The south Florida Graduate Student

A brief summary of the schools and their language policies as reported on their websites is provided in table 1.

The results listed in table 1 suggest that a majority of schools for the deaf appear to follow some form of Total Communication philosophy, with some emphasizing a strong focus on the development of English in both its written and spoken form. A number of schools follow the traditional oral approach which does not permit the use of sign language in the classroom, while only very few schools explicitly mention bilingual education. While one might argue that TC encompasses some degree of bilingualism, it has been shown earlier in this paper that it is also the most vague of all possible educational philosophies, since it is impossible to determine exactly what each individual teacher considers the most appropriate way to instruct the students. The inclusion of any number of artificial sign systems in the definition of TC further contributes to the difficulty in assessing its value as truly bilingual instruction. The example of the TC branch of the Archbishop Ryan School for the Deaf may serve to illustrate the point that Total Communication – and with it the use and definition of ASL – is often open to interpretation. In their statement of purpose, they assert that

[i]n this academy, children develop language through the use of American Sign Language – gestures, handshapes, body language, expression – together with written and spoken language exercises. (Archbishop Ryan School for the Deaf, statement of purpose)

In many cases, the idea of TC is further elaborated by placing a rather strong emphasis on the acquisition of spoken and written English, which is nicely illustrated by the philosophy of the American School for the Deaf in Hartford, CT, the site of the first school for the deaf in the United States. They state that

[t]he School’s total communication philosophy embraces English, American Sign Language, the integration of speech, auditory training, reading, writing, and use of assistive devices as essential parts of total education that enables students to achieve true language and communication literacy. (American School for the Deaf, Philosophy statement)
In this case, the fact that English is mentioned before ASL, as well as the overwhelming emphasis on speech and literacy in English, serve as indications that the focus of this school is not so much on the development of balanced bilingualism, but rather on the achievement of proficiency in English, possibly at the cost of other academic subjects, which appear to be underrepresented in this listing of priorities.

One aspect that sometimes comes up in the descriptions of academic programs and classroom instruction is the apparent lack of qualified deaf teachers who, under ideal circumstances, might provide an important cultural link to the children and serve as adult role models. In the few cases where deaf staff members are mentioned, they usually take on the role of teaching assistants, as evidenced by a statement found on the website of the Atlanta Area School for the Deaf, in which deaf faculty members are said to “assist other staff members with the intricacies of teaching the deaf” (emphasis added). There is clearly a need for qualified deaf teachers in deaf education, as stated by Smith & Ramsey (2004), but it is questionable if the administrators who shape the language policies evident in a majority of the schools examined here would be inclined to pursue this goal.

This brief survey certainly cannot claim to be in any way complete or thorough, since only a small sample of schools was examined and a much closer look at actual teaching practices would be needed to reach any valid conclusions. However, there is some evidence for stating that a number of schools for the deaf claiming to follow a somewhat bilingual approach actually put a much greater emphasis on the development of spoken and written English than on the development of ASL skills. This is regrettable since numerous studies have shown the effectiveness of ASL instruction both in terms of providing the children with a strong basis for future language learning, as well as in allowing a greater emphasis on the transmission of content knowledge, which often suffers when the main objective of education is the teaching of speech and English literacy. At the same time, many parents, both deaf and hearing, recognize these serious shortcomings of many schools for the deaf and are therefore further encouraged to enroll their children in mainstream schools, sometimes with the help of interpreters, thus hoping to ensure higher academic standards (Thumann-Prezioso, 2005). The resulting isolation of the children and lack of contact with ASL and the Deaf community are seen as unfortunate, but necessary side effects. This is reminiscent of the attitudes expressed by many parents in other language minority groups, where the future career chances of their children are valued above the maintenance and fostering of their native language (Hornberger, 1987; Romero Little & McCarty, 2006). This trend is all the more troubling for deaf children because unlike hearing children from language minorities, they stand only a slim chance of becoming fully proficient in the majority language. Regardless of technological advances in the field of hearing aids and cochlear implants, it is imperative that more schools adopt a truly bilingual approach in which students are taught at age-appropriate levels in ASL, thus providing a strong foundation in the language that comes most naturally to deaf students in the United States. The development of English literacy must remain a prominent goal, but it should not come at the cost of general academic and critical thinking skills, whose usefulness for the children’s future careers must not be underestimated.

References:

Akamatsu, C.T., Stewart, D.A., & Mayer, C. (2002). Is it time to look beyond teachers’ signing behavior? Sign Language Studies, 2(3), 230-254.

American School for the Deaf. Information downloaded on 11/15/06 from http://www.asd-1817.org/.

Archbishop Ryan School for the Deaf. Information downloaded on 11/15/06 from http://www.arsfdc.org/.

