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From:
Lorraine Crespin Date: Tue May 23, 2000 2:45 am Subject: Re: Relaxing about learning... | ||||||||
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Wow! Thanks for the information Valerie. I was unaware of the extra task teachers in other countries had in taking the SW (in ASL) and developing their own dictionaries. You all are certainly to be commended for the work you are doing. I become energized when I read about what is happening worldwide and the doors that are opening for the teachers and students in regards to literacy development and communication. We have only just begun in New Mexico. It does not surpise me at all that your students, Stefan, are able to read notes from each other because they truly know the language that the notes are written in. And I agree that it is a strength of SW that even with sign misspelling the students are still able to figure out the message. They could be using the context of the message to figure it out which is a skill they will need to use when they are reading text in German as well. Or it could also be as you said, the students read signs in a "Gestalt" manner, just as we do in reading fingerspelled words. So, with context and a "gestalt" perspective they easily know what the sign is. I think it is a combination of both skills and even more. In working with our students, I found that it was easy and encouraging for them to just go ahead and write the sign as they thought it should be. Often they tutored each other and had discussions about the finer details of the sign and how it should be notated. Cecilia Flood commented that what they were doing was really discussing the metalinguistics of their language. Ten and eleven year olds! It is all very exciting. | ||||||||
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