Effectively Dealing With Literacy And Communication In College Courses: Teaching And Assessment Strategies

Linda Marie Allington, Rocky Mountain Connections Center, Salt Lake Community College
 

>> Welcome, ladies and gentlemen. It's my pleasure to talk to you about literacy and communication and how to effectively address this in the postsecondary environment. Very quickly, how are things working in terms of visual and audio access? Everybody seeing, hearing? Are we okay? Great. How many of you here are postsecondary faculty? How many are administrators? Sort of two hats? Interpreters, excellent. Voc rehab counselors? Wonderful. We have all of you. Do any of you teach classes, English classes for deaf students that are dedicated through sign language?

>> (audience member:) have.

>> Have. Great. I have everybody I was aiming at. That's wonderful. My name is Linda Allington, and my background is in your program, but basically I teach English to deaf and hard of hearing students through sign language. I also run our outreach program at a sister hub in Salt Lake City known as the Rocky Mountain Connection Center which is the blue brochure you have. I have handed out cards -- some of you have seen these before -- for the PEPNet, and I know most of the people here are very concerned with the family and the concerns, but the orientation to deafness on the PEPNet site is a good tool to share with your staff. They can print out a color certificate and get their CEUs and it's a wonderful thing to encourage. I have a few more of these and there are some on the table back there, and if you can take these back and encourage your faculties I think you will have a better place to start the dialogue with them. Okay. This is a -- the interpreter: you want the interpreter to move over here? Okay.

>> Better? Great. All right. This is a program for PEPNet. Most of you are familiar with the four regional centers, but we are under the Western Region Outreach Center & Consortia, the blue area you see there. What challenges do you face when dealing with deaf and hard of hearing students? They fall into two categories, literacy and communication. We are going to talk about those. One are the strategies for teaching in the presence of these literacy and communication issues, how to deal with students in the classroom. Then second we will talk about what interpreters can and cannot convey, and what the limitations are and their effects on literacy and communication, and, 3, we will talk about alternative strategies for assessment and evaluation, grading students with these issues.

First let's talk about teaching, and we are going to talk first about the direct communication issues that affect all teachers dealing with deaf and hard of hearing students. Most of us are familiar with typical classroom accommodations, interpreters of various sorts. Sign language, oral, cued, realtime captioning, other print accommodations such as C-Print, notetaking, assistive listening devices which we are using right now where we improve the audio access, advantageous seating so the person has the best visual and caption media.

It's important for faculty to understand that most students require both visual and auditory access and the print access accommodations and it's appropriate for the facilities to provide both because the duty in the classroom is not only to participate in the ongoing dialogue but to record for future study what's going on. It's important to understand that one size of accommodation does not fit all students, and one size of accommodation does not fit every student in every classroom.

It may change depending upon the type of classroom environment. Here are some variables that affect students' participation. There are variables which will include facial hair, dialects or accents, whether a person paces a lot, walks around the back of the room, talks while they are writing on the board. All of those things can affect communication and the way they structure a class. The type of rapport with the students will also affect it. There are classroom variations. We have already talked in a lot of sessions about acoustics, lighting, whether there is something next door that is noisy or affects assistive listening devices, whether there is something that makes it impossible for the interpreter to be seen or heard, things like that. Prepare for structure variables. Is there a lot of instruction? One person in the format? Uses of multimedia, lab format, hands on types of experiences, working in a machine environment for auto mechanics versus in a white room or surgical type of training for medical students. It's all going to vary widely. And whether it's a cooperative or competitive environment between the students.

And student variables have a lot to do with their communication preference, their abilities with that communication preference, whether they are signing, whether they have strong sign skills. If they have strong speech reading skills. If they prefer an auditory access, if they have appropriate accommodations and if they are even able to admit that they need accommodations and get to the disability services office. There are also some other variables for students, and one of them that faculty need to understand is that the degree of hearing loss, even with a hard of hearing student can make an enormous difference. If you have normal hearing, you have excellent access to all of the sounds, including wind in the trees and whispers in the classroom, but when you even go down to mild loss you notice there is some significant changes in what's available to you. When you go down to a moderate loss, which isn't a huge step. You have lost half of the sounds of English. So somebody who we call hard of hearing and expect that their hearing aids are bringing things in, that's not necessarily the case that they can. And when we get to a severe or profound loss we lose the rest of the sounds.

