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BILINGUALISM AND SPEECHREADING IN CHILDREN AND STUDENTS WITH HEARING IMPAIRMENTS
Assist. Professor PhD, Georgieva Diyana Bulgaria, Stara Zagora, Trakia University, Faculty of Education
Abstract. The present article is dedicated to the relation between the forming of speechreading skills and bilingualism. This is a complex dynamic interdependence (condition), having in mind that in the circumstances of bilingualism the competition between the phonological codes of two linguistic systems causes changes in the cognitive functions directly connected with the ability to decode oral speech, perceived through the visual sensory channel. In comparative aspect are examined the skills for the perception of the optical characteristics of different linguistic levels - isolated words, sentences, connected text, of monolingual and bilingual individuals with hearing disorders. In the article are emphasized thee manifestations of the bilingualism in the conditions of deafness -Bulgarian, Bulgarian gesture and another verbal language (the languages of Turkish and Romany ethnic communities).
Keywords: visual perception of oral speech, speechreading skills, bilingualism, children and students with hearing impairments, phonological decoding
The term Bilingualism froms Latin "bilinguis" means. Various definitions of bilingualism can be found in scientific literature (F. Daskalova, 2003; Bell, 1980, Kyuchukov, 1997), which proves its complexity and its studying in different areas of science - psychology, linguistics, sociolinguistics, pedagogy, hearing and speech rehabilitation and many others. Generally bilingualism is considered to be the knowledge and use of two languages by a particular individual or group, a joint functioning of two linguistic systems in communication. The bilingual person usually knows in the same degree and depth both languages and is able to use them equally effectively in any situation. The bilingual person has the ability to keep two linguistic systems separated, so that it would be easy to switch from one to the other. With this definition F. Daskalova (2003) meant the ideal case of bilingualism. As a matter of fact, people manage to a different degree to approach this definition. Interesting typologization suggested Kyuchukov, who scrutinized the so-called asymmetrical type of bilingualism, characteristic of children of minority background. In all of these children, regardless of which of both languages is first (according to the order of learning), the primary in function in the family is not Bulgarian language. Children acquire the categories of both languages as a simple combination of concepts without consecutively relating them as belonging to one or the other linguistic system. Evidence of that are the so-called language interferences (appearing on phonetic - phonological, lexical -
semantic, syntactical level), which occur when using one or the other language and the last are in position of subordination.
Bilingualism in children with hearing impairments is understood as learning and using the gesture and national verbal language. V. Katsarska (2006) and S. Saeva (2010) share the idea that the learning of the verbal language on the basis of the gesture removes the limitations to communication in the different microenvironments and has an important positive role. Both languages - with visual -spatial and acoustic substance allow individuals with hearing disorders to communicate with representatives of numerous microenvironments, in which they can be and to actively participate in the connection of these microenvironments.
The social life of the individuals with hearing impairments is based on interpersonal interactions, realized in the process of communication. The oral exchange of information for many of them appears to be a preferred model of communication. The perception of oral speech by deaf children is carried out primarily through the leading visual modality and other preserved senses. The process is called speechreading - recoding of the acoustic code into optical one. The skills for the decoding of other people's speech through the visual sensory channel in the conditions of bilingualism are strongly connected to its degree of development in the individual people, their knowledge of each of the languages and the way they use them (Pascalis et al., 2005; Scott and Monesson, 2009). The existing connection between the linguistic experience in relation to the operants of both linguistic systems and the visual perception of speech is found also in more recent studies of Maurer (2015). According to the author there exists a strong probability that the different linguistic experience, connected to the use of the other language can affect the activity of cognitive mechanisms which directly determine the development of the unique speechreading ability. In perceiving visual signals bilingual individuals are particularly sensitive to the use of more than one code in communication. The interlocutor, with whom they are communicating, determines the linguistic code in the communication, and they switch from one code to another (go from one to another linguistic option) after the identification of the specific language. The process of identification becomes significantly complicated when they have to discern the limited optical code of the language, which is not their native one. At the same time, monolingual individuals handle one code which does not need to be related to another specific linguistic code. It is presumed that this influences the way in which bilingual and monolingual individuals process the visually perceived oral and extra oral signals. It is not surprising that the individuals handling one language perceive linguistic stimuli faster and more accurately than bilingual individuals in the conditions of limited modality such as the visual one. The shown evidence from experiments of Weikum et al.,(2013) and Burfin et al., (2014) confirms this fact.
Authors give the early bilingual training a key role in the optimization of speechreading in bilingual individuals. This would speed up the linguistic and cognitive development of a deaf child, it would also aid to form communicative competence, whose important component is "the skill for the management of one's own behaviour with a balance between its verbal and non-verbal expression" (V. Ivanova, 2014). That is why it is necessary to encourage the development and to keep the natural early bilingualism (in the mixed families and in the families of ethnic and national minorities), as well as to include children with hearing disorders in the united system of early intervention - to attend special educational structures and hearing and speech therapy
Children acquire a significant part of practical experience to communicate in their native language in their families. Family environment, in which deaf children develop themselves, may offer monolingual, cross- and multilingual interactions, whose influence is within the context of the dominant role of the linguistic competence in the formation of skills for visual perception of speech.
