https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GbxFIVQv8c&ab_channel=NITVShorts

*Spoilers Ahead*

The Silent Child is a short film on sign-language that won Oscars for Live Action Short Film in 2018. It follows the chronicles of a 4-year-old Deaf child (Libby) born in a hearing family. The family hires a social worker to help Libby be more confident before starting school. They tell the social worker that Libby is a quiet child, who rarely talks. So, they want the social worker to encourage Libby to lip-read more. The social worker brings up the topic of British sign language (BSL), but the mother swiftly dismisses that possibility. In the following days, the social worker realizes some bigger problems going on in that household. The rest of the family members: the parents and two adult children make no effort to communicate with Libby at all. Their attempt at conversations with Libby is just shouting louder at her and hoping that she will hear it.  

While working with Libby, the social worker realizes that Libby can barely lip-read. So, she starts teaching BSL to Libby. This opens up a whole new world for Libby where she can easily communicate with the social worker and express herself. However, this upsets the parents, who wanted Libby to not sign, but instead lip-read and do speech-therapy. In a final attempt to push their agenda, the parents fire the social worker and enroll Libby into a regular school with no extra support for Libby’s disability. The final moments in the film show Libby not being able to hear anything that the teacher is saying and feeling isolated, juts like in the beginning of the movie before the social worker came into her life.

This short film was written by Rachel Shenton, based on her own experiences of growing up with a Deaf parent and it manages to get almost everything right about the challenges associated with growing up as a Deaf child in a hearing household. It also excellently points out the deep embedded nature of audism and oralism in our society to the extent that Libby’s parents try to force her to lip-read. It is audism and oralism that drives the parents to deny Libby the opportunity of learning BSL from the social worker. Ultimately, it drives them to fire the social worker and forcefully enroll their child into a regular school. Their actions really made me wonder how low one must think of Deafness to treat their own child that way. The social worker even recommends the family to learn basic sign language to be able to communicate with Libby, but the mother responds by saying “No, I want her to be normal.” The social worker fights back saying “Libby is normal. She just needs the right resources.”. There are some beautifully shot moments in the film where Libby stares at her family laughing and talking at the dining table and she is completely left out of it. The family labels her as “shy”, but what they don’t realize is that they cannot force Libby to lip-read or talk just because it makes their life easier. There is also another crucial part in the movie where Libby’s grandmother asks the social worker if Libby will ever get a job because the only job a Deaf person can get is that of a cleaner.

All these little moments in a 20-minute movie highlight the gravity of what happens when a Deaf child is born to hearing parents, especially when they are unaccepting of Deafness. With 9 out of 10 Deaf children born to hearing parents, this movie highlights all the things that can go wrong for a Deaf child.  It also shows how people like interpreters, social workers, audiologists etc. might try to advocate for Deaf kids, but ultimately, it is parents who decide and that decision may not always be in the favour of Deafness.

The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 prohibited discrimination against people with disabilities in programs employing federal employees or receiving federal assistance and contracts (Tucker, 1997). The private sector, however, were still allowed to openly discriminate when it came to hiring practices or accommodations.  Finally, in 1990, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was passed. The ADA is a civil rights law that prohibits discrimination against people with any physical or mental disabilities in all private and public spaces open to the general public, such as employment, schools, transportation etc. (ADA.org, n.d.).

Following the passage of ADA, some issues have drastically improved for the Deaf community while some issues continue to linger. One of the biggest improvements under ADA, have been seen in the case of access to the public-school system. Deaf students now have access to interpreters, audiologists, speech-to-text and text-to-speech technologies etc. under enhanced communication models adopted under the ADA. This means, attending public schools, is a much more realistic option for Deaf students today, that it has ever been in the history. Such improvement in accessibility and accommodations has led to the creation of a “deaf-middle class” that consists of increasing number of Deaf people with higher education degrees such as: doctors, lawyers etc (Buckley, 2020). In spite of increasing access to education, the employment gap continues to be substantial. In 2017, only 53.3% Deaf people aged 25-64 were employed, as compared to the 75.8% hearing people. It would be interesting to see how this statistic breaks down if we further break down the age bracket to 20-40 and 40-60 because I assume the 20-40 age group should have been the ones who should have gotten better access to education following the passage of ADA. It is also important to note that Deaf students who go to schools for K-12 education, may not necessarily follow through on their education with a higher education degree. Or there might still be continuing discrimination against Deaf people when it comes to employment. So, their degrees or their qualification may not be necessarily translating into jobs.