So what are the faculty and staff roles? First of all to uphold college policies regarding access. An important part of this is having written policies in place at your institutions. The talk about how things will be handled in terms of testing accommodations, in terms of providing classroom accommodations and other problematic accommodations, showing sensitivity to students communication preferences. At our college we have done an excellent job of getting the word out that sign language is a language and should be respected and that we have empowered these deaf students, and these faculty understand. But then we get somebody in who uses cue language, and what happens was unfortunately a faculty member bawled the student out for having a different communication preference. So we got our message across very effectively in one situation but we didn't cover them all effectively. And that was a real wake-up call and it caused real pain for a student.

We need to speak clearly and substitute words. In one on one interactions or if we recognize the person is not understanding us in the classroom and depends upon speech. We need to pace our classroom communication carefully.

>> (audience member:) for example, what do you mean by exchanging words? Using different words?

>> For example, if somebody is saying something like, "it is a good policy for us to have written policies in our college?" and somebody didn't understand my sentence, I could substitute words such as effectively writing down and documenting the policies might make change. Changing the words I say can often make them more frontal. Often people can lip read the longer words and not lip read the smaller ones. Pacing the classroom communication carefully is important also.

>> (audience member:) back to what you were just saying. I think it's important to not dumb down the words by replacing it with different words. It's important not to --

>> Right. Just thinking sometimes if people will say it with different synonyms it will become more frontal. A phenomenon. Sometimes like "very good," doesn't show up on the lips, but "excellent" does. You are correct. We don't want to dumb it down, just rephrase.

This is a hearing faculty tool. Pacing classroom communication very important. Limiting distracting factors in the classroom. Faculty and staff can also help a lot by making sure they have captioned videotapes and we will talk about that more in just a moment. And providing hand outs and models of anything that they would like a student to accomplish, showing something concrete can be very helpful. Using visual aids effectively. Avoiding dual tasking and evaluating deaf or hard of hearing students the same as their peers; visual aids can really reduce the amount of eye strain on the person with the interpreter and lip reading and being able to look in different directions it's a principle of how the eyes work to change the focus. And you can comprehend information in a helpful format. This breaks up the monotony.

Captioning is important, and many of you know about captioning, but dealing with your faculty it's important to understand that they don't know how to read the symbols. They don't know the caption symbols so showing them these captioning symbols is important. The departments need to be required to only purchase captioned media, and that's really critical. They need to know to obtain the TV VCR that has the decoder. Many older TVs that exist in department storerooms do not have captions. Whereas your media services most likely does have the caption chips. If captions are not available under any circumstances then the final resolution needs to be not to use that again but to provide an auditory -- take the audio and provide a transcript to the student and allow them to view it in an out side situation where they can stop and pause it. But that's not the ideal.

Let me go back. It's really important that we band together and purchase captioned media, and if every institution refuses to purchase anything that's not captioned, we can force the educational publishing houses to caption their work. It really is required now by law, but it's still not happening.

Dual tasking. It's really difficult for a student to look through a microscope, watch their interpreter, and pay attention to everything the teacher is doing. In graphic arts classes on the computer we have had problems where we can't get things pasted just right and they have to have a chance to click the mouse, check the screen, and many times teachers get impatient saying, I will do it myself, thinking the student doesn't know what they are doing. They are just trying to get the instructions. Sometimes in an art class where there is drawing going on and you are supposed to listen to instructions at the same time, it's going to require some novel approaches to how this will be handled, and the interpreter may actually take down notes while the person is drawing something and then give them those instructions to incorporate in the drawing, but really things are going to have to be communicated between the faculty member, the student, and the interpreter on what's the priority, how the protocol should proceed, and everybody needs to work together as a team. One on one with a hearing teacher talking to a deaf or hard of hearing student and maybe there is no interpreter present for one who signs, and this can make a faculty member feel very awkward. But it's important for them to understand that they need to have eye contact. If the student is writing down something you just told them they are not communicating.

Speak clearly but do not over enunciate. That makes it very difficult. Natural gestures are okay. Many faculty are afraid that they are going to somehow sign something that's a swear word if they use a natural gesture. We need to enforce that's okay. Be courteous. That's very important. Don't assume somebody nodding means they understood you. They may be just trying to listen, have it keep coming. An interpreter would make things easier. Rephrase don't repeat things. And feel free to write things down and draw on the board. For large class or group discussions you have different challenges or different ways of communicating with deaf students who sign, and, in any case, check with the student and the interpreter for how to make it go well. Understand that the interpreter will always just by nature of the task be a little behind the communication, and if it's going too fast, that student will not have a chance to jump in and participate. Make sure that the deaf person can see who is talking and that things are arranged so they have visual access. Use visual aids and select a note taker to sit near them so they can reference what's going on frequently.

