Assessing Deaf Learners in Europe:

Transcription

1 Assessing Deaf Learners in Europe: A critical review. Authors: Maria T. De Monte, Katherine M. Groves, Giuseppe Nuccetelli, Matteo La Grassa, Donatella Troncarelli Introduced by: Maria T. De Monte, Katherine M. Groves Istituto Statale per Sordi di Roma Italy Bremen Symposium on Authonomy and Assessment Tests and Evaluations II: Productive Language Competence Friday, March 4, 2011

2 Assessing Deaf Learners: Index Literacy in Deaf People: issues and possibilities Linguistic skills of deaf people Assessing deaf learners (Missing) standard tests and consequences Searching for alternatives at es The FIRB-VISEL project The CEFR: reflections on indicators and learning behaviors Conclusions

3 Assessing Deaf Learners: Index Literacy in Deaf People: issues and possibilities Linguistic skills of deaf people Assessing deaf learners (Missing) standard tests and consequences Searching for alternatives at es The FIRB-VISEL project The CEFR: reflections on indicators and learning behaviors Conclusions

4 Literacy Skills: Issues and Possibilities For deaf children and adults, literacy is a vital means of accessing and learning about the larger hearing world around them. The ability to read and write is necessary in order to properly utilize newspapers, books, magazines, and other printed materials. D. Grushkin (1998)

5 Write & Read (Grammar & Lexicon) Context Understanding Much more more Literacyy Share personal ideas personal ideas writing Cultural Interpretation

6 Literacy Skills: Issues and Possibilities Literacy as a challenge Literacy as a universal issue i.e. Quigley & Paul, 1989; Conrad, 1977, 1979; Fabretti, 2006, King and Quigley, 1985; Mahshie, 1995

7 Literacy skills: linguistic skills of deaf people Literacy and the deaf: Italy Shorter sentences and simpler syntactical structures than their hearing peers. Poor vocabulary. Lexical rigidity. Problems with relative, subordinate, and pronominal clauses. Striking problems in the area of grammatical morphology, including omissions, substitutions, and additions of various morphemes. Fabbretti, Volterra & Pontecorvo,1998; Fabbretti & Tomasuolo, 2006

8 Literacy skills: linguistic skills of deaf people The social cost of this situation: Deaf people are often excluded from written communication; In many cases, they cannot perform professional tasks involving minimum competences in written language and They cannot access higher levels of education.

9 Literacy skills: Assessing deaf learners Researchers agree that various factors play a role in the language development of deaf children, through which: - level of hearing loss - age of onset - age of first language acquisition - quality of access to education - quality of education - local educational policies - educational/rehabilitation path Braden, 1994; Gregory, 1996; Konigmark, 1972; Marschark et al, 2002; Marschark et al, 2009

10 Literacy skills: Assessing deaf learners However, researchers also agree that the various factors listed do not serve as a determiner of language development. Braden, 1994; Gregory, 1996; Konigmark, 1972; Marschark et al, 2002; Marschark et al, 2009

11 K1 Assessing Deaf learners: Mapping deaf learners language skills Standard tests: Starting points What are we testing? Existing assessments: Italian deaf children Italian deaf adults Fabbretti & Tomasuolo, 2006

12 Folie 11 K1 Add citations: Tomasuolo (in dropbox), Logogenia, PISA Kate;

13 (Missing) standard tests and consequences Researchers Educators The Deaf Employers

14 H l th How can we properly assess the linguistic skills of deaf learners?

15 Assessing Deaf Learners: Index Literacy in Deaf People: issues and possibilities Linguistic skills of deaf people Assessing deaf learners (Missing) standard tests and consequences Searching for alternatives at es The FIRB-VISEL project The CEFR: reflections on indicators and learning behaviors Conclusions

16 FIRB-VISEL: Improving writing skills Duration: Target: young deaf adults, signers and non- signers How: highly visual deaf centered environments (DELE), in which users move through an avatar in a Campus-like environment (metaphor of learning). Goals: enlighten metalinguistic issues (textual navigation) to focus on learning activities.

