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Studying a sign language: What are hearing adults doing outside of class?

Authors

Louisa Willoughby#, Cathy Sell#

#School of Languages, Literatures, Cultures and Linguistics at Monash University,

Melbourne, Australia Louisa.Willoughby@monash.edu, Catherine.Sell@monash.edu

To appear in Sign Language Studies Volume 19 # 3, Spring 2019

Abstract

Scholars of second language (L2) learning and teaching are increasingly exploring students’

use of the L2 outside the classroom setting, in recognition of the powerful effect this self-

directed study can have on language learning. Within sign language studies, students have

long been exhorted to immerse themselves in the Deaf community. But until now we have

lacked an evidence base of the degree to which they do this (or other out-of-class study), how

effective they find it, or whether/ how engagement changes as proficiency develops. This

study explores these issues by considering responses from 157 students enrolled in 4 different

levels of Auslan (Australian Sign Language) units at the same tertiary institution. Findings

indicate that students at all levels have low engagement with structured revision, but make

good use of media resources and face-to-face interactions, and that uptake of these increase in

relative frequency to their developing capabilities and personal networks. Innovative students

also integrate Auslan study into everyday situations and interests.

Keywords

Sign language, second language learning, Auslan, study habits

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Introduction

Recent years have seen sign language courses around the globe becoming increasingly

popular among hearing adults (Cooper, Reisman, & Watson, 2011; D. McKee, Rosen, &

McKee, 2014; Rosen, 2008). However, factors such as the relative lack of specialized

undergraduate and postgraduate sign language teacher training and large number of teachers

in insecure/non-tenured employment means that research into how best to teach this cohort of

students remains in its infancy (cf. D. McKee et al., 2014; Quinto-Pozos, 2011). This is

acknowledged as increasingly problematic, as teachers are forced to rely on intuition and

anecdotal reports of successful teaching practices in designing their sign language programs

(cf. Swaney & Smith, 2017; Thoryk, 2010). It also means that Wilcox and Wilcox’s (1997)

appeal for more cross-pollination between sign language teaching and applied linguistics

more broadly has largely gone unheeded, despite the potential for research focused on the

second language (L2) learning of sign languages to contribute greatly to discussions around

what is universal and modality-specific in adult L2 acquisition and learning. This article aims

to address some of these issues by providing empirical evidence, discussed in the light of

applied linguistic theory, of what students in one program are doing for self-directed study

and the lessons this might give us in supporting sign language students at various levels to

study the language more effectively.

Learning any second language (L2) as an adult presents a range of challenges, from

memorizing vocabulary items to mastering a new grammatical system and learning to

manage the pragmatics of interactions with native speakers. Research based on introspection

and interviews with teachers/ students has consistently identified a number of key challenges

hearing adults face when they start learning a sign language that are additional to the generic

challenges of learning to communicate in a new spoken language. These include developing

new perceptual and motor skills in order to comprehend and produce sign language output,

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internalizing new communicative norms (such as prolonged eye-contact and use of facial

expression) and dealing with the high level of variation within sign languages (e.g. Jacobs,

1996; R. McKee & McKee, 1992; Quinto-Pozos, 2011; Wilcox & Wilcox, 1997;

Willoughby, Linder, Ellis, & Fisher, 2015). The principle advice given to students in order to

overcome these challenges is to immerse themselves in Deaf culture and networks – for

example by attending Deaf clubs and other community events or volunteering to assist a Deaf

person in need. But teachers and researchers have always recognized that successfully

immersing oneself is not something all students will be able to do, since it requires a number

of factors to come together, including the student having time and interest in sustained

engagement with the community, being gregarious and able to find common ground with

potential Deaf friends and of course the willingness of members of the Deaf community to

accept the student into their group and act as language models. Ironically too, we are seeing a

large growth in sign language student numbers at a point in time where many Deaf clubs are

in decline (Hadjikakou & Nikolaraizi, 2011; Valentine & Skelton, 2008); raising the very real

prospect that Deaf people may be overwhelmed by hearing learners at supposedly ‘Deaf’

events (Snoddon, 2016). For all these reasons, the time is ripe to consider empirically the

degree to which students are engaging with Deaf networks, how effective they find this for

L2 learning and what other avenues students might productively use to advance their sign

language knowledge outside formal classes.

Examining adult, L2 learners of Auslan (Australian Sign Language) in Australia, the research

questions we set ourselves for this article are quite simple, but they have yet to be considered

by a large-scale survey of sign language learners:

1. How frequently are students engaging in a range of out-of-class activities and study

behaviors in Auslan?

2. Which activities/ behaviors do they find most helpful for their learning?

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3. Do students’ answers to 1 and/or 2 change depending on their Auslan level of

enrollment?

