Unit 6 – IX-you NEED WHAT What do you need?

Vocabulary

The students will learn some vocabulary for expressing feelings, needs, and wants.

Open up a discussion with the students where they can explore and reflect on how people express their feelings, needs, and wants in different cultures through either language or particular behaviours, for example, facial expressions or body positions. Lead the discussion in ways that avoid stereotypical thinking and descriptions. Focus on particular situations that enable them to make comparisons with practices they use or observe in others. For example, how would they themselves explain, or show, that they are sad, hungry, or tired? How do they know that others are feeling sad, hungry, or tired?

As the Deaf community in New Zealand is relatively small and most people in it know each other, members find that they are able to express their feelings and needs to each other more quickly and more openly than if they were meeting for the first time. A good example of this is hugging. In Deaf culture, it is normal to hug people when saying hello and goodbye whether you know them well or not. In fact, saying goodbye to everyone at a party consists of up to an hour of hugging and signing to them! Deaf goodbyes are usually drawn out, and not taking time to chat for a few minutes, even in passing, is considered rude.

Tell your students that they will learn vocabulary that they can use to express feelings, needs, and wants. Play clip 6.1a. Ask the students to imitate the vocabulary, using the presenters as their models. Replay the clip several times until the students can reproduce the signs confidently.

On a copy of worksheet 6.1 blank out the English descriptors beneath the signs. Photocopy the modified worksheet and hand out copies to the students. Tell them to write the English word beneath each sign, using their learning from clip 6.1. Then show them the original worksheet so that they can check and correct their responses.

Now repeat this process with clip 6.1b and worksheet 6.2.

Tell the students that they will view a dialogue in which people are communicating about feelings, needs, and wants. Play scene G. Ask the students to work out what they can understand from the dialogue using their current knowledge of NZSL, including what they have just learned.

Discuss their understanding. You have the scene G transcript to help you lead the discussion.

Now replay scene G so that the students can check their own understanding and use the discussion points to understand more of what is being communicated.

Play clip 6.1a and clip 6.1b again to refresh the students’ knowledge of the vocabulary and have them take turns to practise signing the words with a partner to build their signing accuracy and fluency.

Making comparisons and connections between languages

The students will learn more about sentence patterns and glossing.

NZSL sentences sometimes have a word order that’s different from that used in English. Sign language sentence structures are more flexible than those in English. Show these two sentence patterns to the students. Plain sentences follow the subject-verb-object order, as in English. Sentences that start with a topic followed by a comment are known as topic-comment sentences.

Use the grammatical name for each sentence pattern, as shown here, when discussing these patterns with your students. Play clip 6.2c to show these.

Display the following sentences and have the students, in pairs, work out how to express the same idea in NZSL using the topic-comment sentence pattern:

• Do you need sleep?
• I need a hug.
• I want to play.
• I like sports.

You will find further information on the topic-comment comments in NZSL on clip 0.6.

Hand out copies of the Unit 6 sentence patterns to your students. Challenge them to find examples of the topic-comment sentence pattern. Explain that the notation ___t indicates the topic (what the sentence is about) and that the eyebrows are raised.

Point out other glossing conventions to the students. For example:

• capital letters are used for words that have a sign
• having a + after a sign indicates the number of repeats, as in BEAT ++++
• IX refers to a pointing finger
• IX-me indicates that the finger points to the person who is signing
• the line above the glossing and the notation, for example, [Gloss: TIME WHAT; Non-manual signal: whq], indicates a non-manual signal and, in this case, a wh-question.

Play clip 6.2a and clip 6.2b for the students to observe how these glossing conventions relate to the different ways the language is expressed.

Communicating needs and wants

The students will communicate their needs and wants.

Play scene H several times and use a copy of the scene H transcript to check your students’ understanding.

Tell your students to refer to worksheet 6.1 and worksheet 6.2. In pairs, they practise their signing, reviewing the vocabulary they will need to use. Play clip 6.1a and clip 6.1b to assist them with their practice.

Hand out worksheet 6.3. Play clip 6.2a and clip 6.2b a number of times and have them model their signing on what they see.

Ask the students to work in pairs or groups to make up a role-play using the language patterns on the worksheet. Tell them that they can include any language they know from earlier units but that the focus needs to be on communicating feelings, needs, and wants.

Give them time to practise so that they can develop a good level of fluency. Play clip 6.2a and 6.2b several more times to ensure that they have a model to follow as they develop their language skills.

Have the students present their role-plays to other groups or to the whole class.

Ask the students viewing the performances to respond to the presenters to show their interest and appreciation. They could applaud (by waving their hands in the air) or sign “thumbs up”.

Assessing progress

The students will assess their own role-play presentations.

Depending on the level of confidence of your students, choose from the following:

• Hand out copies of the scene G transcript or scene H transcript. Divide the students into groups, making sure there are enough people in each group to role-play the scene. Have them share out the roles within each group. Play scene G and/or scene H. Replay the scene(s) as many times as needed for all the students to learn their parts well.

• Divide the students into groups. Tell them to make up their own role-plays using worksheet 6.1, worksheet 6.2, and worksheet 6.3 as reference tools. Play clip 6.2a and clip 6.2b to provide good models and ideas. Then allow enough time for them to create their role-plays and practise them. This may take several lessons.

The first task is "controlled production", that is, a task where the students are required to use prescribed content. The focus of the assessment is therefore on their delivery. In this case, use only selected assessment criteria from those provided in Unit 10, as follows:

The second task is "free production", that is, a task in which the students create the content for themselves using their prior learning. Use the full set of assessment criteria from Unit 10.

Give them time to apply the criteria to their own performance and discuss their assessments with each other. Monitor the outcomes of their assessment as their conclusions and your observations will help you to determine which aspects of the unit need further emphasis so that the students can manage the task well.

Replay a clip from any of the previous units or Unit 6 activities. Encourage a reflective discussion among the students on what they have been learning. Focus the discussion points on the following:

• how they perceive their progress to date
• the aspects of learning NZSL that they find particularly interesting
• the aspects of learning NZSL that they find particularly challenging.

Their responses will continue to provide you with information that directs the focus of your lesson planning.