Language and the Deaf Jessica Scott Boston University, March 28, 2012 DE 576, Session 10

Food for thought  “It is interesting to see that DEAF people can function in the hearing world very well, while hearing people cannot function well in the DEAF world.”  Gil Eastman, Gallaudet Theater Arts

Agenda  Discussion  Review of Vygotsky’s major ideas  Vygotsky and reading  Progressive Reading  Break  CI Corner  Applying book clubs  Housekeeping

Agenda  Discussion  Review of Vygotsky’s major ideas  Vygotsky and reading  Progressive Reading  Break  CI Corner  Applying book clubs  Housekeeping

Discussion  What do you like/dislike about the ideas of book clubs?  What are the advantages of using peers in book clubs as “more knowledgeable others”? What are the disadvantages?  How do you see book clubs working in Deaf Ed classrooms?  Are there any changes you would make?

Discussion  What do you think about children using art to respond to text?  Bonny did an excellent job analyzing student art on the wiki!  Vygotsky identifies collaborative groups as important for development. Some of you have noted the small class sizes in many Deaf Ed classrooms – how might we get past this to support collaboration among our students? (with diverse peers)

Discussion Board Interlude  I do, however, remember hating group work. This is something I have been struggling with when reading this Vygotsky book. When I was in grade school I never wanted to work with the other students because I knew how I wanted the assignment to go. I also always wanted to figure things out for myself. I wonder about students like me. Did I become that way because my teachers were not leading our groups in the right way, or are there some people who can actually work alone and still learn?

Discussion Board Interlude  If there are enough number of students in a classroom, teacher would be easy to make diversity groups to do the activities. However, most of classrooms of Deaf schools have small number of students. So teacher might be difficult to divide into groups since some students feel that they often work with the same students.  Often, Deaf classrooms have a small number of students. With that being said what about designating a specific time a few times a week and have 2 or 3 classes meet together and have book club? That could allow students to branch out and discuss ideas with different students.

Agenda  Discussion  Review of Vygotsky’s major ideas  Vygotsky and reading  Progressive Reading  Break  CI Corner  Applying book clubs  Housekeeping

ZPD  Zone of proximal development  Where a student can be successful in a challenging task with the support of a more knowledgeable other (teacher or peer)

Social Transaction  The importance of interacting with others around new ideas in order to learn  Learning both from one another, from texts, and from our own thoughts

Mediation Model Purpose StrategiesReflection

Agenda  Discussion  Review of Vygotsky’s major ideas  Vygotsky and reading  Progressive Reading  Break  CI Corner  Applying book clubs  Housekeeping

Semiotic Mediation  Understanding how we use signs and symbols to communicate with one another  Developing this skill can improve higher order thinking  Taught through:  Reading (recognizing written symbols for communication)  Writing (using written symbols or drawings to communicate)  Discussion (using language to communicate)

Other research  Signed conversations between students and teachers provides scaffolding necessary to navigate signs and symbols used in print and ASL (Gioia, 2001)  Deaf students benefit from instruction from teachers that is within their ZPD (Luetke- Stahlman, Hayes & Nielsen, 1996)  Supporting signed language among Deaf children seems to support their understanding of written language (Williams, 1994)

Internalization  We start learning through social processes (interpsychological) – we express our ideas and thoughts to others  Learners need feedback from others to help them to reassess, refine, and strengthen their constructed meanings.  Learning eventually becomes an inner discussion (intrapsychological) – we think to ourselves  Moving from the social to the inner processes is internalization

Internalization and Collaboration  Participation in discussions means two things for students. They are for them to:  --express their developing ideas related to texts for others to respond to  --see the teacher and peers respond to texts, revealing alternative constructed meanings and struggles they may have in communicating their ideas.

Pair Discussion  In groups of 2-3:  Reread the scenario on page 59  What do you think has gone wrong here?  Why is the teacher unsuccessful?  What ideas do you have to help the book club lesson run more smoothly?

Activity Theory  Assumptions:  Development is dynamic – it’s about the changes we make  We work best toward goals  Activities must have meaning/purpose  Mental activities cannot be separated from interpersonal interactions  Thinking dependant on actions, context and goal  Biology AND culture influence activity  Development varies for activities – we all have unique goals!

