Classroom Assessment of the Use of Compact Language Drills: A Technique Borrowed from Foreign Language Teaching

Many deaf children have great difficulty learning how to use irregular English verbs. This research study seeks to exemplify how a single-case, ABA design can be used by classroom teachers in making a determination about the usefulness of classroom teaching strategies, and in the case of this study, to explore the use of compact language drills (CLDs) as a technique for helping a deaf child improve his ability to use 4 irregular verbs. The CLDs were conducted 5-10 minutes each day for five weeks at the close of school. The drills engaged the child in immediate recall of simple sentences loaded with semantic/syntactic clues which signalled the need for a past, present or future irregular verb within the target sentence. The results suggest that CLDs, when used systematically, can significantly improve a child's ability to use irregular verbs correctly, both immediately following treatment, and across time.