Review, Review and Review
This is week 10 of my Genius Hour Project. This week the focus was to review all the signs I have learned up-to-date, which I have to say was not easy as I learned around ~300 signs.
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| All of the words I have learned during this project! |
The Review Process
The review process was very difficult as there were a lot of signs I had to review. I started off by first making a file of all the words I have learned so far in sign language. Then I went through all the words and checked to see which signs I remembered and which ones I had forgotten. Spoiler alert, I had forgotten most of them!
Listed below are all the videos I watched (and plan to watch) to review. I have not been able to go through them all yet as they are lengthy.
The biggest problem I am finding is that I have no one to communicate with in sign language, so it's like trying to speak a language when you are the only one in the room who speaks it. The pandemic has made it difficult as I am not able to attend any local sign language classes. I feel like classes will be so helpful in me actually learning the signs and understanding how to properly form sentences and communicate correctly.
Another aspect that I find could be the reason for my difficulty in remembering the signs is that I am putting learning sign language second and school work first. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it does hinder my progress as I am so focused on school and one hour a week is not enough for me to learn sign language. I do get frazzled when there is so much going on, thereby leading to me forgetting the signs.
I have decided to change my end product and will no longer be doing a song in ASL. Through my research to find a great song to sign along to, one discussion piece that keeps on coming up is that this can be extremely disrespectful to the deaf community. In addition, this end product would not have been able to showcase my ability to sign as I have not learned enough signs in sign language and I am still in the process of understanding the rules of ASL to be able to properly sign a song, in short I lack the skill level. This would have just resulted with me learning the signs off a video and remaking the video. The problem or concern with this is that a lot of song interpretations in ASL online are not correctly done and this again can be disrespectful. Moreover, this is not an accurate representation of my ability. Since I am worried about this product translating as offensive or inconsiderate and with me still being in the beginner phase of learning ASL I have changed my final product.
The path I am leaning towards for my final product is to perform the ABC you later song. It is a simple alphabet song but, I feel like my strongest point in my journey has been learning the ASL alphabet. The ASL alphabet was the aspect I was the most nervous about as when I had tried to learn it when I was younger I just wasn't able to. However, the ASL alphabet has definitely been the biggest highlight and I am so happy that I was actually able to learn it this time!
On a side note: I have been trying to convince my sister to learn it, but that is still a work in progress.
The Numbers
Last week I learned the numbers 20-30 and this week I learned the numbers 31-40. According to the video by Laura Berg Life the numbers 20-30 are some of that hardest to learn, which makes me feel better about learning the rest of the numbers (41-100). If the rest of the numbers in ASL will be like the numbers 30-40 (video), I am confident I will learn them pretty fast!
The Chosen Song Dilemma
Check this out
Kathy Buckley is a comedian who is deaf. I found her video to be interesting as when she is speaking to her audience, you can notice that she is signing some of the words. On top of that, her comedy is hilarious!
Next Blog: Final Post
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Jasman, I commend you on learning sign language for your project! I was very fortunate to begin learning sign language in high school - we had video tapes I'd bring home from the library - "Signing with Cindy." :) I'm with you when you say, "The biggest problem I am finding is that I have no one to communicate with in sign language, so it's like trying to speak a language when you are the only one in the room who speaks it." Yup. I was then fortunate to take two community college courses in ASL (while still in HS), and then I lived on a floor at NIU that was for those interested in Deaf Education AND Deaf students themselves. I love that you're simultaneously learning about the Deaf community. You'll find that there are different perspectives there, too, just like anywhere. Keep digging in, keep practicing, and let me know (via Twitter - @JoyKirr) if you'd like to Zoom over the summer to practice! I'm very rusty on my skills, for sure! ;)
ReplyDeleteHello Joy, that is so nice and kind of you to allow me to communicate with you in sign language to practice my skills. I have actually convinced one of my friends to start learning sign language and we will be practicing on one another. I am very excited for her to start learning and to finally have someone who I can practice my skills on. I would also like to say thank you to you as well, as you actually commented on one of my earlier posts and let me know how you were once in my position but were able to learn sign language and have a career in Deaf education. This allowed me to gain confidence, so thank you!
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