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From:
Stefan Woehrmann Date: Mon May 22, 2000 3:06 pm Subject: SW - ask the students how to spell ?? | |
Hello Lorraine thanks for your answer. Lorraine wrote : > Hi Stefan and SW list, > Just read your questions regarding DGS number notations. It started me > thinking about SW numbers in ASL as well. I would ask the students. See what > makes sense to them for directionality of the arrows. As they are early > learners in this process maybe accuracy is less important at this point than > ownership of their language and notation. Accuracy could be cleaned up later > in the process. Anyone have thoughts on this? Well - I�m not able to answer your question. I`ve got no experience. We are now two classes at our school who work on a daily basis with SW. (7th grade and first grade) The students of the seventh grade are able to understand the single elements of a whole sign. They are able to "read the signs " more and more exactly. The typical mistakes of beginners still confuse them very much - which will not happen on an advanced level. It�s almost the same with our writing in German oder English . It�s easy to understand the idea of the message if you are familiar with the writing system. But it�s almost impossible to understand what the author had in mind if you are a beginner. We are in the beginning of writing SW by hand. (Thanks Valerie for your practical advice ) I prepared some exercises - but the pupils feel better to write down their messages or complete sentences - just the way they feel they would sign it . Of course - SW by hand isn�t easy at all and without a SW 4.3 program we hadn�t managed to get so far. But - and this is a very important point - I�m so fascinated to realize that I am able to understand the handwritten notes of my pupils so easily. This should be an interesting point for linguists and for us who teach SW as well. Why ? Well if this SW-system allows misspellings without too much damage to the idea of the message - it shows a certain strenght for comunication. It will take some months - maybe - until my students would be able to write very detailed or very exactly a complex content - but that doesn�t matter. My idea is to allow them and me a close look at the differences of the two languages in order to find a way to improve literacy. As I pointed out before - we are on the way. We are working bilingual . My pupils learn to read and sign the SW-texts fluently. The young pupils first grade demonstrate day by day that it is no extra burdon - no additional task which takes time and energy - not at all. That is a secret to me every day. One glance at the whole sign is enough - and they keep it in their minds - I pomise. In case the single elements of SW (rotation-movement arrows) are associated with movements that aren�t represented by the SW-symbols - that might be a hindrance for a gliding into the process of reading - I don�t know that !!!! I would like to offer SW - materials that are written in a way that the movement could be done by any SW-expert in the world without knowing the meaning of the sign ! (When I started in September 99 I was a beginner and made lots of mistakes - that didn�t confuse them too much - ha !!) But especially the young children don�t focus on every single part of a sign but take it as a whole entity - as a "Gestalt" . I wasn�t able so far to find out what kind of element is the most important one? That would be an interesting subject to change a sign piece by piece in order to find out what makes the difference - ... It is my responsibility to allow the students to add more and more distinct "Gestalten" to their SW-vocabulary. In the beginning I mixed up several movement symbols - in fact - my dictionary is full of mistakes - but today I am able to find them ;-))) . Nevertheless - the reason that I�m asking so many spelling questions is that I would like to help my pupils to get familiar with the single elements of a sign as soon as possible. If Irina or Danny makes a mistake - I can wait and often they help each other to identify what�s wrong ... Grammar is a very different issue. Thank you Valerie for your advice just to let go. I offer a possibility to express a specific idea : for example Irina is asked to tell Danny that he should fetch the blue bucket. With my videocamera I try to videotape this interaction in order to write short sentences in SW. Written SL may differ from signed SL ? We are on the way to find that out 4 years later ;-) Things will improve as soon as adult Deaf people can support us with our SW - project. So far we are on our own and try to achieve a higher level of competence - step by step -- day by day. Mistakes are our friends. All the best to all of you Stefan ;-) |
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