Language and the Deaf
Session 8, March 7, 2012
Jessica Scott
Boston University
Food for Thought
 Watch me when people say deaf and dumb, or deaf
mute, and I give them a look like you might get if you
called Denzel Washington the wrong name.
 Marlee Matlin
Agenda
 Discussion
 Vygotsky and instruction
 Break
 CI Corner
 Practice: Applying Vygotsky to the classroom
 Housekeeping
Goals for the Session
 To understand the connection between Vygotsky and
the Whole Language approach to teaching
 To consider the role that social interaction plays in
developing literacy skills
 To apply these concepts to a classroom with Deaf
students who use ASL
Agenda
 Discussion
 Vygotsky and instruction
 Break
 CI Corner
 Practice: Applying Vygotsky to the classroom
 Housekeeping
Discussion!
 The basic idea of whole language instruction is that students
should be immersed in literacy in meaningful ways. What might
this look like?
 Why is play important for a child’s development? How is this
related to the idea of social transaction?
 What might a whole language to teach English literacy skills to
Deaf students look like?
 Why are the concepts of invention and convention important
for language development?
Discussion!
 “Instead of adjusting school to the learners, we require
the learners to adjust to the school.” (p. 234). Responses
to this? How can we adjust school to fit the needs of the
learners?
 What do you think of the two classrooms described on
page 237?
 How can we find ways to empower students who are
traditionally not well served by the educational system
using whole language? Including, but not limited to, Deaf
students.
Discussion board interlude
 "What the child can do in cooperation today he can do
alone tomorrow. therefore the only good kind on
instruction is that which marches ahead of development
and leads it; it must be aimed not so much at the ripe but
as at the ripening functions" (Vygotsky 1962). ---I really
liked those quote. It makes perfect sense. We need to
teach children skills that they can later carry out
themselves individually. This idea is important for children
to be self learners.
 The article on the other hand discusses this idea of "whole
language". It seems as though the United States is lacking in
this area of "whole language" learning. This concept draws
on all foundational disciplines, but yet the US is too
curriculum driven to be up to par with this.
 As for the article, whole-language is a teaching style that I
remembered from before I came here to BU. I distinctly
remember two of my professors telling me that the this
approach lead to the reading failure of many students
simply because it didn't stress, or even specifically teach,
phonics. Of course now I am not in a program in which
phonics would be a helpful way to teach reading, so I think
that I will stick with a whole-language approach.
Agenda
 Discussion
 Vygotsky and instruction
 Break
 CI Corner
 Practice: Applying Vygotsky to the classroom
 Housekeeping
Important Vygotskian Ideas
 Zone of proximal development: Teaching students
something that is just above their independent ability
level. Used in guided reading (texts should be at a level
that is in the students’ ZPD)
 Teacher support in the ZPD should depend on student
ability and needs (more or less support can be provided)
 Support is meant to guide students to learning and
becoming more independent in the activity they are
attempting
Important Vygotskian Ideas
 Social transaction: Students learn best when interacting
with others
 Schema: The way learners organize concepts. As
students learn new things, they must reorganize or adapt
their schema
 Do you believe that ZPD, social transaction and schema
are easily applied to Deaf students? Why or why not?
What is the role of the teacher?
 To create opportunities for learning and experience
 To guide and support students in exploring, making
mistakes, and learning from them
 To watch children and learn from them what they are
ready for
Development and Vygotsky
 Children develop through social interaction with others
 Through social interactions, students begin to internalize
what they have learned (i.e., reading behaviors) until
they are able to apply these independently
 Concepts are organized by increasingly advanced
mental categorizations (heaps, complexes, potential
concepts and genuine concepts)
 Concept webs can be a visual way to organize these
categories
Conceptual Categories
Behaviorism versus Constructivism
Behaviorism
Constructivism
 Children learn from
stimulus-response (positive
reinforcements)
 Children learn from
experimentation with ideas
and objects
 Children are passive in their
learning
 Children are active
constructors of knowledge
 Children copy what they
hear or see in their
environment
 The teacher learns from
the child as the child learns
from the teacher
Vygotsky and Reading
 Children are guided by a
teacher to develop print
knowledge as they are
ready for it (ZPD)
 This begins with learning
about what books are for,
how to hold them,
concepts of print, and
continues to decoding,
sight word recognition,
and comprehension
Mediation Model of Reading
Instruction
Purpose
Reflection
Strategies
So…
 Children need to engage
in social experiences
around literacy
 We must model what we
expect students to
internalize
 We must give students the
opportunity to practice
What did you think of the examples?
