The SIWI in America and Its Enlightenment to the Writing Instruction of Chinese DHH Students

Abstract

Under the current situation of language delay, deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) students in China and America generally face three kinds of writing dilemmas: "do not want to write", "nothing to write" and "do not know how to write". SIWI is an approach to teaching writing to DHH students in the United States proposed by Wolbers A. Kimberly of the University of Tennessee in 2007. On the basis of cognitive process theory, sociocultural theory and second language teaching theory, SIWI has formed three instructional components (strategic instruction, interactive instruction, language instruction), as well as two instructional principles (balanced and authentic). The results of several studies with nearly 200 DHH students showed that the DHH students in the SIWI group were nearly five times better at expressing their writing in terms of both language and content than the DHH students in the control group. These findings demonstrate the effectiveness of SIWI in teaching writing to DHH students. Many related studies in China have shown that the same problems that American DHH students have in their writing also appear in the compositions of Chinese DHH students. Therefore, SIWI can provide useful thinking and reference for designing the writing instructional model of DHH students in China.