As will be outlined in the literature review below, out-of-class language learning has been an

emerging area of interest for researchers in applied linguistics in recent years. The ‘social

turn’ in second language acquisition research has seen researchers increasingly focus on how

a learner’s social networks, identities, and interactions in daily life shape their L2

performance and learning experience (see e.g. Block, 2003; L. Ortega, 2009). We thus hope

that our answers to these questions will have relevance to wider conversations about how

learners of all languages can productively negotiate out-of-class learning opportunities, and

the ways that affordances may change as proficiency in the target language develops –

especially for students of less-commonly-taught languages where opportunities for out-of-

class use are limited compared to for a global language like English. In the following section

we present a brief review of the insights from research with spoken L2 that is most likely

prove transferable to students of signed languages, together with discussion of issues and

prior research specific to the signing context. We then outline our methodology and rationale

for this study before presenting our findings

Out-of-class language learning

In discussing learner behavior it is important to note that this study limits itself to the context

where L2 learners are enrolled in language classes – so called ‘instructed second language

acquisition’. This varies from ‘naturalistic second language acquisition’ where the language

is learned (or is currently being learned) solely in interactional contexts – for example a

migrant or refugee learning English on the job in Australia. In instructed contexts, learners’

use of L2 outside the classroom is traditionally viewed as supplementary to the main business

of learning – which takes place in the classroom. It thus received scant research attention for

much of the 20th century (Richards, 2015, p. 6). However, technological innovations,

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including the internet, global media, smart phones and other devices have seen unprecedented

changes in the quality and quantity of target-language materials or interactional opportunities

available to students in the 21st century. Whereas students used to rely on their L2 classroom

(and set texts) as the sole or major source of L2 input and interaction, for many students

today out-of-class activities provide significant L2 input, while also allowing learners to

tailor their L2 consumption and use more tightly to their own areas of interest. Richards

provides the following summary of the opportunities such out-of-class activities present to L2

learners of English:

develop aspects of linguistic, communicative, and pragmatic competence

learn through interaction and negotiation of meaning

improve their levels of both accuracy and fluency

have extended contact with English

make use of multimodal sources of learning

develop skills of autonomous learning

develop the use of communication strategies (Richards, 2015, p. 19)

Out-of-class language learning is particularly valuable when it results in interaction with

other users of the target language, as opposed to more passive activities such as reading/

watching media or studying flashcards. Theories of second language acquisition stress the

importance of what is called the ‘negotiation of meaning’ for helping learners’ refine their

budding rules of how the language works (Block, 2003). This occurs whenever learners

attempt to communicate an idea in their L2 and receive feedback from their interlocutor – for

example the idea is understood and the conversation progresses, or there is some level of

communication breakdown and repair is needed. Note that this is not about the learner being

constantly corrected by a native speaker, but simply that through natural interaction the

learner will gain experience using the L2 to communicate ideas, and will implicitly develop

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their understanding of how the grammar and discourse structures of the language work, how

to negotiate gaps in their own knowledge (e.g. through circumlocution, mime or explicit

appeals for assistance from their interlocutor) and which aspects of the language they should

focus their study efforts on.

Despite the widely-acknowledged importance of the negotiation of meaning for second

language learning, large classes and limited contact hours mean that it can be difficult to offer

students rich experience of this within the classroom environment. Second language

acquisition theory also posits that students will be more motivated, and will learn more useful

language (including negotiation strategies) if they are using the language to achieve real-

world aims. Out-of-class activities offer myriad possibilities here that can often intersect with

learners’ particular interests or hobbies. Thus Chik (2014), for example, discusses the

manifold English learning opportunities present in popular computer and console games: both

in terms of in-game content and also in actions such as reading forums about the game (e.g.

to get advice on how to complete a tricky component) or socialising with other players (either

in-game or in real life; see also Pasfield‐Neofitou, 2014). Similarly Pasfield-Neofitou (2011)

discusses how her learners of Japanese used posts from their Japanese friends on social media

as a referring source to numerous online videos and other pop-culture artefacts in Japanese.

And of course the popularity and power of L2 TV viewing for language learning has been

widely commented on (see e.g. Danan, 2004; Elias & Lemish, 2008; Webb, 2011, 2015).

Sign language learners do not enjoy access to commercial media or other language learning

resources online at anything like the frequency of what is available to learners or English or

other major global languages. However, the internet and associated technological advances

such as smartphones has had a profound effect in reshaping the ways in which

technologically-literate Deaf people communicate, network and socialize with each other

(Valentine & Skelton, 2008), which also create new affordances for sign language learners.

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Most obvious of these has been the proliferation of publically-accessing sign language

content on sites such as YouTube, which at the time of writing hosted over 41,000 videos

discoverable with the search term “Auslan”1. Naturally much of this content is targeted at

proficient users of the language, so has limited utility to less advanced learners, but the fact

that sign languages now have this kind of budding media culture is an important

development. It also invites us to question whether, how and why sign language students are

engaging with this content as part of their independent study, as we do in this article.