If you have a hard of hearing student, particularly one who is using assistive listening technology, use the ALD appropriately by repeating the class comments or questions into the mike and being sensitive that there could be potential for embarrassment for that student in having that mike passed, and say, "oh, you have got to slow down for Tom over here." that can really be uncomfortable so be careful how you do it. The better solution is to have mikes set up for everybody to participate because some people will refuse to repeat what they said into the mike and give them the, "oh, it wasn't important." and many spontaneous comments are lost and the person who has the hearing loss feels devalued. Who are you to tell me what's important.

Now, I talked about a number of roles in the classroom but of course the deaf and hard of hearing does have a role in this, and it's important to make sure that this is a team work approach between the deaf person, the faculty member, and any service providers for that person. The deaf student needs to show up to class. That's no. 1, and I have seen some faculty people nodding, and if that's not happening there is no communication and that's where the student is responsible.

The student needs to communicate with the faculty member their needs and expectations. In the situation where the faculty member has experience with the sign language but not a cue language transliterator it's a matter of the student going up and saying I use a different system and that's what works for me, or somebody coming in saying I need you to wear this clip and that person doesn't know what's being put on their body. That needs to be communicated and the student needs to be trained to approach faculty and teach them to use the assistive listen device and work with them in the classroom. Most faculty are really good people they just know what need to know what you need.

Set up use and maintain the equipment. That's the student's responsibility. Going to the teacher and saying you should have known to bring me batteries is not a way to deal with that. Use positive coping skills. There will be unforeseen communication breakdowns. Assume good will. Train students to assume good will and ask for clarifications and to get things and not to panic when they don't have a service provider there.

They need to communicate their needs in a timely way to their disability services office. Students who show up two weeks after the semester starts and say, "why don't I have an interpreter in my class?" is quite a difference between high school and college, and some of our students don't know there isn't an automatic satellite tracking their every move and providing an interpreter to be in their location. So they need to communicate. And self-advocacy can be very important in communicating. If I don't -- this service provider is not fitting my needs, so they need to be both realistic in their expectations of what a service provider can do for them, but they also need to communicate their needs and go to the disability service office and provide feedback on whether it's working or not.

Okay I’m going to talk for a moment about addressing the literacy issues. Why are there literacy issues? Probably speaking to the choir here, but sometimes you also need to speak to faculty members and maybe you are less familiar than this. Many of our students grow up with families who do not sign or do not communicate in a visually accessible way and many of the professionals when these children were -- when these deaf or hard of hearing people were young did not give them good advice, and enough information. Many of the educators in the public schools do not use the most appropriate methods for that child, and they have limited visual access to language so many times they do not develop language during the critical period, and many deaf individuals have limited access to any type of language, whether it's English or sign language, because they may not have had contact with other deaf individuals. They may not have had sufficient one-on-one efforts with them to address visual access to English.

There are also a lot of years of experience that disempower them. Speech therapy can be a lot of fun but it can also be very oppressive. Particularly when this person finds that the sounds don't make any sense to them and what they are being asked to do and the standard they are being asked to match makes no earthly sense to them. A lot struggle with written English. It can make a person feel pretty flattened. Hearing people are smarter. Assuming that, they just assume because they are in the know, and that's something we need to revise, and having the lack of access to information in every situation they are in can just provide a general sense of disempowerment and some problems with content mastery.

In terms of our world knowledge, 80 percent of our knowledge was not taught to us. We just kind of absorbed it through our environment, and most of us as hearing people just overheard it. We heard mom talking about mortgages on the phone with the bank. She didn't sit down and give us a lesson on mortgages. We overheard how fights are resolved in the home and learned social skills to resolve that. The deaf or hard of hearing person may not know the resolution of it. Deaf children cannot gain most knowledge without conscious effort and this needs to be overtly taught and most of the time the family can't communicate with them in a language they understand, and often teachers don't communicate with them in a mutually accessible way. Sometimes that information doesn't get there.

Some people will assume that hard of hearing students don't have any literacy issues, but in my experience that isn't accurate. Often the labels -- the audiological labels given are not accessible in terms of their access to information with or without hearing aids, but there are a lot of things in the language that are structural and they might miss the pragmatics of how certain phrases are used particularly when sarcasm and language play is involved. And disempowering and frustrating experiences tend to be very similar to those of deaf people. Especially the oh, never mind it isn't important, I will tell you later.

