Just a short post to say that I'm working at my research paper and also, Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays I'm in classes, I got into the Deaf Studies Program jointly offered by Red River College and the U of Manitoba! 
I'm a busy woman....better get back to work.

Wait, I'm also organizing talks at the U of M Friday afternoons, here's a link to the google calendar for the talks.

"Back to School"/Research

It's been some time since I have posted anything.  I kind of let the summer get away from me, but I am relaxed, tanned, refreshed and ready to get back to work!

I took some time off and for work I focused on filling in necessary forms over the summer.

The conference in Norway (the International Symposium on Bilingualism 8) was a great success. My presentation went well (despite my jet lag!) and I enjoyed all the presentations I attended and meeting and sharing discussions with other Sign Language linguists from around the world!

I attended the Winnipeg Church of the Deaf's Camp Kakepitay's 45th anniversary on Canyon lake.  My partner took some 4-day pinhole camera pictures, which can be seen at http://clarakusumoto.wordpress.com/
We both had a great time!
(Kakepitay means Deaf in Oji-Cree)

Otherwise I camped, canoed, and cottaged my way through the summer. Filling in some paperwork and doing a little work on my data throughout the summer.  I feel a little guilty for not working harder, but in the end I think I'm better off for having taken holidays for the first time, really, since I started my Masters in 2008!! (I didn't have time off between my MA and PhD, in fact there was a month of overlap!). There's nothing like an extended holiday to get you excited to get back to work!

I am currently preparing to send out some information to teachers of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (hopefully Canada-wide) to begin to establish more contacts for continued research, prepare for a presentation I am giving for a Lunchtime lecture series at the University of Manitoba (@ 12:30 Jan 27th), and prepare the paper on this research to defend sometime this semester.

Back to work indeed! YAY!! (yes, I am a big nerd).

Getting there...

Gave a practice presentation on the (first draft of the) results from the research project yesterday.

It went well!!! I received a lot of great feedback for improving the presentation.  More work to do.

The results, in brief are that Deaf children do think in ASL when they read English, but it looks different from Deaf ASL-English adults and Deaf DGS-German adults.  ALSO Deaf children read English (their second language for most) faster than hearing children (their first language)!  All very interesting!   To me at least :-)

I'm off to Oslo, Norway for the International Symposium on Bilingualism (#8) on Monday.
When I get back the next steps are writing the final research paper, and writing and sending out preliminary summary of results to participants and their parents.

Back to work :-)

T-minus 1 month until the conference!!!!

So much has happened since my last update, I'll just list what I can think of at the moment:

• I finished meeting with 18 wonderful kids and their families

• Based on meeting with those kids I've made some changes for future meetings that I think will improve the process.

• I went through the results (and worked out some confusing areas with the help of my research assistant Sherry Clark and advisor Dr. Erin Wilkinson!) and compiled them into one database and have started the statistics with the help of my advisor, Kevin Russell (a.k.a. statistical genius)

• We have found some interesting results, keep checking back for more information on them.  I'm not ready to report any specifics just yet.

• I was awarded a research fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for this research (such an honour to have the importance of this research recognized!)

• I was awarded a travel grant to the International Symposium on Bilingualism where I am presenting this research June 15th (in Oslo, Norway).

• I have another Survey up for English monolinguals to complete.  It's up for 4 days only and should only take 15 minutes.  The link to the survey is:  http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/P3GZ8JJ and the password is:  again

I think that's it for now.  Back to work!

Now Piloting!!!

I met with my first participant today!  It went well! 

None of my technology failed me, and the family are all so nice!  I look forward to meeting more kids and their families!  (more kids needed!)

What’s it like being an ASL-English bilingual kid?

Hi!  My name is Brenna Haimes-Kusumoto, I’m a PhD student in Linguistics at the University of Manitoba.  Under the supervision of Dr. Erin Wilkinson I am studying how the knowledge of two languages, ASL and English, influences a child’s language processing and understanding in both of these languages.

WHO:               I am looking to meet with 12 Deaf children,

     7 – 17 years old

WHAT:             Children will take part in 4 simple tasks:

Tasks 1,2,3:  reading English words on paper and on a computer screen and watching ASL videos on a computer. Answering questions about the words and videos.

Task 4: reading English words and signing the ASL translation. I   will need to videotape this task (with your permission).

