AW: AW: writing by hand - not so easy ? -

Fri Dec 5 17:27:32 UTC 2003

Hello James, Ingvild, Cecilia   and list members

thanks very much for your comments on this "handwriting" - subject -

"....what applies to the process of developing literacy skills in
English tends to be pertinent to sign literacy, as well."

I am lucky to watch two of my sons in early childhood ( at different times -
ha)  ---   as they develop a way to express their ideas in a written form.
The miracle about this is that they make up their own theory about a
connection between the letters of the alphabet and the phonological
impression they experience. Funny and interesting to see, that they differ
in their phonological analysis of the spoken language - but once you have
understood their individual system you are able to follow their rules and
can read and understand what they line up - rows of letters with no gap ...

But the deaf child - what about the deaf child - there is no chance
whatsoever to develop any idea of phonological guidance. And that makes the
whole difference. Therefore we have such a hard time that lasts sooooooooooo
long to inform about the connection between visible mouth and lips movements
that go along with typical sounds (???? ) which hearing try to express with
letters as good as possible. The deaf child has to understand that a change
in the row of letters can be but must not result in a different meaning ...
They have to accept that the same letters are pronounced differently ,,,,
My deaf students get almost angry that they are left alone with lip-reading
tasks unless they learned the spelling of the German word before. Once they
got the idea of conjugation and declination, singular and plural, ... they
are much better of -
BUT IT TAKES TIME

You know that I developed a special "Mundbildschrift" to support their
learning process. And this turns out to be a valuable tool as well. Later
the students understand the problems and confusion that goes along with
lip-reading if they are uninformed about the spelling of the words ....

And time goes by - And over sudden they will be no longer at school but will
start their professional education (about 17 years old students)
And now they are confronted with a boost of literature - ( no single
bilingual book  so far ... )

Therefore I feel responsible to support them as best as possible to
understand and read more and more German written documents. But I feel under
pressure at the same time that there expressive skills develop so slow at
the same time. Contrary to the hearing child they miss almost every German
word to write it down - You can write something wrong if you have got a
vague idea. But if there is nothing ... you cannot write anything. And every
new picture-sequence that should serve as a trigger to formulate own ideas
leads to the same problem -

Would be so fantastic if deaf children simply could go to the SW4.4. program
or could grasp the pencil and would be able to write down their idea in SW.
But that is difficult. Very difficult for young children. I bet that you and
your Bluefield - teachers would be able without too much trouble to write
down some picture - story within ... 2 hours? 1 hour ? half an hour ? How
long would be sufficient! I am really interested!! Later you should be able
to write your handwritten document with SW4.4 - with no dictionary - how
long would that be?
So obviously the time- factor is very important. What about times,  when
people took their time to write on stone or paint in an artful manner the
bible - letters .. Nobody allows students to be slow! That is a pity! (Ha
writing this comment I learn a lot! L.I.F.E - hi TINI)

What if I would start to teach every day an hour - or at least 30 minutes a
day - handwriting ?? -- I get under pressure to "loose" time.

But that would afford that I should know - how to write by hand myself.
Students need to experience handwriting as a natural method -
So I started this week to write my first message on the blackboard -
handwritten SW - like (All children are asked to clean the blackboard. - or-
all children are asked to start with mathematics 1 x 13  . Or -  please take
out your German exercise books and start writing sentences. "
When I enter the classroom ( minutes late  ;-) ) They are already doing
their job! In fact they are curious about my next message  the next day and
they really think that it is easy just to take the chalk and write my signs
....

The reason that I started this discussion is that I do not want to mislead
other colleagues who are going to start their GebaerdenSchrift - projects
now . We all know that SW is a wonderful powerful tool to express SL in a
easy to read written notation system - far better than any other that I know
of.

Without GebaerdenSchrift my students would not be able to read and
understand structures of German grammar as they do - ( at least most of
them )
Without GebaerdenSchrift two of my students would not be able to read any
written document. Just in contrary. The reading and understanding of written
GebaerdenSchrift - documents is kind of catalyst for their developing skill
to read and understand German texts.
GebaerdenSchrift is a wonderful tool to support their identification with
DEAF culture.
Our chance to show both language - systems - (spoken language and SL) in a
contrast - enables them to understand their confusion!!- and to overcome the
mixture of the two grammar - systems.