So how can literacy deficiencies be addressed in college? There are two major ways that we experience as I travel and in the programs that I work with. First of all, having dedicated courses for deaf or hard of hearing students, particularly for those who sign through sign language can strengthen their bilingual competencies, and this is what I teach. There are other ways to involve them in basic skills courses developmental or predevelopmental courses and it's important if you are teaching through an interpreter to know the limitations and we will talk about them in a minute and to make them as visually accessible as possible.

And it's very important in designing a program for students to have realistic understanding of the career that they are going to and the English skills that are needed. Students who are repeatedly failing an English 201 course that focuses on semi analysis of culture and writing may not be an essential job skill for someone going into auto mechanics or going into web design, things like that. It just may not be what their need is, so there may be some way to do a course substitution for something with a similar course goal but not that type of structure that is prohibitive to that individual. Content-based curricula can really help. Integrating the vocabulary, the grammatical structures, and adult-interest content, the medical environment -- how to talk to your doctor. The scientific environment, the types of major courses they are taking, integrating all of that together in a relevant way can be very helpful.

Using pedagogical methods that emphasize critical literacy or the higher level thinking skills. Tutoring throughout the curricula to meet the language needs is an important service to provide. It is not an ADA-mandated service, but it is important to understand that if your college or university provides tutoring to anybody, they need to provide accessible tutoring to all. At that point you can address whether the tutoring is effective for that student or whether it needs to be directly through their language of choice, whether the issues to be tutored are the content or whether it's the language barriers that need to be surrounded and we need to strengthen the visual skills of the individual. If their preference is speech reading, to help them improve on that and capitalize on strategies for speech reading.

If their preference happens to do with sign language we really need to help them because many times they got their sign language, by gosh and by golly without really understanding that there is a pattern and a system to sign language. So why study both English and American Sign Language? In focusing on deaf individuals or hard of hearing individuals who sign, there are many times faculty who expressed to me, "well, I just want to have students stop using ASL as a crutch." it's like, excuse me? They are assuming that -- as in the first model that the first and the second language proficiencies are separate parts of the brain. But that's not true. If their proficiencies are strengthened in sign language they will be strengthened in language as well. Because in brain energy the people store their languages in the same part of the brain and the competencies that people learn in one language are strengthened by the second language. So we don't need to practice subtractive bilingualism here we need to practice attitude bilingualism.

Any time you enhance the science skills we find incredible impact in the English proficiency. This is another representation by Jim Summins that really helps drive this home. The vocab, the grammar -- whether you are talking English, German -- it's you don't need to know how to --- when you go from English to German, for example. And you don't need to learn how to skim when you go from Spanish to Japanese. If you know it in one language you will have the general skills. You only need to when we learn cognitive skills in sign language we are to apply those more readily in English and even in teaching writing to express them more coherently in sign definitely has an impact on their ability to implant and reinforce those skills in written English. So the skills and knowledge learned in one language do transfer. We often talk about those surface features and what we need to include in a course, and those are common things that we do include. But there is an important understanding that when we are teaching vocabulary and grammar and so on, that we need to do it not at just a conversational proficiency. Most of our students have that part of the language but they don't have the higher order academic proficiency.

>> (audience member:) I’m sad to see there seems to be no teaching of sign language in the lower grades to deaf and hard of hearing students

>> I am too

>> (audience member:) or am I missing it

>> No you are right on target and that's causing lots of problems. Hearing students study their language clear on into high school and college. Why don't deaf students have that study of their culture and literature? Absolutely I do. A part of the course I teach is to include the deaf literature, deaf style, how to control yourself in sign language, evaluating each other on videotape the same we do in peer review in writing. And that's an important skill and many of our students don't have it and then they go out in the deaf community and are not accepted in leadership roles because they don't have those skills and it wasn't their fault they were mainstreamed and did not get it from the deaf community and had no exposure and sometimes it's helpful to see themselves on videotape doing funny things like very conversational body language. And they go oh, that's what I look like, and then to compare with models we have of deaf adults who are expressing themselves formally. How they organize a presentation. What the discourse structures are in sign and English and compare and make those things relevant to them.

>> (audience member:) I was going to say for the mainstream setting that is where it would be ASL specialist. Now things are really changing, and I know at least in this area with the ESDs you have native sign language speakers out there working in the schools, and I mean that's where I see the future for that ASL component where they have a real native exposure, not from even the hearing teacher of the deaf or the interpreter, but from a fluent sign language person who, you know, he or she grew up in the community and is a master of the language.