Parents will fill out a family language questionnaire form, in English, while I am meeting with their child.

WHERE:         At interested children’s homes or at the location of your choice, so that children will be as comfortable and relaxed as possible.

WHEN:             March 2011. 

HOW LONG: ~60-90 minutes (with breaks).

CONFIDENTIAL?:  YES! I will not share/distribute names or the video.

REIMBURSEMENT/PAYMENT:  Each child who participates will receive

     $15 for their contribution to my research.

                       

WHY:  My goal is to learn more about this subject to benefit future Deaf

     students and Teachers of the Deaf.  

                         

Questions? Interested?: Ways to contact:        

     email: umhaimes-at cc dot umanitoba dot ca

     website: http://brennahk.blogspot.com/

                                                                                                

I should mention that I am hearing and I have only been taking ASL courses for 1 year, my grandparents were Deaf so I knew a little ASL before.

My friend and research assistant, Sherry C., will be meeting with children. I will be setting up the research equipment and watching to learn from her.

Please feel free to pass this information along to anyone you feel may be interested.

Workingworkingworkingworking.....

• I have officially hired my friend & tutor as a research assistant! She is a native ASL signer, she is Deaf, and she will be running the experiments and teaching me how to interact with kids in ASL (did I mention I'm hearing?  I've worked with kids in English and French, but not ASL yet).
• I met with a wonderful group of native ASL signers Saturday Feb 19th to go over the pairs of words for the research experiment. Thank you, and thank you to the interpreter as well! (I'm trying not to mention names, since I haven't asked anyone if I can include their name)
• I met with Manitoba School for the Deaf to ask for help in recruiting kids for the pilot project
• I'm working to add ASL video to the research info for parents page soon
• I applied for an received an amendment to the Ethics, since I want to meet with a few hearing kids too about the English side of things.
• I'm trying to keep calm and healthy and happy and well-slept so I can  workworkworkworkworkwork!

I'd better get back to work!

Ethics Received!!!!!

The anticipation is over!!! I'm so excited!!!!

I'm going to send out emails galore today to try to get the ball rolling! (O.k. my wonderful supervisor will also be sending out emails, I can't take ALL the credit!)  I've got to get the pilot study finished by the end of March so I can have a presentation for the conference in June!

In other news...
The semantic judgment survey went well, I had many responses. I've gone through them and cut the 529 pairs os stimuli down to 208 pairs!  But there are 4 different categories and now I will need some more pairs for some categories, fewer pairs for other categories....

Now I'm now re-scheduling a phonological judgment survey with the help of my wonderful ASL tutor, to ask native signers what their opinion is of how similar each pair of signs looks.

I'm taking part in the Curling Funspeil in support of the  Manitoba Deaf Curling Club this weekend.  I'm so excited, and a little nervous, to meet new people, to try curling again (it's been ~17 years since I've curled! wow, that makes me sound old!), to be immersed in ASL....and to taking AN ENTIRE WEEKEND OFF to have FUN!

That's all I can think of. I've been marking exams...and then dreaming about marking exams at night....so I'm a little spacey!

b

Update.

I received notice of my acceptance to present at the International Symposium on Bilingualism 8 in Oslo, Norway this June. My presentation, entitled "Cross-language activation in ASL-English bilingual children" will be part of a colloquium on Multimodal Bilingualism  in Children Learning a Sign Language and a spoken/written language.  A colloquium on Adult Multimodal Bilingualism has also been accepted. It's looking like an exciting conference!
For more information, check the conference website: ISB8

Still awaiting the status of my Ethics application. I called today, thank goodness I did, because one of the 3 reviewers just had not yet submitted his review. Phew! I'm not crazy, I WAS supposed to have heard already.
As soon as I hear, if it's positive, I'll send Ethics applications out to school divisions!

I've put together an online semantic judgment survey to collect some native English speaker information about the relatedness between pairs of words.
Answers are coming in.
I've divided it into 3 parts and have 30 responses for part 1...fewer and fewer as I look at parts 2 and 3. I hope to finish with an equal number of responses to each section of the survey!  Please email me if you would like to participate!

Tentatively making preparations for the phonological judgement survey with native ASL signers through a friend/my tutor...just awaiting Ethics approval!

If you have any questions, send me an email at umhaimes at umanitoba dot ca.

b