Would be too exiting to watch deaf little babies - who are allowed to spend
time on finding their individual writing system - Do they really go along a
similar path in achieving SW - handwriting - literacy ?

Above I mentioned my sons at age of 4 - 5 years ! Ha - they did their job
with a keyboard and not by hand!  And Gordian is working on SW now with the
keyboard. He develops his idea to "write" a maenniken - so this is not
pasting from the dictionary but searching for symbols! He is informed about
arcs, arrows, contact-symbols, lines, heads, eyes, ... hand shapes ( he is
only interested in the 5-fingers - hand) Hi is counting the keys in order to
find the key for a given symbol... He becomes an expert on expressive
writing if he proceeds ...
He is doing a great job - He is doing what I would call writing SW with the
SW4.4. because he collects isolated symbols and arranges them in a way that
they can be seen as a complete gestalt . What comes out is the idea of his
"maenniken - with or without legs (= ghost) with a point on the eye (=
pirate), with or without any body but just legs starting from the head (=
just as we know from hand paintings of little children) and right now it is
important to him to write little guys with a special sign that identifies
them as boys (see attached gif - ha. (His comment "I made two pained boys")
!
Jojo his older brother has become an expert - it is almost wonderful to
watch him designing new art products -
Once children are used to this idea it is - or should be - a small step to
arrange symbols that are meaningful in a SL - vocabulary set. And this would
lead to a expressive skill that you are no longer dependent of the knowledge
of words from the spoken language but can refer to your own signing
competence. That is what I am dreaming of for deaf children in early
childhood!
One of my students at school starts to change signs that are found in the
dictionary if they do not agree with the spelling! He is on his way to
master more and more features of the SW - Program .

All the best to all of you

Stefan ;-)  (Friday has come!!)

-----Urspr ÿÿ gliche Nachricht-----
Von: James/Judy Shepard-Kegl [mailto:kegl at maine.rr.com]
Gesendet: Donnerstag, 4. Dezember 2003 06:12
An: stefanwoehrmann at gebaerdenschrift.de
Betreff: Re: AW: writing by hand - not so easy ? -

My experience in teaching children in Nicaragua -- and in watching my own
children develop English literacy skills -- is that a great deal of time and
effort must be dedicated by student and teacher to the task.

Punctuation -- which we as experienced readers find so essential -- is
under-appreciated by the rookie reader -- and horribly misused by the novice
writer.  I am not referring to SW here, but to English.  However, in my
experience what applies to the process of developing literacy skills in
English tends to be pertinent to sign literacy, as well.

Have you ever seen all the text books devoted to teaching English grammar
and writing?  Do you recall how many hours of the school day were devoted to
this -- and how much homework you had  -- and how many years it took?

If we proceed from the notion that there is no miracle shortcut to
developing decent literacy skills in English (or German, etc.), then we must
assume the same for sign literacy.  So, in my opinion, sign literacy using
SW requires the design and implementation of a curriculum with text books
and and reading lessons and writing lessons and homework to last -- oh-- say
four or five years.  This also presupposes that the teacher is competent in
teaching the grammar and syntax of the language.

SW is only difficult to write if insufficient time is devoted to mastery of
the skill.

However, if SW is to be used primarily to teach math and literacy skills in
a speech driven language, then a whole word approach to reading skills is
generally adequate -- and relatively quick.