Publically-available, user-generated content online can of course be of highly varied quality,

so it may turn out that sites like YouTubeTM are of limited utility to sign language learners, or

that learners need to be given training in how to effectively find good content pitched at their

level. However, the internet has also helped facilitate the creation and sharing of high quality

teaching resources for a range of minority languages (Willoughby, 2014), and sign languages

are no exception. In Australia these include the website signbank (auslan.org.au) – a freely

accessible video dictionary of Auslan signs curated by the doyen of Australian Sign

Linguistics Trevor Johnston – as well as the Auslan corpus

(https://elar.soas.ac.uk/Collection/MPI55247 – also the brainchild of Johnston). Myriad apps

and resources have also been created or relaunched in online format by deafness

organizations and Auslan teachers. It is important to stress that the quantity of these resources

is still relatively small, and thus they do not eliminate the issue of a lack of appropriate video

resources that is a near-constant headache for sign language programs (Kaul, Griebel, &

Kaufmann, 2014; Quinto-Pozos, 2011). However, they provide some amelioration of the

situation. In larger markets too – such as the US and UK – sign language resource production

is becoming a much more commercially viable proposition than it has been in the past. It will

be interesting to see in coming years whether the number of students interested in learning

Auslan will support commercial production of language teaching resources.

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Deaf communities in the 20th century were very much grounded in face-to-face social contact,

which for many people occurred at the local Deaf club. However, the proliferation of text-

and video-based communication channels that technology has given us in the last 30 years

means that Deaf people no longer have to be physically co-present in order to communicate

with ease. Both synchronous and asynchronous video chat have obvious potential for

exploitation for sign language learners. However, unlike attending a Deaf club or event, they

normally rely on the learner already having a social relationship with a Deaf person. Changes

in communication technology have also led to splintering in the Deaf community. Valentine

and Skelton (2008) note that Deaf people can now more easily identify and stay in touch with

others who share their particular interests – whether they live around the corner or across the

globe. This also leads to a more and more socializing taking place at private gatherings

between friends and less at large scale institutions such as Deaf clubs. For the language

learner we can hypothesize that this creates challenges in breaking into more private social

networks (if they are not already acquainted with someone who can broker their entry), but

also that once joined these networks may provide more regular and satisfying social contact

(and with it the attendant benefits for language learning) than what was the norm for learners

at Deaf club events.

The literature review so far has talked in hypotheticals about how sign language users might

make use of their target language outside the classroom. However, Pivac (2014) provides

concrete evidence of some of these processes through a case study of the use of New Zealand

Sign Language (NZSL) outside the classroom by six students in the final stages of their

interpreting diploma. All six participants stressed the importance of building social networks

with Deaf people as a key language learning strategy, but reported mixed success in doing so.

The most successful independent learner was a student who was highly active in a church

with a significant Deaf congregation. A number of professional NZSL interpreters were

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involved in the church and over the course of the student’s study they allowed her to observe

their preparation meetings and interpreting assignments at church. By the end of her studies

the student was an active participant in the twice-weekly meeting of the church’s song

translation team, which included a number of bilingual Deaf people in addition to hearing

interpreters. The church environment allowed a number of positive factors to come together

to support this learner’s NZSL development. Regularly scheduled meetings and services

meant the learner had sustained contact with the same group of signers, allowing the

development of genuine friendships. Their shared involvement in an institution also gave

them common ground and a need to talk about more complex matters than might be

discussed at a social gathering. And of course the discussion around song translation that she

was privy to expanded her knowledge of NZSL vocabulary and structures and gave her meta-

linguistic insight into the reasons that one interpretation might be preferred over another.

The strategies explored throughout this literature review have been predominantly immersive

in nature. In closing it is important to note that there is a wide literature in L2 learning and

teaching around how students might most effectively approach revision or other structured

private study activities (see e.g. Fan, 2003; Nation & Meara, 2002; Oxford, 1990, 2013). To

the best of our knowledge aspects such as use of language learning strategies or vocabulary

building/ retention have not been systematically addressed for sign language learners. But

arguably insights from prior studies with learners of spoken languages should be transferable

to the signing context, as these strategies purport to be language independent. In this article

we provide some very early data around this point by cataloging some of the types and

frequency of structured study behavior our participants are engaging with. The wider

questionnaire that participants completed also included adaptations of several widely-used

surveys of language learning attitudes and behaviors, which we plan to explore in a

subsequent article.

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Methodology

The present article has emerged from a wider Australian Research Council funded Linkage

Project on Auslan teaching, learning and assessment conducted by the authors with staff at

Melbourne Polytechnic2. Melbourne Polytechnic are the lead agent of the Victorian Auslan

Training Consortium, which is responsible for delivering accredited Auslan L2 tertiary

courses across the state. For historical reasons these courses are taught through the vocational

education sector (i.e. Community colleges and trade schools) in Australia, rather than

universities.3

Through the course of discussions with Melbourne Polytechnic Auslan staff, student out-of-

class study was identified as an area of interest. Staff were particularly conscious of the issue

of students ‘flooding’ Deaf events and sometimes behaving inappropriately (including one

student arguing that they had a right to be provided an interpreter in order to be able to

understand the event!) and were keen to explore other ways of supporting students in their

out-of-class learning. As is the case for many language programs in neoliberal times (see e.g.

Pivac, 2014), the program is also under budgetary pressures to limit the hours of face-to-face

teaching (or otherwise minimize costs), further adding to interest in activities or learning

tasks that students might undertake independently. While it is always hard to prove such

things empirically, our sense is that the Melbourne Polytechnic Auslan program is similar to

many L2 sign language teaching programs around the world (e.g. in terms of student and staff

profile, resources, level of teacher training), and thus that the issues and findings we report

here are likely applicable to a great many sign L2 programs.

