Gallaudet University Press

Transcription

I've learned something significant in my studies that I'd like to explain to my audience of ASL teachers, in order to help with recognizing and making sense of this important information. Those who are learning sign language after using spoken language want to know the best way to pick up ASL, but wonder why it soon becomes complicated and difficult. I will explain this phenomenon in a way that is clear and easy to understand: There are those who speak and have internalized a spoken language--let's focus on English for now— and who later decide that they want to learn sign language. Often, they will register for an ASL class thinking it will be easier to learn than other foreign languages. But after deciding to take the ASL class, students become frustrated when they realize it's actually quite difficult. But why is it so difficult? Learning another language is already tough, though it can be fun. In general, the process of learning a language is difficult—but why is ASL especially a challenge? There is an extra layer of difficulty here. Let's imagine a person who uses spoken language, and has never experienced a visual language that uses signs, body language, or facial expressions, or includes grammar that occurs in the face. When these speaking people begin learning another spoken language, like Spanish or French, while they may struggle with learning grammar, linguistic rules, and accents, one thing is the same—they're primarily using their voice to communicate. This typical kind of linguistic acquisition is called L2. However when hearing people learn ASL, they are also learning a whole new linguistic modality. This new modality, on top of a new language, is called M2L2. So what does that mean? As people start signing and learning more about ASL, they encounter many new concepts. They have to adapt to communication that demands coordinated use of their bodies, hands, eyes, and facial expressions, taking in dizzying new concepts that require dutiful practice to make sense of, and deciphering what it means to communicate in a language that involves unfamiliar grammatical modality and the necessity of manual-facial coordination. All of this together adds another level to the language-learning process, making it additionally challenging. Included in these challenges is something called proximalization. Proximalization is difficult. Research by Gene Mirus in 2001 and by McIntire and Rielly in 1998 focuses on two categories: facial expressions and manuals, and proximalization. I'm going to expand on proximalization and facial expressions, and explain why are they so significantly challenging for second-modality L2 students to learn as they switch from speaking to ASL. Before I proceed to explain proximalization and nonmanuals for L2 students I'm going to share some important vocabulary: First, there are transfer errors, which are interlingual. And second, there are developmental errors, which are intralingual. These are two distinct categories. Transfer errors occur when students carry linguistic rules from L1 and apply them to L2, such as incorporating English grammar into ASL. Developmental errors do not include transference from one language to another. These are errors that a student develops and grows with as they are learning. I will give you examples of each. Let's start with transfer errors. Someone who speaks English knows they can add “-er” to the end of a verb to indicate that they are describing a person who performs the verb. ASL has a similar indicator, but it does not apply in all cases. For example, the signs for player and teacher include this indicator. So, a student may deduce that they can use the manual indicator the same way as the verbal one and, for instance, add the “person” sign to “copy” to mean “a person who copies.” But that application can't actually be used in ASL, which can cause confusion. That's called a transfer error, when language concepts are erroneously transferred between languages. Now I'll give you an example of a developmental error. Struggling to learn the number handshapes 6-7-8-9 might cause confusion about the difference between a 6 and a W and lead to errors in how a student form these handshapes. That's a developmental error. Here's another example. Linked verbs, like: give-to-you, give-to-me, give-between-them, can be used incorrectly. Someone who actually wants to convey “give it to me” but signs it as “give-to-you” followed by “me” is understanding it incorrectly. That's called a developmental error. Gene Mirus did research on proximalization. So what is proximalization? Before I continue, let's put language aside for a minute and focus on people in general. 0:04:46:600,0:04:47.800 For example, skiing. Someone who has never skied before and is doing it for the first time is not going to be very skilled. Since it's their first time trying to coordinate such a big part of the structure of their body, their legs and arms are all over the place. 0:05:00:100,0:05:07.000 But a skilled skier knows how to coordinate each part of their body, arms, and legs to work together harmoniously and ski smoothly— despite being all over the place at first. We can apply this very same concept to ASL; the two are parallel. If someone has never used their body, never used their shoulders, elbows, wrists, finger and knuckle joints, none of it 0:05:25.000,0:02:29.900 then they'll have some really big things to learn about how to coordinate them. Once the body learns how to harmonize those body parts and use them to communicate, that's called proximalization. I will explain, focusing on three things. A broader explanation would be too lengthy, so I'm going to focus on covering the basics using these three categories. I'm going to give you examples of the three: add, omit, and both. So what do these mean? “Add” refers to incorrectly adding something abnormal. “Omit” refers to when someone noticeably misses something. “Both” is when someone adds one thing and omits another. Watch, I'm going to give you some examples. Here's an example of adding: (signs “miss” incorrectly) See that added bend at the wrist? The correct way to sign “miss” is by keeping the wrist straight. Here's an example of omitting: (signs “miss” incorrectly) This omits the transition into a second handshape. The correct way to sign “miss” is by closing the hand into a fist as the arm moves. Here's an example of both at once: (incorrectly signs the word “miss”) Here, I'm adding the extra bend at the wrist, but also omitting the transition into a closed fist. That's what I mean by those three categories. Now I will elaborate. 