A Meeting of Minds: Developing ASL Discourse Through a Morning Meeting Or: Discourse Competency in 15 minutes a Day

Goals for the Morning Meeting To modify existing morning meeting structures and events to specifically facilitate the linguistic growth of Deaf students in both ASL and English To develop group communication skills and ASL discourse competence

Goals…. To increase students’ metalinguistic awareness of and skill in using ASL and English To increase students’ identification with the culture of Deaf people

Why a morning meeting? Students must develop conversational language in order to develop academic language Deaf students from hearing families need support in developing conversational skills in ASL After preschool, little instructional time is devoted to developing discourse competence

What is ASL discourse competence? The ability to use eye gaze, tactile cues and visual cues appropriately The ability to use ASL to converse, question, discuss, joke and obtain information

Why is ASL discourse competence so important? The lack of sophisticated competence translates into limited academic achievement Vital for full participation in class ASL is a significant part of being Deaf

Features of the Morning Meeting Greeting Group Activity Sharing News and Announcements

Greeting Written message uses ASL and English Co-operative and peer mediated Practices ASL conversational skills Builds metalanguage

Group Activity Builds community Uses language based games to teach aspects of ASL poetry/storytelling Develops knowledge of and skill in using ASL

Sharing Makes connections between home and school Builds public speaking, listening and questioning skills Language development—”I+1”

News and Announcements Cognitively demanding—abstract Develops academic language Develops socio-cultural awareness Engages the students in ‘real talk’

Learning Features Teacher modeling/scaffolding Peer-mediated learning Reflective talk/self-evaluation Real talk

Through the Morning Meeting, the students will develop the following: Communicative Competence Language competence Group process skills Ways of accessing the social world to get information