This article focuses on selected areas of a wide-ranging survey on attitudes, habits and study

behaviors administered to a total of 157 students in Melbourne Polytechnic’s Auslan program

over an 18 month period. We report on answers to section 1, concerning students’ study

habits (broadly defined) as well as their answers to an open-ended question that ask them to

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“tell us up to three things that you’ve done that you found were really helpful for learning

Auslan”.

The 20 item study habits questionnaire was designed by the research team.4 Our aim in

choosing items was to cover a range of ways and contexts that students might approach

Auslan learning outside the classroom – from formal, highly directed study (e.g. reviewing

vocabulary lists) to informal social contexts (e.g. conversing with Deaf friends). We also

aimed to capture the degree and ways in which these habits were mediated, for example, by

including separate questions around conversing with Deaf friends in person or via video

software or using paper-based and online dictionaries to look up signs. It is rare for studies on

L2 learning of spoken language to cover such a wide range of contexts, however this eclectic

mix was felt appropriate given that so little is known about sign language learners’ use of the

target language outside of class. As is common internationally, sign language teachers at

Melbourne Polytechnic held relatively basic teaching qualifications with little specialization

in L2 teaching (cf. D. McKee et al., 2014; Quinto-Pozos, 2011). An issue faced by the

institute at the time of writing was in building cohesion and natural progression within and

between the Auslan units on offer. From conversations with staff and students we had formed

the impression that students were embracing the idea of immersing themselves in Auslan, but

were not utilizing more formal study strategies – such as reviewing previously taught course

content – to best effect. The study habits questionnaire was also thus designed to gather

evidence on this point, while the invitation to students to tell us about their own effective

study strategies was also a way of crowd-sourcing new study ideas that teachers can feed

back to their classes.

Researchers interested in how people use an L2 (including heritage languages) outside the

classroom have not yet developed consensus on how to phrase and score questions around

frequency of use. As Gibbons and Ramirez (2004) point out, one of the great challenges in

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question design is tapping into not just the relative frequency at which a behavior (such as

speaking the heritage language with a grandparent) occurs, but its duration, linguistic

complexity and the level of emotional investment the learner has in the interaction. Relying

on frequency reports alone may see us overplay the importance of routine transactional use of

the L2 (such as ordering food in a restaurant) that actually has only limited utility for L2

development, and undervaluing less frequent, but linguistic complex interactions, such as

telephone calls to monolingual relatives. These problems are amplified in the context of

investigating L2 study strategies, since a behavior such as looking up a word in a dictionary

or revising a previously-learned sign can take mere seconds if done once, but can be repeated

with different words more or less indefinitely. Our solution in this instance was to ask

participants to choose between the following four options to describe their engagement with

each of the listed behaviors: 1 = I never do this, 2 = I occasionally do this, 3 = I do this for up

to 30 minutes most weeks, 4 = I do this for at least 30 minutes a week. These points were

designed to loosely distinguish between behaviors undertaken sporadically versus relatively

frequently (i.e. 2 vs 3) as well as those engaged with reasonably briefly versus in a sustained

fashion (i.e. 3 vs 4).

Demographic variables collected included gender, education level, other additional language

study, initial motivations for learning Auslan, and the enrolled level of Auslan course that

participants were undertaking at the time of collection. Participants were also asked whether

they planned to use Auslan professionally in the future.

The questionnaire was provided in both electronic format (via an online survey website), as

well as print version to accommodate participant preference. For city campus participants, a

member of the research team visited classes in person to explain the nature of the study, and

students who wished to participate were given class time to complete the questionnaire. For

regional participants a member of the research team visited the teacher’s video conference

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location to similarly invite students to take part, and all students were provided with a

weblink to access the online version, and were individually mailed a printed version with a

reply-paid envelope. Participation was voluntary, and students were made aware that

participation would have no effect on their course outcome. Participants were not

compensated for their time.

In total 178 responses to the questionnaire were collected (172 city, 6 regional), with 21

excluded, resulting in a sample size of 157 participants for analysis of the present study.

Eleven responses were excluded as incomplete, and 1 was excluded as a repeat response. For

this article we have also excluded data from the 9 deaf Auslan learners who completed the

survey. This decision was not made lightly, but was taken for several reasons. Chief among

them was that the deaf cohort were simultaneously very small (less than 5% of participants)

and also highly diverse. It included participants with additional disabilities, migrants who

were already fluent in another sign language, students who had been exposed to Signed

English as part of their education and people with highly varied English literacy skills. There

are many interesting research questions to be asked about the experience of deaf adults

coming to a sign language later in life and the ways that they approach their learning, and we

commend the area to further research. However, the heterogeneity of the cohort suggests that

qualitative methods would be more appropriate for unpacking this experience, and that deaf

learners are highly likely to have different challenges and opportunities in their sign language

learning than hearing classmates.