>> That's wonderful. What this gentleman said is that in the areas here, that there are specialists working in the mainstream schools who are masters of sign language working with the students, and I think that's great. But in most parts of the country that is not yet the case. So will you please come to Utah and help us out. It's a problem. Work me out of a job, please. (laughter)

>> Okay. We are talking about now the conversational proficiency versus the academic proficiency. Many of my students can sign conversationally with more or less coherence but they can't even discuss in sign language let alone understand their interpreters in an academic sense and if they are asked to give a class presentation and they ask their interpreter to voice, they do things like -- -- you've got to label this first kid. And they say lousy interpreter she can't voice me. Well, you didn't give them anything to voice. So teaching them on how to set up their classifiers and things like that just as one example is very, very important.

When we talk about language, we have surface information such as your pronunciation vocabulary and grammar. When we talk about Bloom’s Taxonomy for higher level thinking skills we have on the surface the knowledge and basic conversation that's given to us and that application in some situations but the deeper we go into the cognitive proficiencies, you will notice on the language side you get into semantic meanings and functional pragmatics of meaning and that's where many of our students are totally lost, and these are very much necessary in order for them to do the analysis, the synthesis, and the evaluation of information. So they need to be taught sign and English with cognitive academic proficiency, and they need to be taught in a visually relevant context.

>> (audience member:) I think most children going to school about 5 years old -- I don't know what percent of them know sign language when they go into school. So maybe it's a good idea to first concentrate on the sign language, the conceptualization, and then learn the English later

>> I absolutely agree. The one note of success in Utah is we have started a bilingual, bicultural school run by deaf people. And those kids I’m not going to see in my classes but the problem is they have got a very few people and the region I serve there is none of that going on and I totally agree and in some sense I believe all children should learn sign language, growing up hearing or deaf growing up. Because 80 percent of us are going to have a hearing loss by the time we are 65, and we will have a much better culture if we learn to communicate. There is no reason to keep this language away from people, in my opinion. When we are teaching we need to make sure the communicative context is clear to our students, the ways of interaction, that it's visually understandable. And they understand something about linguistic and cultural variations which is not accessible to them because of their hearing loss. And understanding about the other ethnic minorities in our nation seeing some of their literature is actually the same is very helpful and empowering.

How do we provide this contextual support and provide the proficiency. We use as many activities that involve as many parts of the brain as possible. We focus on real-life adult context and interests with cognitive challenge. We deal with critical inquiry of things that matter to them, not of things that are real esoteric to the student. And teach for this critical literacy making the content accessible. I have used the term critical literacy. Maybe I should define it. Ira Shor defines it as habits of thought, reading and speaking which go beneath surface meaning and mere opinions to understand the deep meaning, the root causes, the social context, and the personal consequences of any action, event, text or discourse. What is important in this is not to just say, "yeah, hearing people have the power and it sure stinks, okay. Let's go on, next lesson.” But to be able to empower them to say what are the power structures here, what would you like to see happen and how can you use this majority language as access to influence and change what's going on? And then let them do this.

For example, writing an argumentative essay of very little value to most students who are trying to convince a teacher of something, but taking them to the legislature, showing them the process, letting them pink slip people off the floor into the hall and talk to them and then write letters and receive actual correspondence back that were argumentative or convincing is a much more real-life experience, and woo-hoo they got their bill passed and they learn that's a tool of power, not of disenfranchising them. And those are things we need to work with our students to do in real life.

A lot of education is coercive, and it's particularly seen that way by people with a disability or a hearing loss, and the first thing that people of almost any language -- I mean any -- any age who are deaf tell me when they find out I teach English, they say, oh, I’m lousy at language. I’ll tell them no, your language is great. Are you saying English is a challenge? That's your second language. My Spanish is, too. And understanding this is not your only language. Okay? And many of my students come, having been so passive from interpreting or whatever has happened to them in the k-12 that they don't expect language to make sense. Therefore they parrot signs and they parrot gibberish and writing and I say what does that mean and they can't tell me. And I have to come down on them like firecrackers and thunder from heaven to say this has got to stop to help them see language must make sense.

Also language is perceived as something that is used to trick and hurt. Whoa. We have to change that to where they understand I’m bilingual. It makes sense. It helps me understand my world and I can use it as a tool of power to get my thoughts across and influence change, and in context the term praxis, creating social action for change by the use of language, can be very empowering to your students. So critical literacy is empowering students and whether you are teaching in mainstream or classes by themselves where you can focus, critical literacy is important to empower students in language.

I have a lot more to say but I need to move on and I do have an article on the PEPNet website, but the specific reference is in your handout if you would like to read the rest. Moving on to the second segment what can the interpreter convey if you are working with the sign language interpreter. In the classroom they interpret for everyone not just the deaf student. They are the hearing student's interpreter, too. Everything you say is signed. Everything they -- everything that is signed is said as faithfully as possible, including the emotions.

