) as effortlessly as hearing learners acquire a spoken L1. However, most deaf learners with severe and profound (as opposed to mild or moderate) hearing losses struggle, for the access reasons noted, to acquire spoken language knowledge, irrespective of the learning or use of speech (for more information on the spoken language development of deaf children see Blamey, 2003; Levitt, 1989).