The sample of 157 participants consisted of 128 females (83.1%), 26 males (16.6%), and 3

participants whose gender identity was neither male or female (1.9%), enrolled across all four

levels of Auslan offered at Melbourne Polytechnic: Certificate II (97), Certificate III (25),

Certificate IV (21), and the Diploma of Auslan (14). Each of these courses runs for six

months full-time, to a cumulative total of two years of full-time study or 4 years of part-time

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study if students take all four levels. However, students enroll in each course level

individually, and there is a significant number of students who choose not to complete all

four levels.

Respondents surveyed in semester two of 2015 consisted of 62 Certificate II students, 21

Certificate III students, 21 Certificate IV students, and 14 Diploma students. According to

Melbourne Polytechnic enrollment records this represents between 40-50% of all students

enrolled at each level for the year. But given that each course is only one semester in length if

studied full-time it represents an actual completion rate of 80%+ of students enrolled at the

time of data collection. The sample can thus be assumed to be highly representative of the

cohort. Additionally, 35 incoming Certificate II students were surveyed in 2016, and

responses from four Certificate III students who joined another aspect of our research project

were collected in 2017.

Engagement with the listed study behaviors

We begin our findings and discussion by considering students’ self-reports of their

engagement with the 20 items on the study behavior test. In our initial analysis we looked at

the proportion of students claiming to engage with a behavior for 30 minutes or more a week

(i.e. option 4). No item scored particularly highly: the top score of 43% went to the item “I

have face-to-face conversations in Auslan with hearing people (e.g. fellow students)”, with

the next highest score being 29% for “I have face-to-face conversations in Auslan with Deaf

people (e.g. family members, friends or colleagues)”. We thus broadened our analysis to also

include option 3 answers – i.e. where students perform the behavior most weeks for up to 30

minutes. Table 1 presents the proportion of students engaging with each behavior.

<TABLE 1 near here>

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The findings show that having Auslan conversations with hearing people is easily the most

popular study behavior overall, and the most popular at every level except Certificate III.

This is logical given that all participants were enrolled in Auslan courses where they had

regular contact with the same hearing classmates, as well as shared social opportunities

during lunchtime and other breaks. The participants in Pivac’s case study remind us that these

interactions are valuable not only for the practice they grant in using the language, but also

for the social support, comfort and motivation that comes through developing relationships

with fellow learners (2014, p. 211). While a downside of communication between learners

will always be that many mistakes may go uncorrected, the opportunity to practice using the

language in an environment that often feels less intimidating than talking with native signers

is arguably worth the risk. As one might expect, the data above also show an increase in the

proportion of students engaging in regular Auslan conversations at the more advanced

Certificate IV and Diploma level. Not only are students more fluent at this level (and thus

more able to converse) but they are also in smaller classes with students they have normally

been studying with for some time, so have had the opportunity to develop greater levels of

camaraderie.

It is striking that the six next most popular study behaviors are all activities that participants

can complete by themselves. Around half to two-thirds of participants were engaging in these

study behaviors most weeks. The first two, watching videos on YouTube and engaging in

‘pretend conversations’, are behaviors that see an uptick in use as participants progress

through the Auslan courses and likely seems related to students increased ability to

comprehend and produce more complex Auslan texts. While video resources have always

been a sought-after and much-valued part of sign language L2 programs, even quite recent

previous research characterized sign language videos very much in terms of something that

instructors are providing students, rather than something students can access independently

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(cf. Kaul et al., 2014; Pivac, 2014; Swaney & Smith, 2017). Exactly what students are

watching on YouTube and other video hosting sites, how useful they find it, and if/ how

students may be taught to identify the most useful content for their learning are all highly

productive areas for future inquiry. We note too that the specific use of YouTube by L2

learners of spoken languages remains an under-researched area more generally (but see

Balcikanli, 2010; Brook, 2011) and commend the area for further research.

Regardless of students’ level of enrollment we see that systematic study strategies – such as

looking up words in dictionaries or practicing fingerspelling – are engaged in at roughly the

same rates. This suggests that learners’ preferences for (not) using these behaviors is

somewhat internally-driven (i.e. they are either the type of learner who is inclined to

systematically revise old notes or they are not) rather than something more dynamic that

responds to changing proficiency levels or experience as a language learner, but of course

further longitudinal data are required to test this point. Arguably this is not ideal, since

research with spoken language learners tends to show an uptick in self-reported use of

explicit study strategies as learners progress to more advanced levels (e.g. Green & Oxford,

1995; Griffiths, 2003, 2013). In particular the low engagement with revision of past learning

(only 52% revising content from the current week and 33% looking back at past content) is

concerning, since the research is unequivocal on the learning benefits structured revision

gives to vocabulary learning (e.g. Nation, 2013). Given that fingerspelling is frequently

identified as a major challenge for sign language learners (R. McKee & McKee, 1992;

Quinto-Pozos, 2011; Thoryk, 2010) we also found it surprising that many students were not

regularly practicing their skills in this area. We posit that results on these questions may be

linked to teachers’ relative lack of explicit training in SLA theory and teaching – since if

teachers themselves are not aware of what the research tells us about how best to study an L2

they cannot pass this information on to their students. In making this point we also wish to

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stress that this is not a criticism of the teachers themselves (who show a commendable

appetite for engaging in professional development when it is offered) but rather a structural

issue in the lack of appropriate Auslan teacher training courses in Australia (see Willoughby

et al., 2015 for more on this point).