But even though they are trying to interpret this message as faithfully as possible, many people worry about what I say is going to go back to some other office. They will keep it as confidential because they must follow the code of ethics unless there is a situation requiring intervention in communication access. However they get tired, and we need to realize that eyes are muscles. Watching the roadrunner goes like this -- tires out the eyes. The interpreters get exhausted. We need to take a break. What they cannot do in the classroom is they cannot participate in class; they can't edit what you say. If you say don't sign that, they will say don't sign that, and then you will have a student in your face. If you swear and tell a dirty joke, they will do it. You cannot say don't sign that. What that's saying is what I’m saying is so inappropriate I don't want it to be translated into another language. If it's inappropriate, just don't say it.

>> (audience member:) What about if two deaf people in the back of the room are having a conversation like hearing students do, is that really appropriate to interpret that?

>> That's a real tricky issue, and that could extend into a whole philosophical discussion

>> (audience member:) I guess it's one thing if the instructor asks, you know --

>> But if a hearing student is allowed to say side comments to them that are not of public domain, deaf students have the same right. They are paying the same. It's pretty clear by body shifts if it's in the public domain. If you are not sure if they want it voiced, ask them. And we want deaf students to be perfect students, but the hearing students aren't, and I keep going in what I am doing, and you would be surprised how much peripheral vision many of the deaf people have, and I’m being paid to deliver the message. If they choose not to pick it up that's their choice. That's why I as a hearing person has slept through I don't know how many hours of graduate instruction. (laughter) Interpreters are really good, but some things just can't be interpreted.

Subtleties of spoken language play -- particularly play with dialect and accents and funny ways of saying things. Puns and sound-based jokes just don't translate well between any two languages. They are very hard, and by the time I explain what the joke is, it just isn't funny any more, and so that individual will be left out of those kinds of things. It doesn't mean you can't use it means to understand that there are just some things that don't go across, and there is culture-bound humor that again takes so much explanation, and the interpreters handling things like this between two heads of state say, "they are telling a joke at your expense, the punch line is now." that's all they do. Or "it involves the missile crisis," and the person knows when to "ha, ha" or give a dirty look. They can't get it across and keep the person in a timely manner -- the sign language interpreters are out there trying to break their backs and explain it all, but we can't. It just doesn't come out.

There are a lot of idioms that don't translate. So if it's the idiom they are trying to get across they need to clue the interpreter in. The same thing can happen with other types of vocabulary. Nuances of meaning. They are sometimes not fully interpretable and may escape the interpreter because of the cognitive load that they are dealing with. Double entendre. Something that goes on in every hearing home where the the child says, "mother, I’m trying," and the mother says, "you sure are." Was that a hard one? "trying." "trying." That just doesn't come across, ha, ha, ha. And that person is going I don't see it, and many times the interpreters are not skilled enough to put that out well, but even if they put it out well it's not funny.

>> (audience member:) Did you cue the interpreter in advance?

>> Yeah, it helps if the interpreter knows it's coming. But most humor is spontaneous, circumstantial, and it just helps to know the interpreter can't get that across appropriately, and that kind of double entendre -- and I have seen classes where a double meaning, a particular one became the focus, and clue the interpreter in that's where you are headed, and if you are now going to take a second whole course on it, that person needs to get it in and it's going to take some time. Some discourse structures are just not used -- some discourse structures are used in one language and one environment and a different discourse structure is used in the other.

For example, many times when an expository or explanatory discourse structure is used in English, a narrative discourse structure would be employed in sign language, a suppose, and then an example. If you were targeting the student you need to clue them in so they keep it with the target discourse structure. It's not that they are changing the information. They are getting across in the way that that language would do it. They are culturally adjusting, but in some English classes that doesn't work out and you need to clue them in, and I myself have been guilty of doing that.

>> (audience member:) I’m wondering, you are talking about interpreters, and you were talking about idioms just recently, and so I’m wondering if when I teach idioms you need to explain them. For example ‘it's raining cats and dogs’. That comes from a long time ago, so it might be a good idea to explain where that came from, and -- because the roof they used to build houses with weak roofs and when it would rain it would fall in. So maybe have an explanation to say what what it means and that might help.

>> When I teach English classes for deaf students I do that. But even the ASL students will have the same problem with the information. So it really does help when you see that clueless look not to assume they are dumb but to explain what you just said. Overlapping speech in classroom discussions as we just mentioned is not possible. Synonyms is okay, but not every word translates word for word into the other language. Often there is more than one possible interpretation. There are a lot of signs with multiple meanings a lot of words with multiple meanings. I address this when I teach an English course but out there with an interpreter there is always something coming out.

