Blog #4

I have been able to see the advancement of technology in the classrooms across UAA, as well as in the practicum at Service High. I think it is a great idea that has been incorporated into the classrooms across the ASD. I feel that within my classroom, it has been unique in being able to see that the teacher is able to show video clips at the touch of a button, as well as see other teachers implement the touch screen ability for presentations. I feel technology is a great thing that has been brought into the classroom, further bringing engagement into the classroom for active participation. It is easy to see that technology is the way of the where we are headed in the future and it not only interests students, but makes them understand this concept as well. I know at my practicum the teacher had the students put together a song and some pictures for a slide presentation, having them use the technology and asking questions for designing their productions.

Language variation is very unique within autism students. I see varied cultures and backgrounds of an Australian, Native, Asian, Korean, and other students (social variation). Some of the students have a difficult talking, however sometimes they are hard to understand under their impairment of shyness and indirect engagement/involvement. It is a definite speech community dealing with shared linguistic norms and ideologies when they talk, sometimes in just fragments about different areas of discourse. I know if there were more students, I would be able to see code switching presented, however was able to see one of the students reading something in another language, but I didn’t think to ask her what the article was about. This makes me think she speaks one language with her family, and English with the rest of who she interacts with. I would speak more about social interaction and how it impacts the way we speak, however I believe all of us have experienced words, phrases, sayings which friends and other people have said, even in exotic places from strangers because we thought it was interesting, (coining, language contact) etc. I see that some of use the social variation with whoever we are around, and for the students today, standard English is the best way for them to learn and succeed in today’s society. I see that my teacher sometimes stresses when unsure about what he will be doing incorporating technology with the computer and smart board, but it is something we must all deal with. Dealing more with language variation, I see that the students conform more to the teacher when asking questions and presenting themselves, than with fellow students. Maybe there is something called “speech code?” (Only kidding).

Blog #3

I have noticed questions within the classroom such as, "What are we doing today?" I have also heard questions concerning topics and what they have to do with the subjective matter at hand. There is one student, let's call him Kyle, who always interrupts and doesn't know when to be quiet. He directs what the teacher has going on to how it relates to himself, having no relevance. This would also include overlapping, when he thinks it should be his turn to talk naturally, but is not. Other times, he makes great observances! This is a definite sign of communicative competence. Kyle takes things from his life he associates with, to connect them with classroom material. His comments seem to be that of discourse analysis, or from linguistics standpoint, pragmatics.

I do notice that the more quiet students work together, and the louder students work together. The quiet students that work together and I ask question to will generally give me shorter "minimal responses" to complete the sentence. There are the clicks, but overall it is difficult to distinguish between social and academic status with the autistic group of students. There are gestures and pauses when the students talk, along with more so gestures used when the teacher wants someone to respond directly. There is only one girl in the class, so even the gender status doesn't give me a good idea. But in a "regular" classroom, I would probably see the girls and boys being in groups. This class is just a different bunch!

There is also another student who is special ed I saw the other day. He speaks unclearly, but yet is able to understand what people say and tell him to do. I notice sometimes when the students have a problem, they will voice out before raising their hand to be called on, let alone know they are doing something wrong. Everyone is going to have different responses to everything we come in contact with, because of the sense of identity. Like the book was stating, we present ourselves through language in a certain way, just as others judge us on the way we communicate with the language we use.

Blog #2 (Again)!

Practicum Post #2

So the past couple of weeks have been quite interesting. Students have been instructed to ask each other questions (via worksheets) regarding what interests them. The worksheets go on to ask what they will want to do after high school, such as go to college, etc.

The students still seem to have a hard time remaining on task (which is normal from the autism). Some of the students are very on task and others don’t know how to sit there and write out answers right off. I did catch a few spelling errors as I was checking students work, and they were happy about me asking them why they “possibly” spelled something the wrong way. Morphemes don’t really seem to be a problem, but the writing level of the sentences is pretty simple, so I would have to put most of the students at an elementary level dealing with spelling, reading, and writing. Pragmatics seems to be more of the aim for these students, rather than the structure. The students have been working on music projects using the computers as well with a curriculum wanting the students to have a song, have pictures incorporated into the video, as well and a few ideas that bring it together. The students last week were not able to finish the project due to the computer lab being occupied by others.

Something interesting is the update on the student Jim, who doesn’t talk to anyone, has recently started to talk to classmates in a whisper voice, and for the first time seemed to open up to me the last day I saw him (starting whispering to me.) He is very, very intelligent and showed me he has a few charts with 1 to 10 and some graphs of his progression for him coming out of his shell. Some of the things he has written down seem to be math based, and I have no clue what they mean. He has written two hundred and fifty pages or so in a journal since November I believe, coming out to roughly 1.5 pages each day. I almost wanted to see if I could make a copy dealing with his charts and stage progression, as each number has a definition to it. He has yet to make a graph chart from when he started to come out of his shell. One of the charts if I remember deals with how loud his voice gets, and his comfort level around 1 vs 1, all the way to groups of people and interviews, etc. There is a lot of potential, but if he can’t come out of his shell, he might have to wait to attend UAA for another year or so.

Practicum Week #1

I am doing my practicum with Mr. Cohan who goes by the name "Skip." His 6th hour is quite interesting, dealing with a group of autistic students from the 9th to 12th grade. There is the full range of students with a little bit of autism to the high levels. It is something I haven't ever had to deal with, and teaching kids with autism can be both fun and challenging at the same time.

For the first week his class was not in the regular classroom of a computer lab (more or less), which has computers for the students to work on for projects and whatever else they need. The students take longer to get things done, as well as staying on task. I noticed right away the students had a difficult time introducing themselves to me one on one.

For a physical enviornment, the classroom is setup in rows, but with the students in Skip's class everything seems a bit more relaxed to accommodate to the student's needs. So far I haven't seen the text book that is used for the English class, but the standard seems to be so far that the students are provoked by the teacher to engage in conversation with him as well as the rest of the class when asked. With their condition, sometimes it is difficult for them to comprehend what is being said, but is an ability they must be able to work on. This happens when something is presented with a lot of information in fewer words. They ask questions after the explanation/lesson is given, and often times students will need to be re-directed back on course by the teacher. I noticed with watching the class a second time, there seem to be only a couple of connections between just a couple of students talking and working, but most of them seem to be working independently. At that, sometimes it linguistically takes them time to form their oratory language in their brain before starting into the sentence, as there can be a pause. No pattern found exactly just yet .

Let's call this student Jim who is actually in my class of observance, who won't talk to anyone except the teacher (in a quiet voice). I asked Jim a question after the teacher wanted him to introduce himself to me, and he couldn't do either. Jim understands everything that is going on and what is being said, but is coming out of a shell. Jim will in response write his answers on a piece of paper and give them to you, which is something Skip is trying to get him away from.

There does seem to be a norm for the "environment," as it is in academic place called school. The students are aware of what is expected of them and they may occasionally say or do something unacceptable, but are soon corrected and back to work. It is interesting to see the professionalism brought out by the staff members of the school.