The survey paints a complex picture when it comes to learners’ out-of-class contact with

Deaf people. Almost half of all learners have face-to-face conversations with Deaf people in

the average week, and unsurprisingly this proportion rises steeply as proficiency increases

(38% at Certificate II but 71% by Diploma). Similar increases across the levels are also seen

for the use of video conversations with Deaf people and attendance at organized activities

where Auslan is used (and to a lesser extent with volunteering helping a Deaf person), albeit

starting from a lower base of engagement. Even though the actual numbers are quite small, it

is perhaps surprising to see that a number of Certificate II students are already using Auslan

at work and (in a handful of cases) doing voluntary interpreting work. This may be

symptomatic of a point Wilcox and Wilcox (1997) make that some sign language learners can

be remarkably unself-aware and will consider themselves fluent in the language after only

cursory instruction. However, it may equally be that these learners were motivated to enroll

in the course because they already had professional or social contact with Deaf people and

are now using their developing skills as a stop-gap in situations where there is not the option

of accessing cost-effective professional interpreting.

Student tips for learning Auslan

As noted in the methodology, towards the end of the questionnaire students were asked to list

up to three things that they had found helpful in learning Auslan. Students’ answers to this

question ranged from one-word answers (e.g. “Practice”) to long paragraphs explaining

complex study methods and the rationale behind them. Using participants own definition of

what counts as a single tip (i.e. from what they wrote under each numbered heading) yields

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413 study tips, or 2.65 tips per participant. However, it should be noted that many longer

comments touched on multiple themes. Certificate II students were also disproportionately

likely to leave a full set of 3 answers to this question, which skews the ratios of this data. Of

the 414 tips, 250 (61%) came from Cert II students, followed by 65 (16%) from Cert III; 50

(14%) from Cert IV and 40 (10%) from Diploma students.5

Results from this question were entered into Nvivo, which was then used to code recurring

themes within the tips. It is important to note that a number of the tips were highly original,

and thus did not show up as recurring themes. Thematic analysis revealed 16 themes that

scored 10 or more mentions in the data set, which are listed in Table 2:

<TABLE 2 NEAR HERE>

As in the study behaviors section of the article, we see that watching Auslan videos and

talking with fellow students both rank very highly as tips, as do interacting with Deaf

individuals or the Deaf community. Like in the study behaviors section, we also see some

difference between Cert II students and more advanced students in the tips that they give on

these themes. Even accounting for their over-representation in the data, we see that Cert II

students were over-represented in their mentions of Signbank (88% of total mentions are

from Cert II students), family (85%), teaching others (83%), classroom environment (79%)

and fellow learners (77%). They were also somewhat under-represented in their mentions of

deaf community engagement (48% of total mentions). For beginner learners, the Deaf

community is less accessible so it is logical they need to rely on other study methods.

Beginners in our study gravitate somewhat towards methods that are reasonably obvious (but

still good) ways of improving their skills – such as signing with fellow students or looking up

words on Signbank. A striking trend too is that 10 Cert II students report attempting to teach

Auslan to family members or friends in an attempt to widen the net of people they can sign

with (for example “I teach my mum all the signs I learn so I can communicate with her in

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Auslan for practice”6). While this point would benefit from more detailed follow-up, it

certainly suggests a hunger for Auslan conversation partners among students at this level and

suggests that they might benefit from more semi-structured opportunities or tips for using

Auslan outside of the classroom.

When looking at the content of the tips students listed we were also struck by the fact that

many of the more innovative or novel tips came from more advanced students. We posit that

this reflects the greater time that they have spent learning the language, concomitant to the

greater opportunities that they have had to experiment with study strategies and what works

for them. Table 3 lists some of the tips that we view as most valuable and illustrative of ways

that teachers might encourage their own students to effectively engage with sign language

learning outside the classroom.

<TABLE 3 NEAR HERE>

In listing tips in Table 3 we have prioritized those that clearly intersect with knowledge from

second language acquisition research about effective ways of building L2 competence. In tips

1 and 4, for example, we see students who are enhancing their memory networks surrounding

vocabulary items in ways that have been shown to improve recall over time (Nation, 2013).

Strategies that assist a learner in deep processing of the form and the meaning of a new

vocabulary in their mental lexicon have been shown to enhance learning significantly when

compared to the rote memorization of translation equivalents (Nation, 2013). The iconic

elements present in many signs provides a useful hook to begin this deeper processing, albeit

with the caveat that learners need to be reminded to pay careful attention to the form of an

iconic sign lest they remember only a general gist of how the sign is made (G. Ortega &

Morgan, 2015). Tip 2 is included as an example of a scaffolded text and might be viewed as

loosely equivalent to the affordances offered by watching subtitled TV or movies (see Danan,

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2004), or reading a story in L2 that one already knows in one’s L1. Alongside tips 3 and 8, it

is also an example of how students are creating Auslan study opportunities out of situations

that they would have been in already (stuck in traffic; helping children practice their times

tables). We live in a world where many people feel time-poor, and encouraging students to

think critically about how they can incorporate sign language study into their daily routines

can be an important way to ensure that studying does not lose out too much to competition

from other demands on students’ attention. It may also help enhance motivation if students

can find activities, like those in tip 2, where they can practice their sign language skills while

engaging in an activity that they enjoy for its own sake (Chik, 2014).