For example I was teaching a reading class where it was -- I signed "conclusion," which is an ending. It turned out the context that was in the textbook that I wasn't clued in on was "conclusion," an interpretation of an event to a decision. So this person was totally messed up on the test and I had to go to the teacher and say I didn't know the context and I gave them an incorrect meaning for conclusion. And it took a while to go back, retrain the concept and to reevaluate that learning. So it helps to clue in your interpreter and give them the context.

When technical vocabulary is involved, maybe the interpreter doesn't know the target of what you are after in a specific connotation or usage of that term that might otherwise be used in society in a different way. You need to clue the interpreter in, and not a bad idea to clue the students in, as well. Sometimes interpreters we use signs which potentially translate back to English as a different synonym which isn't what the instructor is looking for and sometimes that creates confusion, and many times interpreters will use words that are synonyms in common parlance but in a technical one like law where "confidentiality" and "privacy" have very distinct meanings -- we can't use the same. And we can do it differently and if we know what the voice target is we can choose the right word so the teacher doesn't think the student isn't grasping. A "counselor" is different from "advisor." if we spell them, we can make that difference clear.

>> (audience member:) I don't know exactly how I want to express this question, but as an interpreter some time ago I would -- I would wonder whether when I saw a questioning look on the deaf person's face, I'd have to gauge, "am I to voice that as a huh? To the teacher. In order to give the teacher the opportunity to clarify and enhance that relationship between the teacher and the deaf student, or is this -- this communication between me and the deaf student. Can you address that?

>> If a student wishes to ask a question of the teacher, that's the student's job. If the student has been trying for a while and the teacher has ignored them and everyone else is using a vocal prompt and because hearing people like me tend to focus on the sound, I would say excuse me there is a question over here. There needs to be an auditory disruption. In terms of that I will generally ask, sign or teacher? And then they can address whether it's me or them, and just kind of a shortcut that I establish with my client they can clarify. Most of the time they will hand me the question as I go. What was that sign again? But most of the time with the teacher -- gosh, many times they can't form the question, and I have done one little dirty trick -- I’m sorry. The interpreter didn't understand that. It's okay. I’ll own up to it. It's likely I didn't. Sometimes the interpreter didn't know the intention for a word. Sometimes we don't know the discourse structure and we are not modeling what the instructor had hoped so we are clarifying that. And the interpreter owns some responsibility but we cannot anticipate every question to ask the faculty member. So these are things that faculty need to know going into it, and unfortunately it's hard to get out there to say, particularly to English faculty, we need to be able to talk to you about this before we get into the situation.

Passive voice is another headache. "the man was kicked by the horse" is often signed as "the man kicked the horse." that's not what it means. It means the horse kicked the man. But passive voice doesn't exist in American Sign Language in that form. We can convey the information but not in that form. And many times inexperienced interpreters aren't listening they are too close to the subject, even experienced ones we get too close and don't process it mentally and that information can get skewed. So when you are asking the student to read past the instructions on the test, that also can be skewed.

Certain gerund participle instructions are unclear at best. "I am disgusting" and "I am disgusted." sometimes you will say "the movie was thrilled" and you will say that's hard for a movie to do. But these are things we need to teach our students. There is a limited range of it so it is possible to teach them which is which. And the nastiest structure is when you get a test with a reverse polarity question that is a trick question and it cannot be interpreted very well. Dr. Gallimore says "I hate them." yes, as an interpreter I say tell me what you know about this and check the answer.

The first question is from an FBI questionnaire, for a job applicant to get a reference, and the reference happened to be a deaf person, and they faxed it. The college educated deaf person knew it was a trick. "In your estimation is there any reason to believe the person is dishonest?" is the person honest? Check no, why? Is it not questionable that many lipids are not indicated by high cholesterol at all? I did this two weeks ago on a biology test. I copied it down.

So many teachers pride themselves on writing trick questions. It's not a valid test. You are not testing for context you are testing for whether the person is reading and if you realize the theory behind what you are doing you might not want to do that any more. Many times that's done because your professors did that to you and it's a revenge thing passed on. But if you analyze it it's not good.

A hint. Syntax structures between the two languages are different. Teaching English grammar through interpreters doesn't work. You have to give it written. For example, writing examples of what you would like the student to focus on that works best. Okay. Quickly we need to talk about testing and assessment of course mastery. Do you like that? Isn't that how we feel. We get this thing especially with the reverse polarity questions and we go crazy.

