ASL Week 1 Homework

Here is the fingerspelling chart. Practice the letters, both making them and reading them. Reading is harder. You will almost always be able to spell faster than you can read.

A great way practice is to sit down for 5 minutes and start spelling every word you see. Do that a couple of times a day and your speed will increase drastically. Focus on keeping the flow and tempo smooth. Also be sure not to bounce the letters. That makes it very hard for someone to read. Don't try for speed. Fluency is the key, speed comes later!

Double letters are done one of two ways. Closed handed letters, like A, S, M, etc and doubled by opening the hand and reforming the letter. You do not have to open the hand all the way, just relax back to the neutral position. Open handed letters like L and B are done by maintaining the hand shape and sliding the letter to the right (or left if you are spelling with your left hand).

Remember to practice spelling with both hands.

Try spelling words to another person and vice versa. Reading is much harder to do and requires more practice. When trying to read someone's fingerspelling it is important to approach it in a similar manor as reading the words in a book. If we are reading the word car, we don't read C-A-R. Instead we read ka-ah-rr. Fingerspelling is similar.

There is a really neat fingerspelling tool here. This is great to use in the beginning because you can see things fingered the right way and you can adjust the speed.

If your hands start to get sore, stop. Fingerspelling is very hard on the hands. Far more so that signing words.

For an extra challegne, try learning the song for next time.

ASL Week One

Our first sign language co-op will be Tuesday. I have to say, I am a little nervous. I have never taught sign language to children. I was a TA in college and tutored more adults than I can count. I also taught sign language to behavioral health workers.

I am not sure if the spatial concepts will be easier of harder for children to grasp. On one hand, children tend to mirror gestures. If you are facing a young child and tell them to do what you do, they will mirror you. So if you raise your right hand, they will raise their left. The spatial relationship is on the same side. Sign Language spatial concepts work the opposite. So this might be a challenge. On the other hand, I have worked with adults that just could not get the concept of a spatially based language. The adults tend to be too set in their ways and can only think of language in the form of words. Kids are more open to different ways of thinking.

Grammar, I think, will be easier for the kids. Kids tend to be more accepting of the grammar rules in sign language. Adults think in terms of predicates, verbs, nouns, tense, etc. Those things are just not as important in sign language, at least not in the way we typically think of them. Kids tend to think in pictures. That is a perfect way to think about sign language grammar. As an example, if you are going to say 'red car', most adults will sign RED - CAR. In actuality you would sign CAR - RED. You sign the description in the same order in which you would draw the picture. If you are drawing a picture of a red car you would draw the car first and then color it red. A spatial, visual language must be thought of in a spatial, visual way.

We will begin with the alphabet and the hundred most common words. We will do some point of reference and spatial drills after we break for lunch. The co-op is on the 2nd and 4th Tuesday of each month. We will go as fast or as slow as we need to. Some units have more vocab and will likely need more time than some of the shorter units. You won't need any text book. Everything is available online. However if you are interested in a dictionary I have a really nice one that I can recommend. It is a bit pricey though!

ASL Co-op

We will be starting an ASL co-op twice a month. I'm capping it at 10 kids so if you haven't emailed me yet, do so!

I am going to follow the lessons laid out in the link I posted earlier this week. The plan is to cover 1 to 2 weeks worth of vocab. The explanations are available online but sometimes you just need to see the sign to get it.

After that we will do some of the drills that go along with the lessons and we will also practice fingerspelling and finger reading.

We will also do some simple spatial drills. I will have to simplify most of the drills I have since they are geared toward college students. Heck the student I taught in college had difficulty with these. Perhaps the young, un-entrained minds of the kids will grasp the spatial concepts faster. It will be an interesting observation to make.

ASL grammar is very simple but many people have a hard time grasping the visual concepts. Again, I wonder if the kids won't have this problem.

We will also talk about Deaf Culture. I doubt the kids will find it as fascinating as I do but it is important to understand how the Deaf view themselves.

ASL Curriculum Online

This website looks awesome. I have only gone through a couple of pages but it looks very thorough.