There remains, however, a number of advantages in systematically revising coursework and

tracking one’s progress as a language learner, and tips 5, 6, and 7 give suggestions in that

direction. Tip 5 taps into the importance of structured revision of previously-learned

vocabulary that was discussed in the previous section on students’ study habits; but also

provides a potential solution to a problem many students encounter, namely the difficulty of

taking useful notes while simultaneously attending to sign language content. We are aware

that some teachers discourage note-taking in their sign languages classes because of this

difficulty, but suggest that even in those contexts students could benefit from writing (or

speaking, or signing) rough notes after class as an aide memoire. Smartphone technology has

also greatly increased the ease with which students might create video records of their

signing. In tip 6 the student appears to be using videos as a means of review and tracking her

progress, whereas in 7 the focus seems to be less on the form of the signing and more on

completing the diary for its own sake – i.e. as a personal record of her life and activities. A

potential avenue for extending these sort of reflective activities – and one that has strong

backing in the research – is to encourage students to keep diaries or reflective journals about

their language learning experience (see e.g. papers reviewed in Burston, 2013; Oxford, 1990;

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Porto, 2007). These can take many forms, from relatively simple logs of study activities

undertaken, to notes and reflections on interesting bits of language encountered or

emotionally rich reflections on one’s study journey, changing motivations or (non) enjoyment

of certain class activities. Depending on the type of task and the learners’ skill levels they

may be undertaken in the L1 or L2. Learning journals lend themselves to incorporation into

course assessment and thus provide an accessible way that teachers can foster positive study

behaviors and/ or reflection for their students within the parameters of a course curriculum.

Conclusion

This exploratory article has provided an overview of the out-of-class study activities

undertaken by a large cohort of Auslan students, and they ways and reasons that students

might change their study behaviors as their knowledge of the language improves. It paints a

picture of students that are hungry for opportunities to use the language outside of class, but

who sometimes struggle to find the most effective ways to do so. In particular, students at all

levels reported relatively low uptake of structured revision activities and we suspect that in

this they are typical of many sign language learners. As part of this article we have sought to

show – through reference to the applied linguistics literature and students’ own testimony of

successful study practices – how students might be supported to make better use of structured

revision in their sign language learning, and the sorts of learning benefits that might flow

from this.

As one might expect, more advanced students in this study reported both a higher likelihood

of interacting regularly with Deaf people and a more diverse/ creative list of study tips.

Because our study is cross-sectional (rather than longitudinal) there is a question as to

whether these difference between cohorts really reflect increased affordances brought about

by higher level language proficiency, or are merely down to the attrition of less motivated

learners from higher level classes. This issue is arguably particularly relevant in our context

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because (as described in the methodology) the Auslan program we studied has exit points

with recognized qualifications after each semester of full-time study. This means that (unlike

many sign language BA programs) a number of students choose not to progress beyond the

initial Certificate II – sometimes because they only ever intended to do the course as a taster,

and sometimes because they realize that studying a sign language is not for them. However, if

attrition was the sole explanation for the group differences, we would expect the proportion

of students regularly engaging in study behaviors to rise across the board as students

progressed. In our data, it is only behaviors that become somewhat easier to negotiate

linguistically with higher-level proficiency that are used at higher rates as students progress,

such as having regular face-to-face conversations in Auslan or watching YouTubeTM clips.

Whereas behaviors that are equally accessible to students regardless of Auslan proficiency

level, such as explicit revision of course materials, using Signbank, or practicing

fingerspelling, are equally (un)popular among students at all levels.

Our findings show that as much as students valued face-to-face interaction with Deaf people,

the reality was that many of them had relatively little of this, and instead relied on

YouTubeTM and similar technology to access Auslan ‘immersion’ outside of class. On the one

hand, video technology is a boon for sign language learners, since it allows students to access

target language content anywhere that they have an internet connection. However, if not

pitched at the right level watching Auslan videos may not be a particularly effective study

technique. It is also important to remind students that watching videos is not nearly as

effective a learning strategy as conversing in the L2 and experiencing the negotiation of

meaning. They thus should continue to seek out relationships with Deaf people and other sign

language users. But given that Deaf clubs and events are becoming less common in the 21st

century, sign language programs also may need to think carefully about if and how they can

facilitate out-of-class interactions between students and Deaf people, or to change their

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approach/ expectation of classroom teaching in light of the video-rich but interaction-poor

environment many now inhabit.

