A Simultaneous Approach

University of Tennessee, Knoxville TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 5-2011 Developing Students’ First Language through a Second Language Writing Intervention: A Simultaneous Approach Hannah Marie Dostal University of Tennessee, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss Part of the Special Education and Teaching Commons Recommended Citation Dostal, Hannah Marie, "Developing Students’ First Language through a Second Language Writing Intervention: A Simultaneous Approach. " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 2011. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/962 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Hannah Marie Dostal entitled "Developing Students’ First Language through a Second Language Writing Intervention: A Simultaneous Approach." I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in Education. Anne McGill-Franzen, Kimberly Wolbers, Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: Richard Allington, Jeffrey Davis Accepted for the Council: Carolyn R. Hodges Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official studentecor r ds.) Developing Students’ First Language through a Second Language Writing Intervention: A Simultaneous Approach A Dissertation Presented for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree The University of Tennessee, Knoxville Hannah Marie Dostal May 2011 Copyright © 2011 by Hannah Marie Dostal All rights reserved. ii To my family and friends who supported me during this process… my dad, Rick for wiping my every tear and celebrating my every success my mom, Maggie for understanding the things I don’t say my grandparents & aunt, Ralph, Joan, Jerrald, Wilma & Mary for showing me that learning happens in many places: the garden, the mountains, the mud Camille (Lucy) for making me grin when I wanted to cry, for making me laugh so hard I couldn’t stop crying la Rachael for teaching me about true altruism while challenging me to reconsider the function of vowels …thank you. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS It has been a great pleasure working with the faculty at the University of Tennessee. This research would not have been possible if it were not for the support I was given to pursue my research interests in language development in the context of writing. Drs. Anne McGill-Franzen, Kimberly Wolbers, Richard Allington, and Jeffrey Davis, thank you for your support during my tenure as a doctoral student, and for your contributions as members on my dissertation committee. Dr. McGill-Franzen, you have always made the discipline of reading meaningful by making children and their success the focus; it has been a privilege to have you to remind me of the importance of our work, the importance of the students. Dr. Wolbers, thank you. Thank you for your considerable mentoring and encouragement, for your feedback and insight, for countless hours of discussion and thoughtful conversations, for your kindness. Dr. Allington, thank you for being supportive of this research and for helping me achieve greater excellence in research while at the University of Tennessee. Dr. Davis I appreciate your guidance and encouragement as I developed into an interpreter, teacher, and writer. For the past four years each of you have served as examples of exemplary researchers and teachers, and I am grateful that you have been the scholars who established guidelines that will continue to challenge me to excel in my work as a teacher and researcher. Shannon and Heather, thank you for spending hours emerged in student language samples. I appreciate the time you poured into talking about language and the energy you invested into coding. Luke, Shelley, and administrators at the research site, I sincerely appreciate you eagerly embracing this project. Thank you for making this experience a memorable one, and for being iv language models and mentors to many students. Fellow middle school teachers, I am grateful I worked in a school building that was filled with your laughter, kind words of support, and willingness to collaborate. Pat the Proclaimer of Positives, your encouragement and emails made the process of writing enjoyable and reminded me of my initial purpose. Mrs. Martin, your support and gracious leadership made the completion of this project possible and created a school-community where we all—students and teachers—want to do our best. Students, you have become authors, and I am excited to hear of your many future accomplishments. Thank you for your hard work, for working with me, for your smiles, and especially for the times you said, “I have words”. I am proud of you. v ABSTRACT Deaf and hard of hearing (d/hh) children often acquire an L1 after age 3, thus are arguably more diverse than that of the general bilingual population. A unique problem therefore exists among d/hh late language learners—they often do not have an L1 to later develop an L2. This study investigated the impact of an English writing intervention (Strategic and Interactive Writing Instruction, SIWI) that incorporates support for the development of American Sign Language in an effort to illustrate the necessity of explicitly addressing the proposed interdependence of language learning. The research involved providing 23 upper elementary and middle school d/hh students with SIWI. SIWI has been shown to have a significant impact on student outcomes in language and literacy. The study was conducted in five classrooms—one fourth, two fifth, and two sixth grade classrooms—over a twelve-week period at a state residential school for the deaf. This allowed for two weeks of pre-test, mid-test and post-test administration, five weeks of regular instruction, and five weeks of intervention. The students received SIWI for four forty-five minute sessions and one thirty-minute session each week for a total of five weeks. The intervention replaced their regular 45 minutes of writing instruction. In order to measure expressive language growth in ASL, language samples for each student participant were collected. These samples were analyzed to chart expressive language growth during the time period with no SIWI intervention and while engaged in SIWI by reviewing them for students’ mean length of utterance (MLU), use of unintelligible utterances, and specific grammatical features of ASL, and individually for patterns of ASL expressive language growth. Repeated measures ANOVAs (within and between subjects) conducted for vi students’ MLU and unintelligible utterances revealed statistically significant growth after five weeks of SIWI. This study demonstrates the reciprocity of language learning. The foregrounding of written English supported the development of a more nuanced understanding of the use and features of ASL. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1: Introduction ................................................................................................................1 Rationale ......................................................................................................................................2 Purpose of the Study....................................................................................................................3 Significance of the Study.............................................................................................................4 Research Questions..............................................................................................................5 Definition of Terms.....................................................................................................................6 Terms for Students Learning Languages .............................................................................7 Organization of this Dissertation.................................................................................................8 Chapter 2: Review of the Literature ............................................................................................9 Chapter Introduction ....................................................................................................................9 Language Acquisition ................................................................................................................10 L2 Acquisition ...................................................................................................................10 Language Interdependence ................................................................................................10 L1 Acquisition for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Students ....................................................12 Addressing L1 Development.....................................................................................................17 Transition from ASL to Written English ...........................................................................18 Dialogic Inquiry: Creating a Context Where L1 Development Can Happen............................20 Content...............................................................................................................................20

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