Applying activity theory  Academic discourse  Depersonalization – books in the classrooms are often objective in nature – third person  Boundedness – You are bound to what can be found in the text  Conscious Reflection – Metacognition and metalinguistic awareness  Systematicity – text based relationships (cause and effect, chronological, compare/contrast…)

Literacy as Activity  Literacy is a purposeful activity where people express themselves and their perspectives  When we teach students to read, we should move beyond recognizing vocabulary and individual words, and remember that the activity of literacy has its basis in communication

Activity of Literacy Modeling Interpretation  Teacher models reading in the child’s ZPD  Teacher shows the student how to use strategies  Cons: Too much modeling might not give the child enough independent practice Text-mediation Interpretation  Students engage in dialogue with texts and peers  Can think about the text, or related ideas/events  Cons: Less opportunity for students to see strategies as modeled by others

Supporting student collaboration  To really learn, students need to interact with others around a concept or idea  Students can learn as much (if not more!) through peer collaboration as through teacher dialogue  Collaborative groups help students interact together – students have varying abilities  These should including writing, reading, and using language

Supporting student collaboration  Children often feel good about collaboration, which can be motivating  Literature study (book clubs), progressive reading, learning teams, jigsaw and discussion groups all support collaboration

Other research  Shared reading, involving interaction between students and adults, has been found to improve literacy abilities among DHH students (oral and signing) (Roberts et al., 2005, Senechal, LeFrebre, Hudson & Lawson, 1996)  Young signing Deaf children benefit from interacting with one another during writing (Williams, 1999)

What do you think?  How can semiotic mediation, internalization, and activity theory apply to Deaf children?  What modifications would you make to these ideas (if any)?  What do you like?  What do you dislike?

Agenda  Discussion  Review of Vygotsky’s major ideas  Vygotsky and reading  Progressive Reading  Break  CI Corner  Applying book clubs  Housekeeping

In groups of 3  You will receive (the same) excerpts from a pro-oral education article  Read the article  Your group will begin to write a response – choose any point made in the article that you would like to respond to.  In 8 minutes you will switch tables, read what that team had written, and continue their piece  In 5 minutes, we will do this again!  We will then take a minute to pass around and read the final products

Reflection  What did you think about this way of including reading, writing, and group interactions?  What are the benefits for students?  What do you like about it?  What do you think would be challenging?

Agenda  Discussion  Review of Vygotsky’s major ideas  Vygotsky and reading  Progressive Reading  Break  CI Corner  Applying book clubs  Housekeeping

Break!

Agenda  Discussion  Review of Vygotsky’s major ideas  Vygotsky and reading  Progressive Reading  Break  CI Corner  Applying book clubs  Housekeeping

CI Corner  Dissertation Abstract: Speech and sign perception in deaf children with cochlear implants  Giezen, 2011  University of Amsterdam Dissertation

What did they do?  Looked at year old children with CI’s who were educated using either signed language or spoken language  Compared them with 41 typically hearing peers (20 children, 21 young adults)  Asked students to:  Categorize sounds  Learn new words

What did they find?  Emphasize that CIs do not restore normal hearing  Students with CIs did a good job of categorizing sounds  Children with better sign vocabulary tended to have better speech perception  Although people often think otherwise, students who learned sign language were also successful speech users  Sign did not inhibit speech  In fact, signed vocabulary seemed to support spoken vocabulary

What do you think?

Agenda  Discussion  Review of Vygotsky’s major ideas  Vygotsky and reading  Progressive Reading  Break  CI Corner  Applying book clubs  Housekeeping

Book clubs  The text explores the use of book clubs as a way of promoting literacy as well as interaction  Today you will be in book clubs to read and discuss a children’s book

Procedures  You will get your books  Read them silently  You will also receive the book critique graphic organizer from your text  Fill this out when you finish reading  Then you will meet with your book club, others who read the same book as you

Discussion rules  Share what you thought about the book  Make sure everyone gets a turn  When you disagree, do so respectfully  (I do not agree with that, because…)  Stay on topic  Pay attention to one another and learn from your differing perspectives

Ideas for discussion  Information from your book critique  Whether you made any connection to the story  Whether it reminded you of other stories you have read  What you liked about the story  What you disliked about the story

Reflecting  What did you think about the book club experience?  How could you see it playing out in a classroom?  What did you like? Dislike?

Summing up  Book clubs and similar activities can go a long way toward making literacy development interactive  Students should be free to respond to reading in a variety of ways  The end result of social mediation in literacy activities is to help students develop concrete understandings and internalize what they have learned

Agenda  Discussion  Review of Vygotsky’s major ideas  Vygotsky and reading  Progressive Reading  Break  CI Corner  Applying book clubs  Housekeeping

Housekeeping  Anyone have annotated bibliographies?  Remember, your final paper proposal is due in 2 weeks (April 11)  It can be handed in any time between now and then  Also, don’t forget the ASL storytelling event tonight at Wellesley (6:30)

One more guest speaker  On April 25  Erika Guarino, who is Deaf and a graduate of this program  Formerly taught at The Learning Center, currently a self-contained high school teacher in the EDCO program  To round out our itinerant and residential school teachers  Do come prepared with any questions you may have about working in such a setting

Next week  We will be talking about content area literacy and Vygotsky  As well as finishing up Rethinking the Education of Deaf Students  It is our last week with no student discussion leader

See you next week!!