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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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