In addition to education, the ADA also improved access to entertainment for the Deaf community. Under ADA’s law regarding access to effective communication, Deaf people now have access to 24*7 video relay service programs that allow them to talk to people over the phone. Since January 2017, ADA has expanded its “Movie Captioning and Audio Description Rule” to require movie theatres to provide closed captioning and audio description to all Deaf people. Public places like hospitals, museums, grocery stores etc. are all required to provide interpreter services or reasonable communication accommodation to Deaf people.  Looking at these ADA mandates, it’s important to celebrate how far we have come in terms of disability rights and access. However, it is also important to acknowledge that these rules are just 30 years old. Generations and generations of Deaf people went without access to these fundamental rights which impeded their quality of life and access to other opportunities. While these laws are in effect, we cannot tell for sure if they are being enforced thoroughly all around the US. Changes take time and often there is a lot of reluctance in the US when it comes to accommodating minorities and people with special needs. So, the next decade should be focused on ensuring that these ADA laws are actually being enforced in our own communities and identifying ways to further refine and strengthen ADA.

Resources consulted for this post:

https://vitac.com/now-showing-rule-in-place-requiring-movie-theaters-to-be-more-accessible/

https://www.fcps.edu/academics/academic-overview/special-education-instruction/deaf-hard-hearing-services

https://www.mprnews.org/story/2010/07/22/ada-stories

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/on-anniversary-of-ada-is-life-better-for-those-with-disabilities

https://rockthevote.medium.com/why-the-americans-with-disabilities-act-is-so-important-to-me-as-a-child-of-deaf-adults-a5dcdcab717e

https://www.jstor.org/stable/1048084?seq=3#metadata_info_tab_contents

https://theconversation.com/the-ada-isnt-just-about-ramps-over-30-years-it-has-profoundly-changed-the-deaf-community-142541

Like most hearing people, I did not know the differences between hearing aids and cochlear implants until I started taking ASL and was learning about the resources available for Deaf people. At first glance, hearing aids and cochlear implants both look like same devices that help Deaf people hear and communicate better. This is true to some extent. While the ultimate goal for both devices is the same, both cochlear implants and hearing aids function differently and are better suited to a distinct type of population based on the type and extent of deafness. Consumer Affairs estimates that in 2021, around 12 million people use hearing aids in the US while only 50,000 people have cochlear implants. This makes sense because hearing aids were first invented in 1898 whereas cochlear implants were invented in 1961. So, hearing aids have been around for much longer than cochlear implants.

A hearing aid has three parts: a microphone, an amplifier, and a speaker. The microphone collects the sound waves from the surroundings, converts them to electrical signals, and sends it to be amplified in the amplifier. The amplifier then passes that magnified electrical signal to the ear through a speaker. Such amplified sounds follow the normal auditory system pathway after that i.e. they pass through the ear canal, eardrum, middle ear bones, cochlea, and auditory nerve. On the other hand, cochlear implants have an external sound receiver and an internal magnetic transmitter that is surgically placed inside the skin of a deaf person. The external receiver picks sound from the surroundings, sends it to the internal transmitter, which then converts the sounds to electrical impulses and sends it to the auditory nerve directly, via an electrode array. Hence, sound does not follow the general auditory system pathway in the case of cochlear implants, like it does in the case of hearing aids. This means, any damaged portion of the auditory system pathway can be bypassed by the cochlear implant system. This is not possible in the case of hearing implants, which functions more like a speaker and requires all parts of the auditory system to be functional.  