It is also important that teachers and students realize that immersion, while vitally important,

is not the only way in which students can meaningfully develop their signing skills outside

the classroom. Research with learners of oral L2s has given myriad insights into how students

can structure their independent study/ revision to best effect. In this article we have shown

that many of these strategies are under-utilized among our cohort of Auslan students (and, we

suspect, among sign language learners more generally), but also that variants of these ideas

are popping up when students list the ‘helpful things’ that they have done in their Auslan

study. Sign language students are clearly keen to develop their L2 skills outside the formal

classroom and our task as researchers and teachers is to help them do so in ways that are as

effective, efficient and enjoyable as possible.

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Table 1. Proportion of students engaging with each behavior for 30 minutes or more a week

BehaviorCert

IICert

IICert IV

Diploma TOTAL

I have face-to-face conversations in Auslan with hearing people (e.g. fellow students).

64% 60% 86% 93% 71%

I watch videos in Auslan on YouTube. 52% 72% 76% 86% 63%

I have ‘pretend’ Auslan conversations, where I think about how I would sign a description of what I’m doing now, or how I’d translate something into Auslan.

55% 76% 71% 64% 63%

I use online video dictionaries and resources to check if I am making a sign correctly.

56% 52% 43% 57% 55%

I practice fingerspelling words that don’t have Auslan sign equivalents, like names and technical terms.

52% 64% 52% 43% 55%

At home I practice the new signs I have learnt in class that week.

52% 48% 43% 50% 52%

I look up signs that will be useful for my schoolwork in Signbank or other video resources.

52% 40% 38% 71% 52%

I look up signs in Signbank or other video resources just because I am curious about Auslan (not for schoolwork!).

49% 48% 24% 64% 48%

I have face-to-face conversations in Auslan with Deaf people (e.g. family members, friends or colleagues).

37% 48% 67% 71% 46%

I revise lists of signs that we learnt in class several weeks or months ago to see if I still remember them.

30% 36% 43% 29% 33%

I attend organised activities (e.g. deaf club, church) where Auslan is used.

23% 32% 57% 57% 32%

I practice fingerspelling sequences of letters like –ation that are used in many different English words.

23% 32% 24% 29% 25%

I use Auslan in my work (e.g. with clients). 18% 8% 38% 21% 20%

I use Skype/Facetime or similar to have video conversations in Auslan with hearing people.

19% 16% 10% 36% 19%

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I use paper-based Auslan dictionaries to look up signs or check if I am making a sign correctly.

13% 8% 24% 14% 14%

I practice signing while looking in the mirror to check my use of non-manual features. 5% 24% 10% 29% 11%

I use Skype/Facetime or similar to have video conversations in Auslan with Deaf people. 7% 8% 19% 29% 11%

I volunteer helping a Deaf person. 7% 12% 5% 14% 8%

I volunteer as an Auslan interpreter (e.g. at church). 4% 0% 10% 7% 4%

I create content in Auslan for YouTube (e.g. interpreted song lyrics). 1% 0% 0% 0% 1%

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Table 2. Common themes of helpful strategies

Helpful Thingmentions

n

Videos 56

Deaf community engagement 52

Fellow learners 39

Deaf people 38

Fingerspelling 27

Signbank 25

Classroom activities & environment 24

Notes and note-taking 19

Teachers 14

Family 13

Teaching others 12

Songs 12

Attitude 12

Handshape 11

Mental exercises 10

Making connections 10

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Table 3. Innovative study tips

Innovative Study Tips

1. When learning a new sign I try to establish a visual or memory link. Eg. I think of Wales

as a dragon's claw (like on their flag).

Diploma student

2. Seeing shows like Les Miserables with Auslan interpreters was enormously helpful. It was

great to see something I knew extremely well in English and then watch how they

interpreted it into Auslan.

Diploma student

3. When I'm in a car or on Public transport I try and spell every word I see (signs, tram

stops, number plates etc)

Diploma student

4. Remembering when I first saw the sign, the context and the person who used it.

Diploma Student

5. I have 2 notebooks now, one for class where I can be messy and write things down in a

rush, then the next night I will go back and write them up nicely in another book. This

helps as it makes me revise what we've done in class, as well as making more sense of my

notes for when I refer back. Cert IV student

6. Making videos to see where my strengths and weaknesses are, and to review how I've

improved.

Cert III student

7. I keep my diary in Auslan, filming myself in videos most days.

Cert III student

8. I sign the times tables to songs with my children and I have found my number signing has

improved immensely!

Cert II student

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1 This content seems to be increasing at a very rapid rate. McKee (2017, p. 348) gives figures of 28,000 Auslan YouTube videos; 6,500 for NZSL and 2 million for ASL. At the time of writing this article NZSL had around 9,700 videos and ASL 2.6 million.2 ARC LP150101101Bridging the theory-teaching gap in the teaching of sign languages. Awarded to Adam Schembri, Louisa Willoughby and Cathy Clark.3 While a number of Australian universities, including several in Victoria, offer introductory Auslan units, it is not possible to major in Auslan at an Australian university. 4 Which, as well as the named Author/s of this article included Dr Adam Schembri and Ms Cathy Clark5 Total is greater than 100% due to rounding6 Quotes from students are reproduced verbatim, including the use of Australian spelling.