Service Learning

                What immediately dawned on me in this prompt for me and this hypothetical situation, is service learning. Oftentimes, we focus too much on high-stakes assessment and not enough on how to apply the knowledge from the classroom in the real world, which is especially important for ESL learners who may find it difficult to develop linguistically (Steinke, 2009). A particular activity that came to mind is procuring some sort of temporary employment for such students. While this may be more often applied to students in low-income areas, I am wanting to focus on the implementation of this in Deaf residential schools. While I haven't had too much involvement in the classroom, from my limited observation of various grade levels, many deaf students do not understand some pragmatic rules we think are simple, such as buying something at a retail store. Usually in the deaf setting, these types of students have a cognitive impairment, as well as deafness, which makes service learning even more important for these students to walk away with some sort of knowledge (Ormrod, 2011, 232). If the teacher/school system can get students employed somewhere, such as Goodwill, these can learn how to interact in the real world. At first, I would imagine students being apprehensive with working the cash register, stocking, or taking donations, but they may eventually see the benefit of going out of their comfort zone and learning how to interact. However, the general obstacles I see would be the language barrier and possible behavioral issues. As far as the language barrier is concerned, students could be instructed that they should write down their thought, or if that is not possible, be especially emotive and that they should try to use their best speech. Consideration of the type of job students will do will depend greatly on their potential ability to communicate with hearing customers. I wouldn't enforce a profoundly deaf student who is a bad lip reader and refuses to use his voice to be the cashier, it's too involved and could require a lot of communication (although if they wanted to I don't think anything should impede their wanting to do so). In terms of behavioral issues, some students may be incapable of working for long shifts, so knowing how to handle that is key. Start slowly, then allow them to work more hours or more intensively. In implementing this service learning activity, I would hope their pragmatic language skills improve so they can use that knowledge when they graduate (Steinke, 2009).

 http://www.servicelearning.org/library/resource/8811