In addition, hearing aids are completely removable on a regular basis. Deaf people, with hearing aids, are often known to remove hearing aids while going to sleep or when they feel like blocking all external sounds. Cochlear implants, on the other hand, are surgically placed and are not easily removable. Moreover, hearing aids cost $3000- $6000 per pair whereas cochlear implants and the accompanying surgery costs around $100,000. Fortunately, most costs associated with hearing aids and cochlear implants are covered by insurance. Looking at these differences, hearing aids definitely seem like a more flexible and lower risk option to mitigate hearing loss. However, given the way hearing aids function, they are not suitable for everyone. This is where cochlear implants come in. As hearing aids function like speakers, they are more suited to people with mild to moderate hearing loss, whose hearing loss lies in the outer or middle ear. For people with more severe hearing loss in the inner ear, cochlear implants are a better option because they bypass the entire auditory system pathway and feed electrical signals directly to the auditory nerve.

It is important to note that while hearing aids and cochlear implants facilitate sound reception, they do not completely restore someone’s natural hearing. Having them is not the same as being transformed into a hearing person. Unlike online videos where they show kids smiling as soon as they get these devices for the first time, adjustment to these devices takes months as the brain needs to rewire. It is known to be uncomfortable, frustrating, and is accompanied by months of speech therapy. Hence, we should learn to not only appreciate the science behind invention of such important devices, but also understand the emotional, financial, and physical costs associated with them. There is no one-size-fits-all solution to deafness and over-glamorization of hearing devices can result in a lot of disappointment for deaf people looking to supplement their hearing.

Resources consulted for this post:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6913847/

https://www.consumeraffairs.com/health/cochlear-implants-vs-hearing-aids.html

https://www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/hearing-aids

https://audiologyconsultants.com/blog/what-is-the-difference-between-a-hearing-aid-and-a-cochlear-implant

With the COVID-19 pandemic forcing everyone to stay home, the trend of content creation and engagement has drastically increased in social media. TikTok, which was once viewed as an avenue for teenagers to dance to pop songs, has seen an unprecedented rise in users. Such users have expanded the use of TikTok from entertainment to a wide variety of things such as: marketing, brand management, tourism, social awareness etc. One of the best examples of the TikTok community’s engagement with social issues is: Deaf awareness.

https://www.tiktok.com/@chrissycanthearyou?lang=en

Chrissy Marshall is a deaf, 19-year-old TikToker with 1.2 million followers. She makes TikToks on her experiences of living as a Deaf person in the US. In one of her most viral videos covered by multiple media outlets, Chrissy talks about a special day where she came across three people who could sign to her: her bank teller, her Starbuck barista, and her Pretzel server.  She describes feeling incredibly touched and grateful and labels the day as a “utopian day”. The video, which has also been uploaded to twitter now, has been viewed by over 5.6 million people and continues to be shared. In response to her video, most people have thanked Chrissy for making them realize how small effort on their part like learning a few ASL signs, can mean so much to the Deaf people. Other people have commented how Chrissy is inspiring them to learn ASL and be more aware about the needs of Deaf people around them. Chrissy has also made videos on how mask wearing has affected the Deaf community. Given how most people don’t know how to sign, Deaf people often rely on facial expressions and lip-reading to carry out conversations. Mask-wearing has eliminated that option, making communication even harder for Deaf people.  

Another interesting thing about Chrissy’s videos is that she gradually lost her hearing and became completely deaf by the end of high school. This means, she can still speak to people and inform them that she is deaf. This often results in people being surprised and then trying to “test” if she is actually deaf or how deaf she is. Chrissy calls this treatment “being forced to do unjust demonstration of her integrity just because she is disabled” .  These are just the representative samples of all the Deaf issues that Chrissy has highlighted in her TikToks. Chrissy aims to continue making TikToks to educate people about ASL and teach them better ways to conduct themselves around Deaf people. Even though it comes at a cost of putting her life on social media for everyone to view and comment on, Chrissy believes it is worth doing for all the good that it can result in.

