Мои Студенты (My Students)

I am enjoying working with my middle and high school students, and they seem to be enjoying our time together, as well.  They are attentive, polite, interested and will do anything I ask.  Interestingly, they actually want homework/домашнее задание (literally "home task") and will usually do more than I assigned.  They are very curious and compliant, which makes my difficult job easier. 

To successfully teach them English, we have to use what they already know:  Russian and Russian Sign Language.  As I do not know either of these fluently, it makes it harder, but I do have their teacher Helen and my friend Sasha to help me.

We have two tasks:  Build their vocabulary and develop grammar in an appropriate developmental sequence.  They must have comprehensible vocabulary from which to develop sentences.  Additionally, they cannot learn syntax in a developmentally inappropriate sequence.  Another critical consideration is that the kids have to be able to fully conceptualize the English words; these words must have genuine meaning to them, and the meanings must be internalized.  The same goes for grammar.  The rules of syntax actually carry meaning, and syntax and semantics go hand in hand.  They will not be able to follow the rules of syntax if they do not understand the reasons for those rules and the meanings behind them.

Deaf children are also visual, so I should use objects, pictures and demonstrations when teaching.  I am going to show them pictures, and we will identify as many vocabulary words as possible in the photos.  I will ask the students to think of as many verbs, nouns and adjectives as possible.  From there we will develop sentences based on their levels of readiness.  They have a good grasp of the simple S-V-O structure using “to be” and “have,” so I think we can move on to more advanced sentences, but we do need to practice articles.  Of course, it gets confusing for them, because sometimes we use articles in English, and sometimes we don’t.  For example: “I drank the apple juice.” or “I drink apple juice.”

Overall, this is an excellent experience for all of us.  I am learning from them, and they are learning from me.  Hopefully, by the end of 6 months, they will be able to have basic conversations in English and American Sign Language, and I hope to be much less dependent on my Russian dictionary.

Here are some pictures of one of my classes.