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Teaching a Language in Another Modality: A Case Study from Swedish Sign Language L2 Instruction

This study focuses on a Swedish Sign Language (STS) interpreting education, in which the students learn a second language (L2) that is expressed in the visual-gestural modality instead of the auditory-vocal one. Due to the lack of research on sign language L2 instruction, the teachers have limited scientific knowledge and proven experience to lean on in their work. Therefore, an action research-based project was started with the aim to enhance teachers’ knowledge about effective ways of teaching STS as an L2, and to examine how teaching can lead to students making good progress and attaining deep knowledge in STS. The article presents results from one of the projects’ sub-studies, Initial teaching through different primary languages, where a hearing STS L2 teacher’s approaches are examined when teaching the hearing students the new language in another modality than their previous language(s). The results show how this teacher uses her own knowledge from learning STS as an L2 and how she, through using spoken Swedish, provides rich metalinguistic knowledge that contributes to the students’ deeper theoretic knowledge about STS in addition to their practical STS learning. This had pedagogical implications for the further development of the instruction at the interpreting program.