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ASL Immersion |
Staff for D/HH Students Immersed
The ISDB has been expanding on some exciting developments related to building communication competence with our students and improving the learning environment to promote greater growth in communication skills. Last year, ISDB began conducting Communication Assessments for D/HH students, and this year expanded that into providing an Immersion ASL class for selected students. This class focuses directly on increasing students' skills and effective use of the language of ASL. The techniques used in the class have resulted in such growth for the students involved that all teachers and staff have noticed. The two teachers for this Immersion class, Betsy Holt and Heather Fultz, presented a workshop at a recent staff development day to the staff who work with deaf and hard-or-hearing students. In this workshop, Betsy and Heather shared strategies to help build all of our students' communication competence, including elaboration, explaining concepts in multiple ways, and methods of teaching appropriate conversational feed back strategies. This was an exciting workshop that fostered much discussion among staff about how to apply the strategies in their own classrooms. We can all work together, as staff, parents, and cottage supervisors, to build our students' language and communication competence.
