Having watched the presentation of our original learning plan from the beginning of the semester, I can proudly reflect and say that so far things have been going smoothly despite some initial troubles with the Zoom technology and our class setup. Previously, I, Susmita, and Eli would be taught by Ms. Reba along with Ms. Kaye as her translator but now we have decided to separate into two groups with Ms. Kaye instructing me and Susmita so that we may move at our own pace and have some more flexibility with class times and topics we want to explore. For example, I am very much interested in the history of ASL, the rational for certain signs, how those signs have evolved in their usage I today’s context compared to say 50 years ago. Susmita is very much interested in the medicine and how ASL can help better communicate with patients who might be deaf or hard of hearing. Through our practice with Ms. Kaye, we have also made certain changes to our approach from the original learning plan by incorporating class material and following along with some of “themes” provided to us in our ASL book. For example, initially I wanted to explore more vocabulary and phrases related to sports but instead we focused on more basic conversational themes that would help us develop our signing such as emotions, school related topics like what are you studying, signs for different occupations, places, etc. Our discussions in class regarding learning strategies helped me a lot because, one of my biggest takeaways from earlier on in the semester was that there is a huge difference between “studying” and “learning” a language. Throughout the semester my goal has been to learn as much as possible and to become an autonomous language learner who possesses the necessary skills to be able to self-teach different languages at least on a conversational level. I believe language and culture to be intertwined and also to an extent act as a circular cycle where one aspect influences the other. For example, in the US people are increasingly using more traditional slang words in everyday contexts in response to the changing pop-cultural landscape. This language then influences future cultural sentiments and evolution. To improve my communication competence within ASL, I need to do more practice with finger spelling so I can better follow along. I still find it tricky to perfectly do a lot of finger spelling within a short period of time because I still lack the recollection and muscle memory that comes from extensive usage. Based on the reading of H.D. Brown, my learning plan emphasizes sociolinguistic, discourse, and grammar competences.
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