In order to study the effects of bilingualism's influence on the speechreading skills are differentiated three groups of children and students with deafness and severe hearing loss - "Bulgarian verbal language" (58,20%); "another verbal language" (33%); "gesture and verbal language" (8,80%), whose ages are in between the range of 6 - 12 years. The abbreviation "another verbal language" denotes linguistic systems, which are used by individuals belonging to the Turkish and Romany ethnic communities. All of the studied children use the services of the Inclusive education system.
In the experimental research are used linguistic stimuli in Bulgarian language. The linguistic material consists of isolated words (70) which are different parts of speech; sentences (10) - simple in their structure, declarative according to the type of communication; two texts, one of which presents the storyline and composition of a familiar piece of the fairy tale genre (Text 1). The second text is short and with unfamiliar content (Text 2). The stimuli are shown by the researcher to the participants in the experiment only with the use of the visual modality. In answer to the presented for visual perception oral stimuli, various responses to check the decoding are required from the students. In
relation to the words, sentences and the text with familiar content (the sentences are uttered in broken sequence), the studied individuals are instructed to point out the picture corresponding to their semantic content. As for the unfamiliar text, the students are given the option to illustrate a storyline picture, reflecting its general sense.
After a detailed mathematical - statistical analysis of the empirical material the following results were received:
Comparative analysis of the three groups of students regarding the number of correctly perceived visual stimuli - words, sentences, text (Text 1, Text 2) is shown in fig. 1.
80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0%
Bulgarien verbal language Another verbal language Gesture and verbal language
Words Sentence Text 1
Text 2
Fig. 1. Comparative results of the number of correct answers in the visual perception of the stimuli - words, sentences, text (Text 1, Text 2).
In the perception of the optical characteristics of the words, the students who mastered Bulgarian, gave 64% correct answers, which puts them in the first position compared to the students from the other two groups. A significant difference was not demonstrated between the achievements of the students from "another verbal language" and "gesture and verbal language" groups. The maximum number of positive responses of the participants from "another verbal language" group was 43%. The answers of the students from "gesture and another verbal language"group were with 3% more - (46%). One of the probable explanations for the elevations in "Bulgarian language" group is in the aspect of the presence of a more developed ability for phonological awareness among the children communicating in Bulgarian language, compared to the children using visual signs or other codes different from the Bulgarian ones. Here exists the influence of the social factor. In children from lower social strata (in the research took part representatives of Romany ethnic community, a large part of whom are in an unfavorable economic and social position) the improvement of phonological awareness is a far more limited and continuous process.
Analogical distribution of the results in the three groups was established also in the subtest with the sentences. Children speaking Bulgarian realized the maximum 63% answers. Far behind them came those who use visual along with oral codes. They identified correctly the visual images of 44% of the sentences. Their classmates communicating in Turkish or the language, characteristic of the Romany people, followed them constantly with the 39% optically differentiated stimuli. It is logical for the differences in the accomplishments of the students in the decoding the content of grammatical structures through eyesight to become more pronounced. Since they do not have sufficiently enriched vocabulary, the students with "another" verbal language cannot use the different parts of speech (changeable and unchangeable) in a ratiocination. At the same time, the inaccurate, grammatically incorrect and inconsistent logical verbal models, which students receive in their families, increase the negative influence on their ability to anticipate the specific (on the basis of previous or following) lexical unit in order to identify the entire syntactical structure. It should be noted that the broken in time axis sequence of the arrangement of visual signs, typical (and accepted as a norm) for grammatical structures in gesture language may become a favorable condition for children using visual - spatial codes. The circumstance that they use and orientate themselves according to the most
relevant for them words in the sentences (nouns) makes it easier for them to visually identify the sentences. As it is mentioned in the second chapter, each of the selected for the experiment sentences contains two nouns. At least one of them serves as a guide to decipher the entire composition. The presented facts partially explain the better achievements in the "gesture and verbal language" group in comparison to the "another verbal language" group in the visual perception of the sentences task.