>> When we are testing for content mastery, modify written test structure to avoid reverse polarity. Test what they really do have as a handle on their content. Or have the student alternately demonstrate the knowledge with hands on or produce a project to demonstrate the knowledge. I wouldn't recommend take it to a written essay from a multiple choice because now you are proving a disadvantage to students.

For a multiple skills test such as reading writing and English. Do not have an interpreter interpret the reading test. The instructions yes, but if you are testing for reading skill they need to be able to show their skill, the same as writing. If a student is taking a math test you may have an issue with story problems because they are written in the absolute most gosh awful syntax of anything that ever hinders academia, and I don't know how editors let them get away with it. So you may need an interpreter to sort that out or better yet rewrite that so they make sense to everyone and all your students will love you.

Improve course papers. If you are working in a history class and you ask your students to do papers or in an English class there are some strategies to help your deaf or hard of hearing students produce better work, before they start teach them about prewriting. Don't assume that they have had this in their freshman class. Free write to make sure it's one they want to live with. Outline and do research. Teach the skills. Don't assume they have the skills.

Help them identify their thesis from the main idea. Teach students to create and write without editing. I used the analogy of the left brain right brain. Our left brain is very muscular and it knows how to criticize and that jabber box is in there saying that's the wrong grammar; you did this wrong. And that's the mental block. So let's disconnect the left side and empower our right side that is all very thin and weak to get some muscle, and every time it tries to pull up say shut up. And we do our creating and expression and this is an oversimplification in science but in terms of a metaphor the students understand it makes sense for all students to empower. Don't stop to correct everything, just keep going, and now we will go back and reorganize for content and edit and let the left brain have its say.

Let students turn in rough drafts. They really need that opportunity for feedback and go back and forth. So structure things a so that can be done and offer that. Evaluate and respond to the content over the form, and notice what their understanding and their critical reasoning involved.

Assist the student in identifying and using the appropriate organizational patterns and discourse structures if they haven't and help them notice patterns of mechanical error. Don't mark every little comma that's wrong or misspelling. Look for one or two things in a pattern that you can address. Otherwise you will overwhelm and stress them.

And look for improvements over time. Have students create portfolios of their best work. You will have an easier time evaluating them in the content mastery as well as the writing. And they will, too. That will really be empowering and concentrate on applying that course work in content over the form of expression. Some general hints. Make your comments clear and concrete and simple with written instructions and examples, but don't overdo it. There was one English teacher who likes to hand out three pages on how to write this essay and it's so verbose I can't interpret it. I don't know as an English teacher what she wants. So how does this deaf student.

Comment on the positive more than you comment on the negative. Catch-em doing good. This is how you make education more empowering and ask the student what they would want to be working on and what their concerns and goals are.

We have talked about challenges and students in postsecondary communication that involve communication and literacy. We have talked about strategies for teaching. We talked about what the interpreter can and cannot do, and that's a fact on what the student is able to do, and we have talked about alternative strategies for testing and assessments for course mastery. So, are you ready to effectively address the needs of your deaf and hard of hearing students in your classroom? I hope so.

If we can be of any help we have some resources. We have a new English group and that little sheet with the feather on it is for people who are teaching English to deaf and hard of hearing through sign or mainstream teachers who would like informing on teaching English to deaf and hard of hearing students. We have a listserve and as I speak it was being developed it's not up yet but it will be soon so check PEPNet and WROCC for that. "TESOL" is the Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages. It has many interest groups. We were a very small group of teachers of English to deaf students and that died as a result of bylaw changes, but we have moved into bilingual educators interest section, and they are working on getting the name changed and their response has been excellent. Our missions are the same. We have some wonderful things going on over there and a lot of political action that we can be each other's allies, particularly in the areas of English-only movements and how to effectively achieve bilingual education. And I ask you to check into that or contact me. This is a new development.

We have some wonderful websites that are available on your sheet. And at the Rocky Mountain Connections Center -- this is our web site, and you have my business card on your hand-out and I would like to dialogue with any of you who want further resource or information in this area for yourself or other faculty you work for. And I thank you for your time.

>> There is an announcement. Lunch is in a different area. It will be downstairs in that little small Willamette room in the basement. It won't be in the same place we were before.

>> In the Willamette room downstairs on the lower level we will have the lunch, not the Riverfront Ballroom that we have been in. So go to lunch in a different room on the second lower level. Not the main level but the next one down. You have to walk down or take the elevator down. Thank you. (end session) (noon break)