-- James Shepard-Kegl

--

> From: Stefan Woehrmann <stefanwoehrmann at gebaerdenschrift.de>
> Reply-To: stefanwoehrmann at gebaerdenschrift.de
> Date: Wed, 03 Dec 2003 22:37:43 +0100
> To: SW-L at ADMIN.HUMBERC.ON.CA
> Subject: AW: writing by hand -  not so easy ? -
>
> Hi Ingvild, Valerie and list members,
>
> thanks for your reply -
>
> well I am afraid that there is a combination of several problems -
>
> Ingvild: "I agrre with Valerie, Stefan, it is important that your students
> may try
> to write their own signs. I thought they already did this? I have seen
> photos from you where they are writing on the blackboars, haven't I?"
>
>
> Well yes - they can write their sign-names and this and that - but it is
far
> away from what I expect a 10 year old child to express in written form.
> They can copy signs and symbols and show not too much attention to a very
> accurate writing - which on the other hand is an interesting information.
> They are absolute fluent readers - but not in an analytic - reading -
style
> as I call it if the reader is informed about all the tiny hints and pieces
> that are "hidden" in a correct SW - spelling.
>
>
> ..... "Anyway, practice, with the possibility to make mistakes, is
important
> in
> all learning. And if SignWritng is ever to become the written form of the
> sign languages, it is important that it is not only typed but also
> hand-written."
>
> Hm - I am not sure about that. When I started to write my first signs - I
> mean searching for the location of the various symbols, getting used to
the
> function- keys ... it took soooooooooooo long. I felt unable and unsecure
to
> write by hand for a long time. This changed  when I got handwritten - SW-
> documents from my DEAF  SL - teacher . I was so impressed that she simply
> did ...
> But it is not a question of my handwriting - skills as an adult,
> enthusiastic SW- user.
> My students show interest to write the one or other sign, or short phrase
in
> SW - handwriting - but it is not enough in order to develop literacy .. .
>
>
>
> "I am sure your students will want to take down notes, or
> write letters, or whatever, in their own handwriting. And it will take
> time - and time is so precious when we are teaching the Deaf kids, because
> of all they miss that comes freely trough the air for us who can hear."
>
>
> Well - you should watch my little son Gordian 5 years now. He sits down in
> front of the keyboard - he is able to start the SW - program - he opens
his
> old files or starts with new ones - he started to "write" his own
> Maenniken - He can write with MS Word his ideas in his phonological-
> oriented spelling - but he is interested to express his own ideas in a
> written form  - and more than that - he is able to develop his own ideas -
> I was lucky to work for a while with a deaf child from a all- deaf -
family
> background. Same with her ...
>
> But what happens to DEAF children from hearing parents. They have a
> fundamental lack in early childhood communication. They did not practice
> dialog for years !!!!! in any formal language - some home talk- signs and
> gestures - if only that ...
>
> So perhaps the problem is very complex. You can bet that the parents are
not
> able to communicate with their children in SL - They focus on spoken
> language development in spoken or written form. The parents accept the use
> of SW but they are not able to read even very simple signs.
> My students are very much under pressure to follow a given curriculum .
>
> Do you know that we read and type   (;-))    GebaerdenSchrift  - documents
> day by day in almost any subject. Perhaps more than any other class in the
> world ....
>
>
> "Would they like to make stuff at home, like writing the sign-names of
> their family for gift-tags or greeting-cards, then the rest of the family
> would have to use 'their' language to know whom it is for ... Just an
> idea, I'm sure you have many."
>
> Yes would be nice - ha - deaf students are in a bad position if the whole
> family is hearing and shows almost no interest in SL. Same old soup ...
deaf
> children have to grow up in order to inform their hearing parents about
> their isolated situation ...
>
>
>
> ..... "The important thing is that they do their own writing - at least
most
> of the time."
>
> You think so? I would be sooooo happy if this would happen. .... big
sigh -
> I am desperate to include anything that supports us in developing literacy
> skills. But compared to hearing children we are way back in understanding
> written German documents - I am afraid we are also way back in discussing
> math's-problems, role-taking social -behavior issues,...
>
>
> The reason that I asked for feedback is that I cannot imagine at all that
> other 8 - to ten year old students are really able to use handwriting SW
as