Atlanta Area School for the Deaf. Information downloaded on 11/15/06 from http://www.aasdweb.com/.

Cawthon, S.W. (2004). Schools for the Deaf and the No Child Left Behind Act. American Annals of the Deaf, 149(4), 314-323.

Crawford, J. (1996). Seven hypotheses on language loss: Causes and cures. In G. Cantoni (Ed.), Stabilizing Indigenous Languages. Flagstaff: Center for Excellence in Education, Northern Arizona University. http://www.ncela.gwu.edu/pubs/stabilize/ii-policy/hypotheses.htm

Evans, C.J. (2004). Literacy development in deaf students: Case studies in bilingual teaching and learning. American Annals of the Deaf, 149(1), 17-27.

Fisher, M. (2006). A lonely voice for inclusion in a redoubt of the radical deaf. Washington Post, October 19, 2006, p. B1.

Helmberger, J.L. (2006). Language and ethnicity: Multiple literacies in context, language education in Guatemala. Bilingual Research Journal.

Hornberger, N. (1987). Bilingual education success, policy failure. Language in Society, 16(2), 205-226.

King, K.A. & Benson, C. (2004). Indigenous language education in Bolivia and Ecuador: Contexts, changes, and challenges. In J.W. Tollefson and A.B.M. Tsui (eds.) Medium of instruction policies: Which agenda? Whose agenda? (pp. 241-261). Mahwah, NJ: LEA.

Komesaroff, L. (2001). Adopting bilingual education: An Australian school community’s journey. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 6(4), 299-314.

Laurent Clerc Center. http://clerccenter.gallaudet.edu/InfotoGo/schools-usa.html: all information about the schools analyzed in this project was downloaded by following the links provided on this website. Downloaded on November 15, 2006.

Mitchell, R.E. & Karchmer, M.A. (2006). Demographics of deaf education: More students in more places. American Annals of the Deaf, 151(2), 95-104.

Nover, S.M., Christensen, K.M., & Cheng, L.-R.L. (1998). Development of ASL and English competence for learners who are deaf. Topics in Language Disorders, 18(4). 61-72.

Power, D. & Leigh, G.R. (2000). Principles and practices of literacy development for deaf learners: A historical overview. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 5(1), 3-8.

Prinz, P.M. & Strong, M. (1998). ASL proficiency and English literacy within a bilingual deaf education model of instruction. Topics in Language Disorders, 18(4), 47-60.

Romero Little, M.E. & McCarty, T.L. (2006). Language planning challenges and prospects in Native American communities and schools. Education Policy Studies Laboratory; www.asu.edu.

Singleton, J.L. et al. (2004). Vocabulary use by low, moderate, and high ASL-proficient writers compared to hearing ESL and monolingual speakers. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 9(1), 86-103.

Smith, D.H. & Ramsey, C.L. (2004). Classroom discourse practices of a deaf teacher using American Sign Language. Sign Language Studies, 5(1), 39-62.

Teller, H. & Harney, J. (2005/2006). Views from the field: Program directors’ perceptions of teacher education and the education of students who are deaf or hard of hearing. American Annals of the Deaf, 150(5), 470-479.

Thumann-Prezioso, C. (2005). Deaf parents’ perspectives on deaf education. Sign Language Studies, 5(4), 415-440.

Tsui, A. (2004). Medium of instruction in Hong Kong: One country, two systems, whose language? In J.W. Tollefson and A.B.M. Tsui (eds.) Medium of instruction policies: Which agenda? Whose agenda? (pp. 97-116). Mahwah, NJ: LEA.

Viash, Viniti (2005). A peripherist view of English as a language of decolonization in post-colonial India. Language Policy, 4, 187-206.

Wright, W.E. (2005). Evolution of federal policy and implications of No Child Left Behind for language minority students. Educational Policy Studies Laboratory; www.asu.edu.

Second Language Learner Anxiety:

Creating Comfort through Journal

Writing
Todd N. Valdini

Florida Atlantic University
1. Background and Key Word Definitions

1.1 Language Anxiety

‘Language anxiety’ is the preferred term used when discussing communication apprehension in L2 (Horwitz & Young, 1991, cited by MacIntyre et al., 2002). Language anxiety may play a significant role in a student’s learning and communicative process to the point where the learner is reluctant to communicate at all (Mitchell and Myles 2004: 26-27). Anxiety is typified by “self-belittling, feelings of apprehension, and even bodily responses such as a faster heartbeat” (ibid.).

