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The presenters will engage participants in an interactive session that will show them how to implement a newly developed English syntax curriculum (BBESI) for use in bilingual deaf education contexts. BBESI’s modules are designed to be used independently or as a complete scope and sequence.
We will begin by introducing BBESI’s “guiding principles,” which are based on research in literacy development and bilingual education: 1) Meaning comes first, 2) Spelling is not important, 3) New patterns are paired with minimal forms, 4) Focus on vocabulary, not parts of speech, 5) Make connections to reading, 6) Stress accountability, not limitation, and 7) The concept of sentence comes later. Then, we will introduce one BBESI module (Adj + Noun) and engage participants in elements of the PD we used with teachers to help them learn to teach this module. The modules components include: establishing relevance, an anchor video on target form (ASL/English), anchor images representing the target form, an anchor text paired with an ASL interpretation (video), reading connections, and writing connections.
At the close of the session, participants will be invited to discuss the relevance of the curriculum in their own school contexts.