Inclusive practice: Using NZSL in the classroom

This year I have a girl who is deaf with cochlear implants in my class. One of my passions in teaching is to teach our children New Zealand Sign Language, and I have been learning NZSL for the last 5 years. Although I am not fluent in NZSL, I love learning this beautiful language.  For the last 6 weeks, I have had a private tutor and have been learning it properly again, and especially at being able to form a sentence in NZSL.

As the girl has cochlear implants and can hear with the device, she does not rely on using NZSL so much however she knows quite a lot of signing and her family would like her to develop more knowledge in NZSL so it has been great to work with the family and that I regularly sign in the classroom with the children.

Some of the changes I have made in my class are
Having a visual classroom schedule and have the pictures of the signs next to it. This also reminds me to sign if I forget a particular sign.

I also have a sign of the day so we can all learn different signs.

















Other children have started to understand why I use sign with the girl and why I wear the microphone so she could hear. Now we are trialling using a microphone that children can hold so that she could hear if someone is talking in a class discussion.

After reading Ako article about NZSL in a classroom/school , I felt very inspired and that I agree that hearing children should be learning NZSL together with a child who is deaf. I always think that people who are deaf should have access to their language so that we could communicate with each other. The children in my class will learn many signs this year and this will help them understand how different we are and how unique we are to each other, and to help us communicate, NZSL is an important language to learn for everyone.

At the moment the children are learning to sign Te Aroha in sign and te reo Māori.  They love singing and learning new songs and I can see how the girl is very responsive when I use sign. She watches my sign and copies it. She also teaches me some signs that I don't know. It is truly the word of "Ako" where we learn from each other. She has a place in our classroom and has developed a great sense of belonging in our class.

Reading Teaching the brain: The new science of Education

When we went to the Yolanda phonics course, she talked about a few books that might be helpful to understand how children develop phonological awareness and learnt to read and write. One of the books that she talked about was called 'Teaching the brain'.

Here are some notes about what I have learnt from reading the book.

Function of the brain

Left hemisphere of the brain: learning process including reading, writing, maths, and spelling. 

Brain weighs about 1.5kgs, there are about 80-120 neuron cells.  

Frontal lobes: muscle movement including production of speech, and output. Planning, reasoning, judgement, impulse control and memory. Long term memory -emotional links. Reward, attention, planning and motivation.

Parietal lobe: sensory systems, movement and space. Visual objects in space.

Temporal lobes: hearing, both speech and auditory signals. Comprehension and naming. Visual recognition making up part of a 'what' stream. Face and word recognition. Converting short term memory into long term memory. 

Occipital lobes: Visual processing

Cerebellum: motor control-timing, and sensory systems-spinal cord, cognitive processing (language and attention) 

The speaking brain 

Infants use the left side temporal region when they listen to speech whereas both sides are activated when listening to music. Mother's voice enhances the activity. -mother's voice is very important to develop a child's language acquisition. 

Three processes-phonology (Sound), meaning (semantic), syntax(structure). 

Small unit of sound is called a phoneme.  

Bilingualism: selection of correct language for use-develop great focus and resistant for distractions. 

Use daily opportunities with an infant to speak, and communicate. Always let the baby know what you are going to do before physically move the baby. Wait for the response from the baby. 

Singing songs, rhymes are important for language learning. Action songs- clapping, pat knees, stamp feet.