Often the affective factor of language anxiety produces negative results in the language learner but studies have shown that it may also improve performance (Alpert & Haber, 1960, cited in MacIntyre 1995: 92). “The extent to which anxiety either facilitates or impairs performance is determined by the extent to which the high-anxiety subjects compensate for reproduced processing effectiveness by enhanced effort” (ibid.). In other words, anxiety may influence not only the learner’s language performance but also the amount of effort exerted by the learner in accomplishing a task. MacIntyre (1995) points out the relationship between performance and anxiety level:

as the demands on the system increase, the extra effort may not fully compensate for the cognitive interference, and anxiety will begin to have a negative effect. As demand further exceeds ability, the impairment caused by anxiety worsens. Thus those who do not experience anxiety will be able to process the information more quickly, more effectively, or both compared to those who are distracted by task-irrelevant cognition (92).

Various factors can lead to a language learner’s increased anxiety including motivation, gender, age, and socio-cultural aspects. The social element of learner anxiety can be summed up in the sentiment of Nobel Prize winning novelist and polyglot Elias Canetti (1976) who knows, first hand, the predicament of second language learners:

[being a non-native language speaking person in another country is] a matter of being abandoned to the clutches of the foreign language on its own territory where everyone else is on its side, not on yours, and where they all gang up with every appearance of being in the right without care, unerringly and continually beat you up with their words (160-161).

Canetti’s word choice here is quite telling. The implication is that the second language learner meets with a sort of belligerence in the target language society.

L2 learner anxiety can be almost paralyzing to the point that the language learner does not want to interact with the outside, native language speaking world. But in order to reap the benefits of the society, this is precisely what needs to be done. Swedish linguistics scholar Inger Lindberg (2003: 158) calls this the ‘Catch 22’ of second language learning where learners “need access to social networks of target language speakers in the dominant society in order to develop and improve their second language, but are often excluded from these networks for not mastering the majority language enough.”
1.2 Journal writing

One way for second language instructors to explore learner anxiety in their students is through journal¹ writing activities. As McDonough and McDonough (1997) suggest, journal writing may be:

a primary vehicle for process research, for getting ‘under the skin’ of the psychological, social and affective factors involved in teaching or in language development in ways that cannot readily be reached by staff meetings or tests or population sampling or experiments (135).
Journal writing activity allows the writer to gain a sort of mastery over their subjective experiences. The act of transcribing inside thought and giving it an outside physical representation takes the subjective and makes it objective. Psychotherapist Ira Progoff (1975:37) explains that, “the journal enables our subjective experiences to become tangible to us. Experiences that would otherwise be intangible and therefore too elusive to grasp thus become accessible to us so that we can work with them.” From this perspective journal writing appears to be not only an excellent tool for metacognition, but also a fine method for decreasing learner anxiety by empowering the writer.
2. Methodology

2.1 Subject Profile

For the past several months the researcher has developed a teaching relationship with a 28-year-old Korean woman who is eager to improve her English. The student (whose fictive name is “KyungHee” for purposes of this introductory profile) has lived in the United States for nearly two years with her Korean-American husband and has received some basic English education at two different language institutions.

At home, Korean is the main language spoken and KyungHee is reluctant to venture out of her home for fear of finding herself in a world made up of a language that she has yet to master. Her anxiety about interacting in that world of native language speakers is reflected in the Canetti quote above and has been expressed explicitly to the researcher several times in conversation.

In her homeland, KyungHee was a recognized interior designer with nearly ten years of professional experience in and around Seoul. She has proudly shared photographs of her work as well as lengthy write-ups in two different interior design magazines regarding her accomplishments. She is a self-proclaimed workaholic who claims that she feels most alive when she allows herself to be consumed by her work.

When KyungHee came to the United States to be with her husband, she left behind her established vocation and a cultural community that she understood and that understood her. One of KyungHee’s most important concerns in this country is to reestablish her career as an interior designer; but her anxiety about the language keeps her from venturing from her home into the English-speaking world let alone applying for a job at a design firm. This echoes Lindberg’s ‘Catch 22’ mentioned above. Indeed, KyungHee has complained that she has developed few close, English-speaking friends here and becomes the quiet outsider in group conversations.

Despite KyungHee’s impressive Korean portfolio, Lindberg’s discussion of immigrant women in an English-dominant world paints a discouraging picture of the way the dominant society does not access the wealth of talent laying beneath the surface of the second language learner (Lindberg, 2003):

… most women could not find work in their profession and had to accept unqualified jobs where the opportunities for speaking English with fellow workers were few and where the talents and symbolic resources they had brought with them … were not acknowledged (158).
With the obvious talent that KyungHee possesses, it would be a shame to see it go unappreciated in this way.

KyungHee and the researcher both agree that the key to her returning to work as an interior designer in this country is contingent upon her acquiring the English language and key to accomplishing this is overcoming her learner anxiety.

