Erich Tucker

TASL 501
Assignment 3b
This paper is a narrative reflection about my experiences observing an ASL
classroom. I had the pleasure of observing a hearing colleague of mine that teaches level
1 at the local community college that I also teach at. She has been teaching ASL at this
college full time for 18 years now and has extensive experience with ASL and the Deaf
community. She is an ideal instructor to gain feedback and make observations of as her
preparation and style of teaching is to be emulated.
This college has adopted a 5-unit 2 level course map two years ago. Each course
is taught twice a week for two hours and twenty minutes per session. The ASL
department utilizes the new Signing Naturally curriculum with units 1-6 being used in
Level 1 and 7-12 being used in Level 2. All materials, activities and PowerPoints are
included in the curriculum and can be supplemented with outside materials but are not
required.
The students in this particular class are mostly home-schooled students (aged
14+) with some first time college students (18+) right out of high school. On this
particular day, there were 23 students seated in U-shaped seating arrangements with
independent chair/desk combinations with the instructor standing slightly to the left side
of the screen so as not to be illuminated by the overhead projector.
The instructor relies heavily on a drop down screen with full dependency of a
projector to project the PowerPoint slides from the lesson. The instructor does not use
any form of voicing whatsoever in the course, even for level 1 students. This allows the
students to become heavily dependent on critical thinking skills and learning ASL instead
of relying on the use of English to supplement their learning.
Due to the nature of the curriculum, the communication style used by the
instructor was of Communicative Approach because the instructor used a variety of
discourse types may be introduced through stories, peer and group work, the use of
authentic materials such as newspapers and television broadcasts (Lightbrown & Spada,
p. 128). The instructor also encouraged student-student interaction, learners may

practice a range of sociallinguistic and functional features of language through role-play

(Lightbrown & Spada, p. 128). The students were able to freely communicate their
answers to each other using previous learned vocabulary and grammar rules.
There were many characteristics of the input and interaction in that the instructor
made very few if any errors in communicating in the target language. The students
however made several errors typical of target language level 1 students. When students
made errors, the teacher was responsive in correcting the errors. For example, one student
was struggling with using the correct word order when signing a response and the teacher
was able to help the student correct it through repetition.
The students were asked to respond to teacher questions about where they lived
and what type of residence they lived in. One thing I did notice was that the teacher did
not make good use of wait time. The instructor expected responses to her questions to be
quick and if answers were not given, she showed a slight bit of annoyance/irritation. The
structure for this activity was for one student to take on the role of Student A and their
partner to take on the role of Student B. On the PowerPoint was a script to follow with
basic input. For example, Student A would ask, You live where? and Student B would
respond Me live San Luis Obispo, which student A was to respond with a feedback sign
such as oh, I see or cool. Once the activity was completed, groups were called to the
front of the classroom to demonstrate their dialogue. The instructor would then correct
any errors that were made in the conversation. The most prevalent errors students made
were in the form of incorrect element of HOLMES in that students may have had either
incorrect hand-shapes and/or locations for the signs. Some students struggled correct
word order.
The anxiety levels of the students appeared to be somewhat relaxed with a
heightened sense of anxiety when the instructor would walk freely around the room
watching each partner group do their skits. This instructor is known for causing students
to have a heightened sense of anxiety due to how she requires students to fix their errors
when shown and not make the same error again. I could sense a heightened anxiety from
students anticipating their group being called to the front in the previous activity and
being nervous about making mistakes.
The instructor provided feedback in a multitude of ways, which I found

interesting, as it seemed that her feedback was dependent on what type of error it was and
where the class was during course time. For example, when the instructor lectured about
a new concept like types of residences and then asked a student which type she lived in,
the student responded House. The instructor then responded with a clarification
question, You live house? to which the student responded, No, apartment. This
method was a Clarification Request whereas in the partner-group activity, the instructor
demonstrated Metalinguistic feedback with the students.
The nice thing about this curriculum is that every unit is built on the previous
ones so that students slowly build up their fluency and communication skills. Use of
scaffolding by the instructor was very apparent in that she incorporated a lot of the
previous material into the lessons. As a result, students were able to use previously
learned material with the new material to expand their target language usage.
The observation and my reflection on it are unique in that I had the opportunity to
observe this instructor for every one of her classes my first semester teaching here three
years ago. Though the observations at that time were not as extensive as this activity
required, I was able to see some slight similarities between then and now but more so
now because I have a better understanding of what to look for in observations as a result
of this graduate class. What I would like to take away from this observation and put into
my own practices is the way in which this instructor is very into the Communicative
approach in which students were not told what to respond with but were encouraged to
produce their own answers from previously learned materials.

Lightbown, P., & Spada, N. (2013). Observing Learning and Teaching in the Second
Language Classroom. In How languages are learned (Fourth ed., pp. 123 - 152).
Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Teacher

Students

Genuine Questions

Display Questions

Type of Corrective
Feedback Given:

Metalinguistic Feedback
during group activity.

Explicit Correction,
Recasts,
Clarification Requests,
Metalinguistic Feedback,

Clarification Requests
during lecture questions.

Elicitation, Repetition
Errors Made (Type)

Teacher made very few

errors.

Feedback on Errors

Clarification Request
during group activity.
Metalinguistic during
lecture.

Negotiation for Meaning

Metalinguistic Comments

Type of Instruction

Communicative Approach
instructor allowed
students to freely answer
questions using previously
learned materials.

Length of Instruction

Length of instruction was

two hours and 20 minutes
with a 10 minute break
every 50 minutes. Group
activities were intertwined

Students made errors with

new vocab in the context
of HOLMES errors.

with the lecture portion

Other Observations