0:06:55.000,0:07:00:600 You may be thinking that proximalization only applies to L2 learners, but this pattern actually parallels a baby's first-language learning. Babies are also learning for the first time about how to use their bodies when they sign. For example, a young child signing the word “daddy” may add extra arm movements. Later, this evolves into the correct sign for “dad” or “father”, without extra movements. As a baby grows older, their proximal focus will shift from their arms to the more fine motor ability in their hands. This parallels the L2 language learner. But there is a difference. We can't really teach and correct a baby's signs, we leave it up to development. As the baby grows, their proximalization happens naturally as part of this development. Now, with adult L2 learners, I as the teacher can watch, correct, and explain mistakes to them. For example: (signs “good afternoon” incorrectly) If I see that, I can explain that the elbow movement is unnecessary, and show them to sign it with a slight wrist movement instead. Adults can understand this, and that's the difference. Now that I've finished explaining proximalization, let's move on to the related topic of nonmanuals. I read an article written by McIntire and Rielly in 1998. Before I go into that, I'm going to explain the U-shape. So what is that? The U-shape is an illustration of the different steps of language-learning. The first side of the U starts when someone is learning a new language, using it, and understanding it. But then they become lost and confused in new information and fall down the slope of the “U” and it takes more learning to bring them back up into broader understanding, up to the other side of the “U” I teach nonmanuals to my hearing students learning ASL. Their spoken language has the same indicators, the same emotions and facial expressions. If they're angry or happy, their voices and faces will show that. When students first learn to sign, they recognize that the expressions are the same and understand how to use them. But when used in grammar, I will often find that my students' expressions and signs don't align. They may sign the phrase “my dad is mad” using an angry expression throughout the sentence. But the correct way to use the expression here is to use it only during the sign for “mad.” So students drop down the U, confused about a concept they thought they understood. But later as they acquire more information and learn how to use the expressions properly, they go up again. Then they understand how to use the angry expression in phrases like, “my dad is mad.” That's how nonmanuals are picked up and used. So more generally speaking, a teacher may proudly see their students using the right facial expressions, but then witness them drop down the U and wonder what happened and what went wrong. But really, this is normal. The student recognizes something familiar and feels they understand how to use it. But as they try to form sentences with these familiar facial expressions, they get stuck and fall down the U, feeling lost. But they will figure out how to use them, and how to coordinate their face and their hands. Now you know that when students start off understanding the nonmanuals but then take a drop, that means they're finally picking up on how to appropriately fit them them in sentences. Now I'm going to wrap this up. There is a reason why this information about proximalization and nonmanuals is so important to look at. I want to to make sense of developmental errors. As a student starts learning, I want to be able to look at their mistakes analytically, and with understanding of how proximalization works and how to best give my students feedback. As for nonmanuals, I want them to understand them without the U-shape with developmental errors. When a student starts off seeming to do well but then starts declining, That doesn't at all mean that they're doing badly. It means they're in the process of understanding how to construct a statement. The struggle and drop at the beginning will start looking up again when the student begins making sense of all the new material. So how do you, as a teacher, take advantage of this information and put it to good use? Proximalization is a neat tool. If you're observing and see something wrong, such as, to use the example I provided earlier, a student incorrectly signing the word “afternoon” by bending at the elbow, The best way to explain this mistake to them is by being able to point out to a student the proximal location of movement in the sign they're using— in this case, the wrist, and to explain that additional movement from other parts of the body is incorrect. Then the student can better understand, and your class can benefit from a teacher that understands how to use proximalization to teach. As for nonmanuals, it's important to be able to see where your students are beginning to understand sentence structure. Recognizing the U-shape pattern means you can identify what's happening as a student acquires language, and help them during this crucial period to make sure they make the mental connections necessary to understand how to use facial expressions. And as they figure out how to connect them to their statements, they'll start going back up the U. That is often what will happen. Now good luck with your teaching!