Language and communication is at the heart of society. Learning how to use language to communicate wants and have needs met can be a complex task for many children. Our course will explore how language develops and the intricate challenges many children face who experience a variety of physical, emotional and cognitive difficulties.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Jena Answers This One
The student asks, "Any suggestions on how to include all students into learning to better communicate with a deaf student in a mainstream class?
Ah I would love to have a perfect solution but unfortunately I can't think of anything. The best you can do is to ask your students to include those who are deaf or whatever disability they have. Once I had a classmate kind of who had moderate to severe mental retardation I think, maybe it wasn't that bad, and her teacher asked me to do a learning activity with her one-on-one and we had a good time actually. I got to know her a bit better and understand more what she can do and what she can't do. In elementary school all of my classes from K to 5th grade were very small so it was very easy to do that kind of group interaction with each other. I don't remember having more than 10 classmates at once besides the classes we merged with all-hearing students classes. But anyway .. for a regular class size (20-30) I would suggest to introduce everybody to each other in the beginnging of the year and if there is only one or 2 deaf students in your class, ask your other students to consider other ways to communicate such as write on paper, gestures, and etc. Kids learn super fast and I'm telling you if you teach them some basic classroom signs or general everyday signs, they learn a whole lot faster than youses so it wont take long for them to learn the alphabet and some signs. High school is a bit different .. I'm having a hard time thinking of a good suggestion. Opposed to elementary and middle school, high school students start practicing having classes in ways similiar to college. Everybody is scrambled and almost very independent. They don't have the same classmates from 8am to 3pm anymore. So pretty much write on paper does the work most of the time. Every deaf person I know or most if I'm wrong always always always always finds someone who's interested in being friends and they eventually learn how to sign well enough for them to have a good effective conversation. But not all other hearing students will. Did that help any?
1 comment:
Ah I would love to have a perfect solution but unfortunately I can't think of anything. The best you can do is to ask your students to include those who are deaf or whatever disability they have. Once I had a classmate kind of who had moderate to severe mental retardation I think, maybe it wasn't that bad, and her teacher asked me to do a learning activity with her one-on-one and we had a good time actually. I got to know her a bit better and understand more what she can do and what she can't do. In elementary school all of my classes from K to 5th grade were very small so it was very easy to do that kind of group interaction with each other. I don't remember having more than 10 classmates at once besides the classes we merged with all-hearing students classes. But anyway .. for a regular class size (20-30) I would suggest to introduce everybody to each other in the beginnging of the year and if there is only one or 2 deaf students in your class, ask your other students to consider other ways to communicate such as write on paper, gestures, and etc. Kids learn super fast and I'm telling you if you teach them some basic classroom signs or general everyday signs, they learn a whole lot faster than youses so it wont take long for them to learn the alphabet and some signs. High school is a bit different .. I'm having a hard time thinking of a good suggestion. Opposed to elementary and middle school, high school students start practicing having classes in ways similiar to college. Everybody is scrambled and almost very independent. They don't have the same classmates from 8am to 3pm anymore. So pretty much write on paper does the work most of the time. Every deaf person I know or most if I'm wrong always always always always finds someone who's interested in being friends and they eventually learn how to sign well enough for them to have a good effective conversation. But not all other hearing students will. Did that help any?
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