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From:
Stefan Woehrmann Date: Sun Oct 1, 2000 11:54 am Subject: Re: SW helps to express students thoughts | ||||||||||||||||
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Hi Nancy, Cecilia. Valerie and List-members there is soooo much going on here - I´m eaten up by all the jobs I would like to accomplish at the same moment ! Ha - Valerie - you know what I´m talking about ??? (ha ha ha) Well -first of all I´m very happy that a second facility in Germany is going to start to use SW on a regularly basis. It´s a facility for multiple handicapped deaf adults - A new Deaf sign-language teacher is going to order the SW -program and is very impressed by the materials I could share with her. Our first step will be to write down all the different signnames for staff and the handicapped co-workers. Wouldn´t it be great if some of them would realize that they are able to read ??? Even if it will be only a few signs -- but I´m absolutely confident that these people will take advantage out of this. The deaf SignLanguage -teacher is going to use GebaerdenSchrift as well in the classes for DGS for the hearing staff-members ! I´m curious -- My students at school are doing great. Reading SW is a big help to understand new German words. A new colleague of mine who started teaching my students first and second grade this September (!!) surprised me very much. When I came back to my classroom she has just finished a lesson about behaviour at the traffic -lights! Believe it or not - she as a beginner of SL and who asked for the SW -signs of several words the day before did a bilingual blackboard picture - She simply took the risk to write the signs from my printouts by hand at the blackboard underneath the German words and phrases ! ( The man in the traffic- light is red - you have to stand and wait. The man is green, you may walk !! ) I bet all of you can imagine the big smile on my face !!!! This way all of my little students got the chance to understand completely what was written - the first grade students reading the GebaerdenSchrift - the second grade students reading both writings !!! Some other colleagues get interested as well. I already spent several ours on explaining basic principles about SW itself or the SW 4.3 program in one to one sessions. I gues time has come to offer a first "workshop" to a greater audience - This week students from the University of Hamburg were visiting my class for a week. They seemed pretty much impressed . They were so much fascinated that these little kids - first grade take without any effort so much information out of these written materials. You know - my first grade students can´t read one single word in German but can understand questions about "How many eggs " - "Where is Irina ..?" "Where is the blue car " - and what is most important to me - they learn this way that we can identify objects - we can name them by signing in a special way - we can write down what we did --- THEY LEARN TO COMUNICATE In contrary to my method a year ago I offer writing GebaerdenSchrift by hand from the very beginning. The students learn to identify shapes, and places where to "draw " what kind of line --- This should support there possibilities for learning to write the first printing letters as well since they get practice to identify a place where to start and where to end ! The students at 8th grade experience great trouble to write correct sentences with present, past - future -- in German. I´m preparing day by day new materials to help them to improve their skills. German is confusing - compared to the structures of DGS . We try to understand both. We try to read both. I feel too much under pressure - so the writing of GebaerdenSchrift is my part - I am pretty satisfied if they identify the one or other misspelling or if they ask me to use another sign for the same term. There is still a long way to go. (big sigh !) One thing that puts great pressur on me is that my students don´t feel the burdon to learn soooo many new German words. Well they know to express themselves pretty good in SignLanguage . And in the meantime they are able to read my German texts meaningfull . But if it comes down to translate signed comments or little stories - they have really a hard time to do so. With the help of SW we realize that there are so many signed comments - they would not be able to find the German expressions for. My materials help them to understand (at least a little bit) that it would be very helpfull to learn vocabularies just like the hearing do - if they are eager (or asked) to learn a foreign language. Now that we can use GebaerdenSchrift it is possible to write bilingual materials - thank you Valerie !! Now it´s much more a question of motivation then anything else ... (same with the teacher ? ;-) ) Stefan :-) ---- Original Message ----- From: Nancy Cole To: Sent: Saturday, September 30, 2000 10:20 PM Subject: Re: SW helps to express students thoughts > Oh, that is a wonderful idea with the characters! Richard and I think after > we write down a lesson on the board then the kids could come up with the > signs on their own. We almost do this, but we thought maybe we would extend > it. I think the kids would do alot more if we had the computer program. But > right now we have a new boss, and so I'm back to square one. This is getting > so fustrating! Anyways, I kind of wish we had the program in windows > instead of dos. If there is a program in windows I hope I find out quickly! > I still have alot to learn working with Dos. I learn when I play, and I > don't play much with Dos:) SOOOOOOO you had Deaf Awareness at your school? > That's great! We had it at our school too, and we are still making our time > line. We are trying to put up alot of SW pictures, but I only own half the > room ha! You know about the other half:) I'm trying to get my kids to go to > your school. Will try to arrange it for at the end of October. We would > visit your class, and hope the kids and my kids share their SW stuff and then > we would go onward to Santa Fe and stay at NMSD. Hope it's okay and can be > arranged. Still working on getting up there for just myself, and not an easy > task! > > Smile > Nancy > | ||||||||||||||||
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