 With a partner or two, look over the two teaching
examples on pages 22-24
 What did you think about how the teacher prompted the
student?
 Do you think this type of instruction would be helpful for the
student?
 How can you see this playing out in a classroom with Deaf
students?
Steps in the Mediation Model
 1: Rehearsal of new text
 Go through the text with the child, consider what he/she
needs to know to understand the story
 Familiarize the student with the story
 What strategies will be helpful?
 Reflect on how students respond to the introduction
 2: Assisted Reading
 Model fluent reading – by signing the story in ASL and
occasionally referring to important parts of the text
 Guide students in their reading
Mediating Writing
 Language Experience Approach: Teacher writes down
children’s ideas in a whole class setting
 Innovating: Using a text children know to make up their
own stories in the same style or pattern
 Individual writing: Students have the opportunity to
explore writing independently
Discussion
 This book provides many ideas for social interaction in
teaching and learning
 Text rehearsing, assisted reading, language experience
approach
 Do you think there are any modifications that would
need to be made for a Deaf Education classroom using
ASL?
 In terms of approach?
 In terms of interaction?
 In terms of language use?
Agenda
 Discussion
 Vygotsky and instruction
 Break
 CI Corner
 Practice: Applying Vygotsky to the classroom
 Housekeeping
Break!
Agenda
 Discussion
 Vygotsky and instruction
 Break
 CI Corner
 Practice: Applying Vygotsky to the classroom
 Housekeeping
CI Corner
 Cochlear implants in prelingually deaf children
 By Rose, Vernon and Pool
 American Annals of the Deaf, 1996
 Two authors are audiologists, one is a psychologist
CI Corner
 What did they do?
 Surveyed all schools for the deaf with at least 100 students
about student CI usage
 They identified 64 schools, and 45 of them completed the
survey
 The schools reported having 151 children who had cochlear
implants
 Remember, this is 1996..
CI Corner
 What did they find?
 Almost half (47%) of the children had stopped using their CIs
 Which supports the case for bilingual early intervention
among children with CIs, as these children who do not use
them use ASL
 Do you think these findings would be the same today?
(15 years later!)
Agenda
 Discussion
 Vygotsky and instruction
 Break
 CI Corner
 Practice: Applying Vygotsky to the classroom
 Housekeeping
Practice: Vygotsky in Action
 This book provides several examples of Vygotsky’s
theories applied to the classroom
 In groups of three, you will look at one example in depth
and consider:
 How is interaction important in this example?
 How is the teacher supporting student learning?
 What about this example is a good fit for Deaf students?
 What about this example might need to be modified for
Deaf students?
Practice: Vygotsky In Action
 The three examples are:
 Rehearsal Illustration (29-30)
 Assisted Shared Reading Illustration (34-36)
 Shared Writing Experience Illustration (38-39)
 You will have 15-20 minutes to explore this example in
detail with your group, and then we will discuss them as a
whole class
Agenda
 Discussion
 Vygotsky and instruction
 Break
 CI Corner
 Practice: Applying Vygotsky to the classroom
 Housekeeping
Annotated Bibliography
 Due March 28
 5 readings on the topic of your final paper
 300 word (or less) commentary describing each reading
and how it applies to your final paper
 In APA format!
 The rubric is in the syllabus!
Reminders
 Proposal due between March 21 (the next day we meet)
and April 11
 Also, does anyone have a paper copy of their second
essay to turn in?
Next class session
 We will be talking about the development of literate
thought
 Betsy will be leading the class discussion
 We MIGHT have our second guest speaker, an ASL
specialist from The Learning Center
 But this is not completely confirmed yet. 
Have a great spring break!!