17 FIRB-VISEL: Preliminary Research Phase Task1: to develop deaf-specific tests to evaluate the literacy skills of deaf signing and non-signing adults. Adaptation of CILS tests for level B1 of the CEFR (tests to evaluate the competence on Italian language g in foreign learners. Based on CEFR)

18 FIRB-VISEL: Preliminary Research Phase Task1: to develop deaf-specific tests to evaluate the literacy skills of deaf signing and non-signing adults. Adaptation of CILS tests for level B1 of the CEFR (tests to evaluate the competence on Italian language g in foreign learners. Based on CEFR) Local observations and anecdotal experience has proven higher accessibility to texts produced for foreign language learners.

19 FIRB-VISEL: Preliminary Research Phase Pilot Tests: conducted on 15 individuals aged 15 and above Preliminary i Results: Students do not assess to a level comparable to level B1 of the CEFR They show lags in different (not always comparable) areas of competence

20 FIRB-VISEL: Developing didactic model Known issues: Deaf literacy development Lack of standard language assessment Consequences of assessment on literacy development Where to start? standards!!!

21 FIRB-VISEL: preliminary research PISA: Finding the gaps CEFR: Filling the gaps i.e. Christensen, 1989; Grushkin, 1998; McAnally et al, 2007; McCoy & Masterman, 1997

22 FIRB-VISEL: preliminary research CEFR: Filling the gaps Graphic based on the general linguistic competences in the Council of Europe, 2001

23 Basing evaluation on the CEFR: reflections on indicators and learning behaviors Areas of production and reception: Re eceptive e Reading Listening tive Produc Writing Speaking

24 K2 Basing evaluation on the CEFR: reflections on indicators and learning behaviors The user/learner s competences > Communicative language competences > Sociolinguistic competence > Sociolinguistic Appropriateness B2 Can with some effort keep up with and contribute to group discussions even when speech is fast and colloquial. Council of Europe, 2001 (p122)

25 Folie 23 K2 Kate, make note of this as a measurement of speech competence Kate;

26 K3 Basing evaluation on the CEFR: reflections on indicators and learning behaviors Language use and the language user/learner > Texts > Note-taking (Lectures, Seminars, etc.) B1 Can take notes during a lecture which are precise enough for his/her own use at a later date, provided the topic is within his/her field of interest and the talk is clear and well- structured. Council of Europe, 2001 (p96)

27 Folie 24 K3 Kate, make note that this is a listening competence Kate;

28 Conclusions Outlines and recommendations on how to make deaf assessment better: Deaf learners as unique learners Written language is not a natural activity it Areas of focus academic vs social language g competence

29 Danke! Maria Tagarelli De Monte Katherine M. Groves Istituto Statale per Sordi di Roma Via Nomentana Roma Tel. +39 (0)

30 Assessing deaf learners Marschark et al (2002) refer to the variety of causes of deafness as possible contributing factors to the development of individual deaf children. For example, illnesses or accidents that may be root causes of deafness may also contribute to other issues that may affect the child s cognitive and physical development. (Konigsmark, 1972 as cited in Marschark et al). Age of onset also plays a large factor. Ability to use residual hearing may also be a factor. that is to say, academic success, literacy rates, intelligence, etc are not necessarily implicated by a child s hearing ability. (Marschark et al, 2002, p42) Literacy does seem to be sensitive to hearing loss, but the relationship appears to be one in which even relatively small increases in hearing thresholds can disrupt reading ability, rather than one in which there is a direct line between the two. (Marschark et al, 2009)

31 Assessing deaf learners There have been many studies of attainments t of deaf children, a number of which indicated that deaf children of deaf parents were more successful academically than those with hearing parents. These results emerged in studies of reading, writing and academic achievement and, in some instances, spoken English some have argued that this greater achievement could be because the deafness was due to genetic, rather than other causes, which were more likely to be associated with other additional disabilities. Alternatively, or in addition, it may be that deaf parents are better at establishing the general pre-linguistic skills that are essential for later language development, and this facilitates higher levels of attainment. However at the very least it could be said that the early use of sign language with deaf children does not inhibit intellectual and linguistic development. Susan Gregory (1996)