> a notation system that can be compared with written language as hearing
> pre-school kids can use it. (So not just copying some signs - or kind of
> painting some signs more or less accurate for a document that is planned
for
> any kind of presentation. I can imagine that deaf students at the age of
15
> or 16 will show a different attitude.
>
> (Gordian 5 years wrote a story today -just one sentence but interesting:
> He wrote : At kindergarten there has been a flea marked. I bought a
> stretched limousine.)
> I would be soooooooooo happy if any young deaf child would be able to
write
> any idea like this in SW. ...
>
> So all in all - yes we can show more than one document - in a handwritten
> form. And yes I agree - the students are very proud to be able to write
> them - but I am afraid that this would not be enough to develop bilingual
> competence ...
>
>
> Well I know that this is a very specific problem - but I really appreciate
> any kind of feedback --- thanks
>
>
> all the best
>
> Stefan ;-)
>
> -----Urspr ÿÿ gliche Nachricht-----
> Von: SignWriting List [mailto:SW-L at ADMIN.HUMBERC.ON.CA]Im Auftrag von
> Ingvild Roald
> Gesendet: Dienstag, 2. Dezember 2003 20:58
> An: SW-L at ADMIN.HUMBERC.ON.CA
> Betreff: Re: writing by hand - not so easy ? -
>
>
> I agrre with Valerie, Stefan, it is important that your students may try
> to write their own signs. I thought they already did this? I have seen
> photos from you where they are writing on the blackboars, haven't I?
> Anyway, practice, with the possibility to make mistakes, is important in
> all learning. And if SignWritng is ever to become the written form of the
> sign languages, it is important that it is not only typed but also
> hand-written. I am sure your students will want to take down notes, or
> write letters, or whatever, in their own handwriting. And it will take
> time - and time is so precious when we are teaching the Deaf kids, because
> of all they miss that comes freely trough the air for us who can hear.
> Would they like to make stuff at home, like writing the sign-names of
> their family for gift-tags or greeting-cards, then the rest of the family
> would have to use 'their' language to know whom it is for ... Just an
> idea, I'm sure you have many.
>
> The important thing is that they do their own writing - at least most of
> the time.
>
> Good luck,
>
> Ingvild
>
> SignWriting List <SW-L at ADMIN.HUMBERC.ON.CA> skriver:
>> SignWriting List
>> December 2, 2003
>>
>> On Nov 25, 2003, at 8:25 AM, Stefan Woehrmann wrote:
>>> They have got the problem to formulate ideas, stories on their own.
>>> Most of
>>> the students started to interact in SL not until before they became 6
>>> or 7
>>> years old. Sometimes I am afraid that we lost this first
>>> speachdevelopement - phase -- And now we are struggling ...
>>> Nevertheless - I am curious to use any means to improve their
>>> expressive
>>> skills.
>>
>> Stefan and Everyone -
>> It has been a holiday week here, so it is possible that the teachers in
>> the US did not see your question...But attached is a nice photo of a
>> Deaf child in Brazil writing rows and rows for practice...They produced
>> some great handwritten documents later...Antonio Carlos posted them on
>> his web site...go to:
>>
>> Brazilian SW Handwriting and Students
>> http://gmc.ucpel.tche.br/signwriting/frei-pacifico/
>>
>> I do not know if writing SignWriting by hand will help increase your
>> Deaf student's expressive skills...no proof of anything...but I can
>> hardly see how it would hurt them?...When students only paste signs
>> already written for them, in the dictionary in SignWriter, that keeps
>> them from practicing how to write or type...that actually might be
>> holding their development back...you never know until you test with and
>> without....you may find their speech skills improve when they write
>> SignWriting on their own, because some deaf students get so excited to
>> express themselves in written Sign, that they rush over to a hearing
>> person and start vocalizing...I have heard of this now several
>> times...so I would suggest testing it...Albuquerque, as far as I know,
>> is in the same boat with you, Stefan...they got dependent on pasting
>> signs from the dictionary too, but there are some students who write by
>> hand on their own, because they choose to...
>>
>> I believe you told me, Stefan, that a Deaf co-worker of yours writes
>> pages of SignWriting by hand and faxes it to you? That is
>> wonderful...if nothing more the handwriting is useful for those who do
>> not have computers... Val ;-)
>>
>>
>>
>>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: zwei peinliche jungen.gif
Type: image/gif
Size: 2173 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/sw-l/attachments/20031205/7ee810b1/attachment.gif>