This PowerPoint is a very quickly thrown together example of an introductory language lesson that I use with my deaf/hard-of-hearing students. I like to use digital video animations of interesting children's storybooks for small group language lessons. These digital stories offer numerous opportunities to develop rich schema, vocabulary, word play, imagery, sequencing, syntax, narrative discourse, and comprehension strategies. I used this particular slide show to introduce the target vocabulary and concepts -- animal families, members of categories, and animal homes -- that would appear in the video.
The PowerPoint was very easy to put together and provided a nice, but static, foundation for the charming story, Over in the Meadow (Langstaff). That video can be found on the Scholastic DVD The Wheels on the Bus. My students enjoyed the very short video (less than ten minutes long)several times, and, as such, had multiple exposures to the new words and concepts.
To make the lessons more child-directed, dynamic, and powerful, I plan to video tape a sign language interpretation of the text and will then use Windows MovieMaker to create an ASL accessible video for my students. In addition, I will use either PowerPoint, Adobe Acrobat, or a Web site to create interactive game-like activities for them to practice associating word meaning with the new words. They have done this same activity with Good Night, Gorilla (Rathman). Besides being delighted to have the ASL interpretation which they could control, they paid rapt attention to the lessons and left the speech therapy sessions spontaneously using the new words. So, they went beyond acquiring meaning (receptive) to meaningfully using (expressive) the words in connected language.
While the PowerPoint does provide attractive graphics, text, animations, and sound effects, if used without the situated context of the storybook, I believe that my students' experience would have been rather flat and the effects transient.
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