Bilingual Education

Development of literacy in two languages entails linguistic and cognitive advantages for bilingual students.

Students at Robarts School for the Deaf receive a bilingual education that promotes both American Sign Language (ASL) and English. This includes:

  • Language and literacy acquisition
  • Critical thinking skills and meta-linguistic awareness
  • Academic success
  • Positive self image and successful social interaction
  • Appreciation of ASL and multi-cultural identities and heritage
  • A learning environment appreciative of diversity
  • American Sign Language as the first-language base for students. ASL is used as the language of dialogue, instruction and study to provide students with world knowledge that is a prerequisite for understanding English literacy
  • First language proficiency in ASL, which creates teaching and learning experiences that increase the academic achievement of every student and promotes second language (English) mastery
  • English is a language of instruction and study

Parents are involved in the literary education lives of ASL Bilingual students.

Ontario Curriculum:
The American Sign Language Curriculum and Ontario Language Curriculum work congruently, including:

  • Supporting the Ontario curriculum’s goal of literacy and numeracy development
  • Commitment to EQAO and OSSLT
  • Use of formal and informal measurement and analysis of ASL and English language samples

Components that are studied in the ASL Curriculum:

  • Study ASL structures, vocabulary, discourse, semantics, styles, and registers found in stories, poems and others (e.g., Clayton Valli’s ASL poetry works, “Cow and Rooster,” Dr. Samuel Supalla’s ASL story, “For a Decent Living”) as well as texts, lectures and interpersonal interactions
  • Analysis
  • Comparison
  • Making judgements
  • Pulling ideas together
  • Other higher level thinking skills to develop meta-linguistic skills in ASL as an academic language – the grammatical knowledge of ASL
  • Analysis of ASL as a repository of cultural heritage knowledge and experiences

Similarly, components of the Ontario Language Curriculum include:

  • Study English structures, vocabulary, discourse, semantics, styles, and registers found in stories, poems and others (Shakespeare’s works)
  • Analysis
  • Comparison
  • Making judgements
  • Pulling ideas together
  • Other higher level thinking skills to develop meta-linguistic skills in English as an academic language – the grammatical knowledge of English
  • Analysis of English as a repository of cultural heritage knowledge and experiences

Instructional Strategies Using a Bilingual Approach – ASL and English Skills

  • Meta-cognitive linguistic analysis: studying, comparison and contrasting of two languages
  • ASL PM benchmark
  • Manipulative visual language
  • Cross-linguistic transfer strategies

We strive for a system of support for our students in a community that recognizes their uniqueness inclusively.

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