KyungHee has expressed her willingness to participate in this project and act as its subject of her own volition. She has further authorized the analysis and use of her writing output as it relates to the current project.
2.2 Setting

Subject and researcher met regularly three times a week (Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays) for up to two hours each session over the course of two months. Sessions took place in the private study rooms of S.E. Wimberly Library, Florida Atlantic University. On rare occasions, for extenuating circumstances, meetings took place at one or the other’s home.

Researcher allowed the subject to record her journal using whatever arrangement was most comfortable (pen and paper, word processor, blogging, etc.) so long as it was in a written form. The subject, in this case opted for the traditional pen and paper. Excerpts from her notebook are included below with permission.

Journal entries were analyzed according to some of the diary analysis features proposed by Allwright and Bailey (1991: 193)² as well as the researcher’s own qualitative and quantitative evaluation of the subject’s linguistic choices. Following are the five guidelines used by the researcher for journal analysis. The first two analysis guidelines are those suggested by Allwright and Bailey, the remaining are those supplemented by the researcher:

1. 
   frequency of mention (the quantitative examination of particular lexical items or stylistic repetitions)
   
2. 
   saliency (a qualitative evaluation of the strength of expression with which the topic is recorded)
   
3. 
   deictic command (qualitative and quantitative investigation of how the subject locates herself and the topic in the narration and how frequently)
   
4. 
   lexical quality (quantitative analysis of how often positive and negative connoting vocabulary is used)
   
5. 
   lexical confidence (quantitative analysis of the presence of vocabulary words introduced during tutor sessions and the qualitative analysis of the appropriateness of their usage)
   

Once a week during sessions at Wimberley Library, at least a half hour was devoted to discussing this project, specifically the subject’s journal. Researcher used this time primarily to inquire whether or not the subject was keeping up with her entries and to remind the subject to concern herself with topics relating only to the current research project.

The subject was encouraged to keep a journal to record her daily auto-observations about using the English language and her learning process in acquiring this second language. The researcher suggested that the subject make her entries consistent and frequent, at least one reflection daily. Other guidelines for the journal included: it must be written in the target language (English), it must be kept totally confidential between the subject and the researcher, and each entry must contain a blank space the bottom quarter of the page for researcher responses and recasts³.

Subject kept this journal over a two month period, from September 15, 2004 through November 15, 2004. During this time the researcher did not ask to see the journal or to physically verify that the journal was being maintained. This was done to forego any possible further anxiety that the researcher might have imposed on the subject by appearing too demanding. At the end of the requested journal-writing period, the subject submitted her journal to the researcher for analysis.

Analysis was performed based on the guidelines detailed above. The journal, in its entirety was transcribed into the researcher’s word processor and each entry was numbered 1 – 36 in chronological order. Each entry was categorized by the type of event it foregrounded (social, domestic, personal, or metacognitive) and whether the outcome of that event was positive, negative, or neutral. Researcher noted saliency and deictic command in the entries at this stage of analysis. Each entry was scanned for positively and negatively charged words⁴ and then color coded accordingly (blue for positively charged words; red for negatively charged words) for the convenience of the researcher. Newly introduced lexical items were highlighted in green. All content words were counted and tallied for frequency of use.
3. Hypothesis

Typically, case studies concerning journal writing are not hypothesis-driven because of their heuristic nature (Seliger and Shohamy, 1989) meaning the outcome is dependant on the student’s personal self-discovery through the process. For the purpose of this project, however the researcher has guided the subject to focus on particular topics rather than keeping an open-ended journal. Specifically the subject has been informed that they should be primarily concerned with their personal reflections on their language learning experiences and on their learning process. Setting parameters on an activity which might otherwise produce mass amounts of data (that may or may not be directly related to the project goal) allows the researcher to make certain conjectures about the outcome of the task.

That said the researcher expects that by encouraging the subject to keep a regular journal focusing on her personal reflections on the use of the English language and her process of learning it, she will develop enough distance to look at her education objectively. By gaining a more outside perspective on her experience, the researcher believes that this will bolster her self-esteem and give her the confidence to continue to use and to experiment more with her new language knowledge.

By taking ownership or mastery over her experiences in this way, the subject will be learning the language meta-cognitively, evidence of which will come out overtly in the narrative reflection.

The researcher further hypothesizes that evidence of the foregoing will emerge in the subject’s linguistic choices, specifically: increased accuracy in classroom-introduced lexical usage (showing her comfort with and willingness to use new words); positively charged word choices (revealing a budding positive attitude); improved deictic narrative (reflecting the subject’s developing objectified perspective over her language experience); and a growing instance of positive language experiences foregrounding each subsequent entry