Sign Language?

[Fourever Charmed]

Alrighty, so I'm trying to pick out my Fall Semester college schedule and I'm a little stuck because my original schedule apparently didn't work so says Newbie (a.k.a. the new counselor who replaced the counselor I loved because he was so extremely helpful).

I was told by Newbie that I needed a forgein language. I've totally been avoiding that because I SUCK at foreign languages. (I was so incredibly bad at Spanish.) Remembering all those words and saying them and saying them wrong...I felt like a doofus quite frankly. So, I thought, "What if I take sign language? I use my hands obsessively when I talk anyway, so why not put them to actual signing?" I'm a little concerned of course, because I've never been exposed to sign language before.

So I'm curious, has anyone else ever taken it by chance? And if so, how was it? Was it more difficult than say, Spanish or French? Or easier? Or about the same?

[Astral Echo]

I wouldn't really do it unless I was interested in going in to teaching or caring for special needs children or alternatively if I had a death child of my own. Unlike an actually language, it's not all that common unless you deal with it, with in your profession.

[Xenith]

This may be a stupid question, but make sure that they count ASL as an language course, since it's only about 25% of schools that count it as a language elective (Spanish, French, German), as most just count it as an linguistic couse (Speech, Public Speaking) or general elective.

Anyways I tried it for half a semester and ended up dropping it. A lot can depend on the quality of the ASL teacher,and their methods. (Mine was one of those asses who made you sign up high with palm facing completely out like they show in the textbooks...and quite frankly that can hurt after a while. He was also a stickler for not mouthing words (in english to yourself) and generally made us memorize way more words at a time with similiar signs than I think we were ready for

Most of his tests were also of the stand up in front of the class or one on one with him at the desk, and I have anxiety issues when it comes to that type of public speaking, so of course my hands shook as I tried to sign and I got marked down for that since that can sometimes change meaning, and I had trouble remembering the right facial gestures to go with the sign (apparently facial expressions can also change word meaning?).

Of course this stuff is all worst case scenario. I've had several friends who took ASL as an random elective who reported much better results.with a good teacher.

Anyways for an idea of a potential basic ASL curriculum structure check out the site lifeprint.com and the university curriculum RTF files they have for free download (http://www.lifeprint.com/asl101/curriculum/asluniversityworkbooklevel1.rtf)


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[Fourever Charmed]

Aug 16, 2008 2:26:20 GMT -5 Xenith said:

This may be a stupid question, but make sure that they count ASL as an language course, since it's only about 25% of schools that count it as a language elective (Spanish, French, German), as most just count it as an linguistic couse (Speech, Public Speaking) or general elective.

Anyways I tried it for half a semester and ended up dropping it. A lot can depend on the quality of the ASL teacher,and their methods. (Mine was one of those asses who made you sign up high with palm facing completely out like they show in the textbooks...and quite frankly that can hurt after a while. He was also a stickler for not mouthing words (in english to yourself) and generally made us memorize way more words at a time with similiar signs than I think we were ready for

Most of his tests were also of the stand up in front of the class or one on one with him at the desk, and I have anxiety issues when it comes to that type of public speaking, so of course my hands shook as I tried to sign and I got marked down for that since that can sometimes change meaning, and I had trouble remembering the right facial gestures to go with the sign (apparently facial expressions can also change word meaning?).

Of course this stuff is all worst case scenario. I've had several friends who took ASL as an random elective who reported much better results.with a good teacher.

Anyways for an idea of a potential basic ASL curriculum structure check out the site lifeprint.com and the university curriculum RTF files they have for free download (http://www.lifeprint.com/asl101/curriculum/asluniversityworkbooklevel1.rtf)

I'm pretty sure it is. I've been told by a handful of people that they do count it as a second language, including two counselors.

And actually, the reason I considered it so much is exactly because I have a have the same problem with speeches. I stutter, my mouth goes completely dry, my voice tends to get super quiet and at the same time high pitched (as odd as that sounds) and by that time, nobody can even hear what I'm saying. And then having people stare at me causes me to forget what I'm saying, then I pause, I involuntarily avoid eye contact... I'm just absolutely horrible at speaking in front of people when it comes right down to it. (I had this blind friend who I was paired with in English during my Senior year and we had to do an oral presenation and after class was over he told me, "I can't believe that was really you, you sounded like a totally different person during that presenation. I could hardly hear you.")

