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From:
Stefan Woehrmann Date: Sat Mar 4, 2000 9:21 am Subject: Re: SignWriting as a gateway? | |
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Dear Ingrid, I enjoy reading your comments so much. Thank you for sharing. They are so helpfull to look at my own situation at school. Congratulations ! Itīs amazing how fast your pupils accept to work with this. Within my classes there is a big difference between the young and the elder pupils. First grade pupils donīt analyse the signs . Zhey simply pick the sign up as whole "Gestalt". And amazingly they can read this way lots and lots of different signs . They love to read short sentences which say what they are supposed to do. They read and sign at the same time - short brake - big smile - and then they run to to whatīs to be done. That is fun. The pupils of the 7 th grade ananlyse the signs. They are able to read signs they have never seen before in there lifes. So slowly putting all the pieces together handshape, orientation ( gap vs. no gap) movement ( right, left, both which direction,) ... After all they try to figure out what this sign could mean - trying to move their hands several times. And then they ask me to rewrite it. - (another facial expression, dynamic index, two different orientations (beginning and endposition) . Sometimes we discuss the differences between their ways to sign it ... Itīs helpfull. With them we use SW as a tool to learn German vocabularies very much. Itīs so helpfull to write a sentence all in SW in present tense or past tense and ask them to translate these sentences into German. I can not thing of a more supportive tool for this process. Itīs like the hearing people learn foreign languages. Based on a fundament in their first language we can add a second set of vocabularies without too much effort. But with SW its much more. Now we are able to show in a very clear way the contrasts and differences of grammar etc. I like that and my pupils as well. The point is that being so crazy about this I would like to learn to write SW much faster. But Iīm doing my homeworks every day. And thanks to the email -lessons I get the feeling of improoving slowly - step by step. That is good. Thank you Valerie for your excellent work. Love to hear from you soon again Best Stefan ;-) Iīm interested in everything that helps your pupils to use SW as a tool for enlarging their abilities to deal with written materials. Iīm looking forward to your next messages Stefan >From: INGRID FOGGITT >Reply-To: SignWriting List >To: SignWriting List >Subject: SignWriting as a gateway? >Date: Sat, 4 Mar 2000 09:40:13 +0200 > >Hi everybody.... > >I hit upon an interesting revelation yesterday at school. However, I would >like to share some background first. At a recent lecture on Deaf Education >and Wits University in Johannesburg, the following statistics were >revealed: In South Africa, the average Deaf school leaver has the general >knowledge of what is thought to be 'normal' at 8 years old and writing >skills of what is thought to be `normal' at 10 years old. This is a very >sad fact of Deaf Education in South Africa (if there is any true form of >that!) and it shows what a disservice education has done to Deaf people in >this country. Much of this results from past historical realities of >education in South Africa: separate learning, the Bantu Education Act, >oralism, etc. It is also widespread that many Deaf people in South Africa >are functionally illiterate: they can read words, word for word, but are >unable to group the words together to understand what the words as a group >are saying (i.e. comprehension skills). This does not mean, however, that >they do not have anything between their ears! The main means of expression >is Sign Language which often reveals the person to be having a deep sense >of understanding about the world and very knowledgeable. However, present >assessment methods to not allow for these Deaf kids to be fairly assessed: >assessment methods are done through written English. We are trying to make >it recognised that a precentage of exam marks be allocated to an `oral' >(i.e. Sign Language) component to allow the children to express themselves >and what they know through a mode with which they are comfortable and which >more adequately reveals what they know than written English. > >The point is: some of those kids at school who are desperately weak in >written English skills and who find this means of expression virtually >impossible have taken to Sign Writing much more enthusiastically than those >kids who do have the writing skills to express themselves (not to say that >these kids are not enthusiastic!). > >I realised that there must be something very important in this! Those kids >who find writing English virtually impossible might be able to rather write >in SignWriting??? Exams, tests, worksheets, etc in SignWriting as a >percentage of the whole exam? This is a very interesting insight. One >boy, Glen, who is functionally illiterate (he missed YEARS of schooling) >has already taken to jotting down SignWriting in his other subjects: >maths, biology, english, etc. The present lack of having a book that >serves as a `dictionary' to what ALL the symbols in SW mean (e.g. the big >black dot, the 'number' symbol #, etc) has not deterred Glen at all -- he >has independently worked his way around this by attaching his OWN meanings >to symbols. I have not encouraged this otherwise he might end up with his >own SW system that no one else understands. HOwever, for now it is working >for him and I told him that when we receive more SW materials, we will work >on substituting his own SW symbols with the more `universal' ones. Hope >that this is the right thing to do? > >Anyway, watch this space -- more to come. > >Yours in SignWriting > >Ingrid Foggitt |
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