assessing deaf learners in europe: a critical review. · • adaptation of cils tests for level b1...

Assessing Deaf Learners in Europe: A critical reviewA 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 ItalyIstituto Statale per Sordi di Roma – Italy

Bremen Symposium on Authonomy and AssessmentBremen Symposium on Authonomy and Assessment

Tests and Evaluations II: Productive Language Competence

Friday March 4 2011Friday, March 4, 2011

Assessing Deaf Learners: IndexAssessing Deaf Learners: Index

Literacy in Deaf People: issues and possibilitiesy p p• Linguistic skills of deaf people• Assessing deaf learners

(Missing) standard tests and consequences• (Missing) standard tests and consequences

Searching for alternativesSea c g o a te at es• The FIRB-VISEL project• The CEFR: reflections on indicators and learning

behaviorsbehaviors

Conclusions

Literacy Skills: Issues and PossibilitiesLiteracy 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 hearing world around them.

The ability to read and write is necessary in order to properly utilize newspapers books to properly utilize newspapers, books, magazines, and other printed materials.”

– D Grushkin (1998)D. Grushkin (1998)

Write & ReadRead

(Grammar

& Lexicon)

ContextMuch more

Literacy

UnderstandingMuch more…

y

Cultural Share personal ideas Interpretationpersonal ideas

writing

Literacy Skills: Issues and PossibilitiesLiteracy 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

Literacy skills: linguistic skills of deaf people

Literacy and the deaf: Italy • Shorter sentences and simpler syntactical structures than their

hearing peershearing peers.

• Poor vocabulary.

• Lexical rigidity• Lexical rigidity.

• Problems with relative, subordinate, and pronominal clauses.

• Striking problems in the area of grammatical morphology• Striking problems in the area of grammatical morphology,including omissions, substitutions, and additions of variousmorphemes.

Fabbretti, Volterra & Pontecorvo,1998; Fabbretti & Tomasuolo, 2006

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.

Literacy skills:Assessing deaf learners

R h h i f l l i h Researchers agree that various factors play a role in the language development of deaf children, through which:

- level of hearing losslevel of hearing loss

- age of onset

age of first language acquisition- 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

Literacy skills:Assessing deaf learners

However researchers also agree that the 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

Assessing Deaf learners:gMapping deaf learners’ language skills

Standard tests:Starting pointsWhat are we testing?

Existing assessments:Italian deaf childrenItalian deaf adults

Fabbretti & Tomasuolo, 2006

K1

Folie 11

K1 Add citations: Tomasuolo (in dropbox), Logogenia, PISAKate; 03.03.2011

(Missing) standard tests and consequences

Researchers

Educators

The Deaf

Employers

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

Assessing Deaf Learners: IndexAssessing Deaf Learners: Index

Literacy in Deaf People: issues and possibilitiesy p p• Linguistic skills of deaf people• Assessing deaf learners

(Missing) standard tests and consequences• (Missing) standard tests and consequences

Searching for alternativesSea c g o a te at es• The FIRB-VISEL project• The CEFR: reflections on indicators and learning

behaviorsbehaviors

Conclusions

FIRB-VISEL: Improving writing skills

Duration: 2009-2012Target: young deaf adults, signers and non-isigners

How: highly visual deaf centered environments (DELE) in which users move environments (DELE), in which users move through an avatar in a Campus-like environment (metaphor of learning). environment (metaphor of learning). Goals: enlighten metalinguistic issues (textual navigation) to focus on learning ( g ) gactivities.

www.istc.cnr.it/visel

FIRB-VISEL: Preliminary Research Phase

Task1: to develop deaf-specific tests to evaluate the literacy skills of deaf signing and non-signing adultsadults.• Adaptation of CILS tests for level B1 of the CEFR

(tests to evaluate the competence on Italian language in ( p g gforeign learners. Based on CEFR)



Task1: to develop deaf-specific tests to evaluate the literacy skills of deaf signing and non-signing adultsadults.• Adaptation of CILS tests for level B1 of the CEFR

(tests to evaluate the competence on Italian language in ( p g gforeign learners. Based on CEFR)

L l b ti d d t l i hLocal observations and anecdotal experience has provenhigher accessibility to texts produced for foreign languagelearners.



Pilot Tests: conducted on 15 individuals aged 15 and above

P li i R lt Preliminary Results: Students do not assess to a level comparable tolevel B1 of the CEFRlevel B1 of the CEFRThey show lags in different (not always comparable) areas of competence comparable) areas of competence


FIRB-VISEL: Developing didactic model

Known issues:Deaf literacy developmentLack of standard language assessmentConsequences of assessment on literacy d l tdevelopment

Where to start? standards!!!Where to start? … standards!!!


FIRB-VISEL: preliminary researchFIRB-VISEL: preliminary research

PISA: Finding the gaps

CEFR: Filling the gaps

i.e. Christensen, 1989; Grushkin, 1998; McAnally et al, 2007; McCoy & Masterman, 1997

FIRB-VISEL: preliminary researchFIRB-VISEL: preliminary research

CEFR: Filling the gaps

Graphic based on the general linguistic competences in the Council of Europe, 2001

Basing evaluation on the CEFR: reflections on indicators and learning behaviors

A f d ti d tiAreas of production and reception:e

Reading Listening

eceptive

Re

tive

Writing Speaking

Produc


Sociolinguistic Appropriateness

The user/learner’s competences > Communicative language competences > Sociolinguistic competence >

B2Can with some effort keep up with and contribute to group discussions even wheng pspeech is fast and colloquial.

Council of Europe, 2001 (p122)

K2

Folie 23

K2 Kate, make note of this as a measurement of speech competenceKate; 03.03.2011


Note-taking (Lectures, Seminars, etc.)

Language use and the language user/learner > Texts >

Can take notes during a lecture which are i h f hi /h t l t

B1precise 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-of interest and the talk is clear and wellstructured.

Council of Europe, 2001 (p96)

K3

Folie 24

K3 Kate, make note that this is a listening competenceKate; 03.03.2011

ConclusionsConclusions

Outlines and recommendations on how to make deaf assessment better:

Deaf learners as unique learners

W itt l i t “ t l” ti itWritten language is not a “natural” activity

Areas of focus – academic vs social language g g

competence

Danke!Danke!

Maria Tagarelli De [email protected]

Katherine M. Groveskatherine m groves@gmail [email protected]

Istituto Statale per Sordi di RomapVia Nomentana 56

00161 RomaTel +39 (0)6 44 24 01 94 Tel. +39 (0)6 44 24 01 94

www.issr.it

Assessing deaf learnersAssessing deaf learners

M h k t l (2002) f t th i t f f d f 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 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 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)( , )

Assessing deaf learnersAssessing deaf learners

“Th h b t di f tt i t f d f hild “There have been many studies of attainments 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 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 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 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 early use of sign language with deaf children does not inhibit intellectual and linguistic development.”

– Susan Gregory (1996)

assessing deaf learners in europe: a critical review. · • adaptation of cils tests for level b1...

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