Yeah, and then add in attempting to also remember what I'm trying to say in another language with their different and odd sounding pronounciations? Yeah...I'm just terrible at foreign language.

So that's a big part of why I thought sign language might be a better choice for me. I'm not sure about the teacher, I've never met her, but I'm told she's fairly good. (We'll see.) I did try to look her up on GradeMyProfessor.com (Jackie suggested it), but she wasn't listed, which I was a little disappointed about.

I did end up signing up for it, though. I can always drop the class if I have to, providing it's within the first week or so I believe (without a payment penalty). I guess I'll just have to feel her and the syllabus out first.

But thanks for the link to the curriculum outline, X, I will definitely check that out! I'll be knocking on wood until class starts now, though, after reading your experience. I REALLY hope I get a good, patient instructor!

[Fourever Charmed]

So I have my first class at 1:00 P.M. tomorrow and I think I've successfully learned to sign the whole alphabet. (And the color pink. )

I'm just very sloooow at it. lol

I'll take this as a good sign anyway.

[Drama]

Mastered the alphabet already? That's great.

How'd it go?

[Fourever Charmed]

Aug 26, 2008 20:57:15 GMT -5 Drama said:

How'd it go?

Oh my gosh, it went WAY better than I thought it would!

I think I have a really good teacher. Her name is Cindy Frank and she has an impressively long history with linguists and deaf people:
- Her grandparents (maternal and paternal) are deaf
- Her mother is deaf
- All seven of her aunts and uncles (her mother's siblings) are deaf
- Her own four siblings are "hard of hearing"
- She herself is "hard of hearing" (she only hears about 60% of what people say to her and she hears deep voices better than high pitched ones)
- She has a Masters in Linguistics
- She's a certified interpreter

She said that she's also been offered college teaching positions in Australia and New Zealand (among others), which I thought was pretty neat. (She could pretty much go anywhere in the world and get a job with the amount of experience she has.)

She's also very personable and told us that she wants the class to be very relaxed, like a big group of friends. She used the example that you tend to get your best ideas at night because you're relaxed, so she wanted the class to also be relaxed so ASL would come easier to us. (Which made total sense to me.)

And then she even told us to tell her if we have severe fears about presenting in front of the class. (I did explain my problem to her after class.) She's completely understanding and said that we'll work around that as we come those issues.

And our first homework assignment was to learn to spell our name and sign, "My name is __________."

I already know how!!

I also now know how to sign (as in the symbols and not just finger spelling): watch, necklace, girl, boy, earrings, and tree.

And the crazy thing is, she didn't even teach them to us!

See, she started off the class by writing a bunch of stuff on the board and then signing "Little Red Riding Hood" for us, then she asked us how we were able to follow what was going on without words and asked us what we thought [insert the sign for tree] meant. Many of the kids said "woods or tree" and she said we were right. Then a little while later, when she was explaining how she believes people remember things visually faster than orally, she asked, "Now who remembers how to sign 'tree'?"

Most of the class remembered that and so she turned to her assistant and said, "See? And I didn't even teach them that, I just talked about it."

The same was true for the other signs I learned. She never actually stood up there and taught them, she just signed them as they came up during the course of her talking about herself and her history with SL, yet I remember them. Personally, I find that amazing, because it took me forever to learn how to say "My name is Camille" in Spanish, let alone memorize it, and yet today I learned how to sign "My name is Camille" plus a bunch of other words in the course of about an hour (she didn't even make us stay the entire hour and 45 minutes).


Oh, and X, she did reassure us that ASL is a foreign language credit because it's got its distinct "words," sentence structure, grammar, etc, etc, etc... and therefore considered its own language.

;D If the rest of the semester goes as smoothly as today's class went, I think I might actually do well at this. ;D

[Drama]

YAY! Awesome. That's sooo great that you've got a good teacher.

My Spanish teacher talks mostly spanish, but says if we don't get something, tell her, so she can repeat. Granted, everyone in the class has taken Spanish before, so she just wants us to LISTEN so we catch on. Not too bad. I hope.

[Lexi]

I still remember my first day of taking German. My teacher just constantly spoke German to us, we weren't allowed to speak any English in the lesson unless asking for what a word was and then the sentence (except the word we didn't know, of course) had to be in German. It was actually a better way for us to learn.

I'm glad you enjoying your class, Camille, though and that it's what you hoped for. It's great when everything goes the way you want. Good luck with it all!