In the trial for the visual perception of Text 1 from module "Text" the students forming the "Bulgarian language" group had a record high result for the whole research - 79% were the visually perceived and realized sentences, composing the content of familiar and studied fairy tales. Those high results were received because of the fact the researched individuals from this group used their vocabulary and cognitive potential for the perception and processing of fiction (fairy tale) to their maximum capacity. The students successfully refreshed their memories of the two works ("Grandpa and Turnip" and "Two Friends") and quickly found their way there - characters, place, time of the actions and their sequence, the specific interrelations. This, to a large extent, predetermined their great performance in completing the linguistic task. Totally different were the results received in the other two groups. The maximum number of correct answers in the "gesture and verbal language was 48%, which puts them significantly farther from the first group. The serious difference of 10% between the "gesture and verbal language" and "another verbal language group" largely grows when comparing the number of correctly visually identified sentences, structuring the composition of the texts between the groups "Bulgarian verbal language" - "another verbal language". The students using another verbal language (Turkish/Romany) completed twice less correct answers (38%). Many of them remembered the content of the fairy tales, but it was very difficult for them to point out the corresponding picture to the verbally shown stimulus. Even the given in visual form "prompts" (pictures) could not help the students differentiate them visually. The children could not establish the logical connection between each event in the conditions of huge limitations of the visual channel.
In the visual perception of Text 2 reproducing of the tendency for better achievements is observed in the monolingual group, compared to both bilingual groups. 56% positive responses were registered. The effects of the influence of the degree of development of the cognitive processes on the students' performance in this complex linguistic trial vary in very broad limits - from the directing of the visual attention towards the interlocutor's face and the consecutive perception of the words and sentences in the context of the current prognosticating and keeping them in the oprating memory until the moment of the perception of the sentences, performing the specific analysis and synthesis and making the decision, which determines the general sense. These mechanisms correspond to the knowledge of the specific linguistic system. Exactly the reduced knowledge of "the second" (Bulgarian), which is manifested in the students from both groups "another verbal language" and "gesture and verbal language", is the main reason for their significantly worse results in the decoding of the visually perceived unfamiliar text.
The low achievements in the research of the "another verbal language" group are indirectly affected by the demographic factor - type of settlement. Students who live in village municipalities (27,5%) are entirely representatives of the Romany and Turkish ethnic communities, i.e. bilinguals. As G. Valchev noted (2008), the limited communication in Bulgarian language (it is used primarily in school) due to the reticence of these communities, a higher level of bilingualism cannot be achieved, i.e. better knowledge of Bulgarian. And thus the insufficient acquisition of the language in oral (written will not be exaggerated) communication undoubtedly affects the lower level of the skills for visual perception of speech, which gives reason for the lower accomplishments of the bilingual students.
On the whole, the differences are not accidental and can be explained first - with the different phonetic structures of the separate linguistic systems; second - with the different educational status of the students, representatives of the Romany and Turkish ethnic groups; third - not all of the bilingual students have acquired the specific characteristics of the majority language (Bulgarian language) because of the limited communication outside their own linguistic environment.
The empirical data give us good reason to accept the fact that the linguistic environment, and particularly bilingualism, in whose conditions the children with hearing insufficiency live and develop themselves, has a significant impact factor on their verbal, visual-perceptive skills. The results of the students who speak Bulgarian verbal language categorically dominate the results of their classmates who communicate in another verbal language (Turkish or Romany), and those who use simultaneously visual - spatial and oral codes in communication. The last, who are in essence bilingual, are in no condition (have not created mechanisms) to keep the two linguistic systems separated, so that to be able to easily switch from one to the other, which undoubtedly affects in a negative way the perception of speech through the visual sensory channel.
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SOCIAL EDUCATION - NEW OPPORTUNITIES
Assist. Professor, Georgieva Violeta Bulgaria, Stara Zagora, Trakia university, Faculty of education
Abstract. The article refers to the main concepts of social education and social learning and the new opportunities in social pedagogy dictated by current ideas for realization of social and emotional education of today's students.
Keywords: social education, social learning, social and emotional education
Education realizes the fundamental preparation of the young generation for successful living in the community. It is different from the spontaneous socialization through its purposeful and meaningful social action, which is directed, guided, specifically oriented and designed to achieve a result - preparedness and propensity of man for self-change, self-conscious activity and self-initiative constructive behaviour. That is the reason Bizhkov, G. (Eh^kob) calls the education "training for self-education".
Education forms socially important qualities in every person. Moving the boundaries of individual variation, considering the dynamism of the social environment and reflection on its frames for successful social integration is more appropriate to think of "social" education. In 2014 Kouteva (KyreBa) gives the most accurate definition for social education - a "purposeful process of formation of socially significant personal qualities required for human's further successful development". The social education is a key concept in social pedagogy and is associated with education, realized by the society and its formed organizations. Social education's priority task is efficient, effective and successful socialization. The object of social education is constructive social development of people in organizations and its subjects are people, society and organizations. According to A. V. Mudrik (MygpuK), social education is a kind of integration between the human and the systematically created conditions - the processes of organization of social experience, of education, of personal assistance in the name of the human development and value orientation.
One of the most solid philosophical evidence for the need of social education is the interpretation of the German philosopher, anthropologist and sociologist A. Gehlen (1904-1976). The main thesis in
