Language Planning Initiative

1. Language Planning Initiative Presenters: Marcia Volpe, Eva Ayers, Val Houser, Marsha Miceli, Shannon Allen, Joyce Schulz, Bob Keegan, Jessica Chou, Roberto Palella, Sue Shandler February 2004

2. “Burning” Questions • Is PSD a bilingual school? • At PSD, are ASL and English balanced? Is there more emphasis on ASL? Is there more emphasis on English? • Are you bilingual in ASL and English?

3. LANGUAGE PLANNING AT PSD • Summer 2004 Gallaudet Leadership Institute on Language Planning attended by: Marcia, Marsha, Val, Eva. Focus on Bilingual Education. What does it mean? How is it used for Instruction?

4. Gallaudet Leadership Institute • What was the purpose of this weeklong workshop? The purpose was to in-service supervisors/administrators about bilingual education. • This workshop was led by Steve Nover and staff of the Star Schools Project. • 12 schools sent their respective teams to participate in this program. • Both Deaf and Hearing staff attended.

5. What did we do during the week? Our Process included: • Lots of reading prior to arrival • Mostly working in school teams • Analyzing our school mission statement • Examining how we assessed language • Identifying language and communication support services • We noted weakness in each of these areas. • All schools shared their findings with each other.

6. What we learned: • The difference between dual language and bilingual programs • About 2nd language issues and considerations • About hearing and Deaf bilingualism • LOTS of research findings and remaining questions • About school-wide language and literacy planning processes • Language planning done well takes (on average) about 7 years to implement

7. Action Plan • Each school team was required to develop an action plan. • One team was selected to present their plan for approval. • PSD was chosen to present our plan! • Simulation with Jamie Tucker • We convinced him!! 

8. LANGUAGE PLANNING AT PSD (cont.) • FALL 2004 The Language Planning Group at PSD was formed to learn more about these ideas and apply them to PSD.

9. Goal Develop a school-wide plan that aims to address instruction in both ASL and English in developmentally appropriate ways.

10. WHO is in the group? 10 Staff members (5 Deaf, 5 Hearing) • 4 participants of the summer institute: Marcia, Marsha, Val and Eva • 3 classroom teachers (pre-school to high school): Sue, Shannon, and Jessica • 1 representative of the speech team: Joyce • 2 representatives of the ASL team: Bob and Roberto

11. PROCESS • Develop Hopes and Dreams • Have a clear direction in terms of language development: which language to use, for what purpose. • Be more intentional with language planning, language use. • Think about how we assess our kids. • Determine what we are doing well, what we need to improve.

12. PROCESS (cont.) • Be more clear in how we model language for students – have a better understanding of our intentions behind our own use of language. • Be more clear about what “bilingual education” means and how we will implement it; be more intentional in our language use. • Tap each students’ prior knowledge to teach them language.

13. PROCESS (cont.) • Improve the balance between ASL and English in how to use the languages; Becoming more realistic with higher expectations. • Collaborate with other schools in an effort to promote a better understanding of language development. • Find resources for teaching ASL. Look to other programs; don’t isolate ourselves.

14. PROCESS (cont.) 2. Articles about bilingual education chosen from the summer program were read and discussed by the group. • Partner Reading: Before meeting as a group, designated partners (always a combination of hearing and deaf) meet to discuss the article of the month and share perspectives.

15. PROCESS (cont.) • Group Meetings: At least once a month the group meets to share their views and discuss the information in the articles. Lively discussions always bring us back to how the information will help us provide the language environment at PSD that will promote the best education for our students.

16. Intriguing Ideas We’ve Learned So Far... • Should we have a progressive languagepolicy that varies across ages, developmental levels and grade levels? • What is semilingualism and how does it apply to our students? • Can we use translanguaging to help support ASL and English development with our students? (Translanguaging: the input and the output are deliberately in different languages and this is varied from day to day.)

17. Intriguing Ideas We’ve Learned So Far... (cont.) • The various kinds of bilingualism...not necessarily 100% fluent in both languages, individual vs. societal bilingualism, both languages being underdeveloped, etc... • Inner thinking as the 5th language competence • How can we evaluate our students' general communicative competence? What are the 64 separate components to language proficiency?

18. Intriguing Ideas We’ve Learned So Far... (cont.) • A person can have limited linguistic skills, but can be successful in communication in certain situations. • Do we have balanced language planning in the classrooms, and how can we to move our students from BICS to CALP? • Bilinguals are often not equally proficient in both languages - and are still considered bilinguals. However, there are some folks who are balanced bilinguals.

19. Intriguing Ideas We’ve Learned So Far... (cont.) • One topic of interest is the distinction between elective bilingualism and circumstantial bilingualism. Elective bilingual describes most of the hearing staff here at PSD who have chosen to learn a second language without losing their first language, while circumstantial bilingual describes deaf students and deaf staff who are learning/have learned a second language in order to survive in the majority culture that surrounds them. Often the first language for circumstantial bilinguals (such as immigrants) is in danger of being replaced by the second language.

20. Intriguing Ideas We’ve Learned So Far... (cont.) • "Over time and place, an individual's two languages are never static but ever changing and evolving." (Baker, Chapter 1) • Some of the comments on language separation, such as "it has often been argued that the 'one parent, one language' situation is one of the most effective patterns enabling childhood bilingualism to occur" are intriguing. (Baker, Chapter 13).

21. Intriguing Ideas We’ve Learned So Far... (cont.) • "The amount of time allocated to each language in the curriculum is important. ... but more important is the purpose, manner and method in which the two languages are used." (Baker, Chapter 13)

22. Conclusion This will be an ongoing process, with no easy answers. We hope to get feedback from you that will help guide our work. When we look back at our hopes and dreams, we would like to feel that we have made strides towards meeting them!

23. “If we teach today like we taught Yesterday, we lose tomorrow.” --Thomas Dewey