My Forgetful Brain

 

This is week 8 of my Genius Hour Project. This week I focused on continuing to learn words in sign language and to form a strategy so I can start to remember all the words that I have previously learned, as I sadly have forgotten most of them. I also continued with learning the numbers in sign language. 

All the words I learned this week

Fingerspelling

I've noticed that I have difficulty understanding signers when they fingerspell, as to me their normal fingerspelling speed is very fast. I need them to sign the words slow to understand what is being finger spelled. In addition, I recognized that while I know the sign alphabet I do not always recognize it when someone else is signing. I found some websites, Sign Language Forum and Hand speak to help me develop my receptive skills with fingerspelling. I did not have enough time to go over them this week, but I will be reviewing them next week.

This is what the normal speed of sign language looks like to me, by the time I recognize the first letter, I've missed half the letters in between and try my best to figure out the word with the first and last letter. 

Favourite sign of the week

My favourite sign this week has to be "not". As I did not know there existed a sign for "not", I would always sign "no" in place of "not".
The sign for "not"

For example, if I wanted to sign "I not have uncle", I would sign "I no have uncle" which would be incorrect. Of course, I was unaware as I didn't know the "not" sign existed. I also like doing the sign for "not" it's another fun sign like "spell". 


Numbers

I also continued with learning the numbers in sign language and this week I learned the numbers 11-20. I was surprised as I always thought the numbers were signed with both hands, but similar to the 1-10 numbers, these numbers were also signed with one hand. 

Review strategy

I learned this week how important it is to review the signs that I have learned. I am not practicing my signs, thereby leading to me forgetting them. I have decided to compile a list of all the signs I have learned and start to review them. 


This will allow me to recognize/re-remember the signs I have forgotten. For example, when I look at the sign for "meet", I (somewhat) remember the sign but I do not remember how to position my hands. I also feel like I have to take this further and maybe try using each word in the list in a sentence. This can help me kill two birds with one stone. I can review each of the signs and also practice forming sentences.
                                 
This is the signs for "meet" (left) and "I meet you" (right). Both signs are similar to one another therefore confusing me as to which one I should be using when signing.

Next week

I will review all the signs I have learned so far. Reviewing these signs can help me with the memorization process. It can also help me to create some distinction between signs that confuse me. This was supposed to be my goal to accomplish this week as I stated in my last blog, but this week I got very busy with school and did not have time to actually determine a strategy to execute this, so this is a perfect goal for next week.

How my brain makes room for the new signs I learn
by shredding the previously learned signs :(

Check it out

Have a look at the video below which is a performance by Stephen Torrence signing the song Bohemian Rhapsody. Andy Dexterity also has an amazing performance in sign language to this song, however the camera angles in his video are all over the place, which can make it hard to see and interpret the signs. But here is the LINK to his performance to this song.  


Next Blog: Apologies

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