140 likes | 148 Vues
A Meeting of Minds: Developing ASL Discourse Through a Morning Meeting. Or: Discourse Competency in 15 minutes a Day. Goals for the Morning Meeting.
E N D
A Meeting of Minds: Developing ASL Discourse Through a Morning Meeting Or: Discourse Competency in 15 minutes a Day
Goals for the Morning Meeting • To modify existing morning meeting structures and events to specifically facilitate the linguistic growth of Deaf students in both ASL and English • To develop group communication skills and ASL discourse competence
Goals…. • To increase students’ metalinguistic awareness of and skill in using ASL and English • To increase students’ identification with the culture of Deaf people
Why a morning meeting? • Students must develop conversational language in order to develop academic language • Deaf students from hearing families need support in developing conversational skills in ASL • After preschool, little instructional time is devoted to developing discourse competence
What is ASL discourse competence? • The ability to use eye gaze, tactile cues and visual cues appropriately • The ability to use ASL to converse, question, discuss, joke and obtain information
Why is ASL discourse competence so important? • The lack of sophisticated competence translates into limited academic achievement • Vital for full participation in class • ASL is a significant part of being Deaf
Features of the Morning Meeting • Greeting • Group Activity • Sharing • News and Announcements
Greeting • Written message uses ASL and English • Co-operative and peer mediated • Practices ASL conversational skills • Builds metalanguage
Group Activity • Builds community • Uses language based games to teach aspects of ASL poetry/storytelling • Develops knowledge of and skill in using ASL
Sharing • Makes connections between home and school • Builds public speaking, listening and questioning skills • Language development—”I+1”
News and Announcements • Cognitively demanding—abstract • Develops academic language • Develops socio-cultural awareness • Engages the students in ‘real talk’
Learning Features • Teacher modeling/scaffolding • Peer-mediated learning • Reflective talk/self-evaluation • Real talk
Through the Morning Meeting, the students will develop the following: • Communicative Competence • Language competence • Group process skills • Ways of accessing the social world to get information