Professional Development

Inservice Training: 2-Year Professional Development Inservice

The two-year ASL/English Bilingual Professional Development inservice provides long-term staff development to schools for the deaf to assist them in developing deaf students’ academic proficiency in both ASL and English by using bilingual methodology and ASL and English as the languages of instruction in the classroom. The inservice uses critical pedagogy, as defined by Wink (2000), a process whereby teachers “name” their beliefs, “reflect” critically on them, and then take “action”. Teachers in the ASL/English Bilingual Professional Development inservice will “name” their traditional beliefs, critically and collaboratively “reflect” on them, and then “act” to implement effective practices of bilingual/ESL instruction that will enhance the achievement of deaf and hard-of-hearing students in all academic classes.

The overall focus is on two components of bilingual instruction:

• A bilingual approach that involves the use of ASL and English and
• An ESL approach that involves the exclusive use of English as a second language.

ASL consists of three language skills: attending, viewing, and signing. English consists of eight language skills: reading, writing, speaking, listening, fingerreading, fingerspelling, lipreading, and typing.

During each year of the inservice, teachers participate in 24 seminars (two hours each) totaling 48 hours of training each year. During the first year, participants will review the current research on bilingual/ESL education, culture, the deaf bilingual child, first and second language acquisition and learning, language use, language teaching, and language assessment. Teachers reflect on the concepts of bilingualism presented and observe how they apply to their own classrooms. During the second year of the inservice, participants focus on teaching language and (English) literacy based on bilingual assessment and bilingual methodology. Teachers apply various assessment tools using ASL and English to explore ways of assessing students’ language and literacy behaviors. Based on the results of these assessments, bilingual methodology will be identified to match the language (ASL and English) and literacy needs of deaf and hard-of-hearing students.