It is important to note that Chrissy is not the only Deaf person raising social awareness about Deaf communities in social media, or even just in TikTok. There are hundreds of Deaf people dedicated to this, across Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and TikTok. With their work, these creators are educating generations of hearing people about Deaf community. In doing so, they are also bridging the gap between the hearing world and the Deaf world. This really shows the power that social media has. When used intentionally, social media can function as a tool for social change. However, what I find sad about this situation is that Deaf people are having to do this work all by themselves. Deaf people were fighting for their rights before the passing of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in 1990 and they are still fighting for their rights today, just to get hearing people to understand and treat them better. This should force the hearing world to think about what our role should be in amplifying and supporting Deaf voices because we are clearly not doing enough.

Hello everyone,

My ASL learning goal for April was to focus on expanding my ASL vocabulary. However, with things like the final cultural presentation, podcast, inflectional and derivational morphemes etc. being discussed in SDLC 105, some of those conversations carried over to my language sessions too. So, we ended up touching on a wide variety of things that collectively nuanced my understanding of ASL.

Learning new ASL vocabulary turned out to be much harder than anticipated because there was simply so much to learn! By the time we had covered vocabulary related to academia, feelings, greetings, and weather, I found myself really struggling to memorize them. The patterns and mnemonics that I had previously used to memorize alphabets, animals, colours etc. were no longer a useful method while memorizing hundreds of new ASL vocabulary. So, my language partner and I created “quiz-times” in every session where she would randomly quiz me on the ASL vocabulary. I have never learnt well with flash cards. However, being quizzed orally was surprisingly helpful and it helped me retain a lot of new signs. Next, we started a new method of assessment where my language partner would give me sentences that used all the vocabulary that we had learnt since Day 1. This was really intimidating because it forced me to reflect on everything we had learnt. There was so much I remembered, but also so much I had forgotten! By far, this was the most effective learning method for me because it tied up everything from fingerspelling to signs and sentence structures.  It was also great for synthesizing new sentences and building confidence.

Another very interesting thing that came up during our vocabulary sessions was regional differences in ASL across the US. We were following the Barron’s American Sign Language textbook in our sessions. Occasionally, we would come across a sign and my language partner would say “Hmm, I have never seen that sign before. Here’s how I sign it and here’s how I have seen other people sign it”. To me, this was so odd in the beginning because I already knew that sign language varies across the world. As it turns out, American sign language also has regional variations within the US. So, there were a lot of words where my language partner would give me 4-5 sign options to choose from. I really liked having the flexibility to choose between signs, but I also kept on thinking whether that would create confusion when people from different regions talked to each other. My language partner confirmed that there are situations where that happens, but it is not significant enough to actually impede conversation.

Towards the end of our April lessons, we shifted focus to our final research presentation.  My friend Nibras and I had chosen a very heavy topic for our research- The Politics of Deaf Identity: What does it mean to be Deaf in today’s socio-political climate? Given the incredibly loaded and sensitive nature of this topic, Nibras and I spent a lot of time asking our language partner’s opinion on it. Particularly, our language partner’s full-time job is to help Deaf kids adjust into the Public schools in Richmond. So, we were able to get some incredibly valuable insights into her work. She shared how young kids do not like wearing cochlear implants because it is uncomfortable, but then hearing parents want their Deaf kids to wear the implants. So, this creates a very tense situation between the school and the parents. Being able to hear these perspectives made me and Nibras realize the gravity and intricacies of the topic we were presenting on. Finally, we ended our ASL journey this semester by recording our final podcast. We were so excited to talk about everything we had learnt this semester that the estimated 15 minutes podcast time was not enough. We reflected on the early challenges, milestones, and our future plans for learning ASL. Particularly, we hoped that anyone watching the podcast could see our enthusiasm for the language. The podcast was a nice way to wrap everything up and bid goodbye to our language partner. Nibras and I made some great memories in this class and we are so incredibly grateful to the University of Richmond and Global Studio for making this class possible. Thank you everyone for being a part of my ASL journey!

Hello everyone,

My goal for March was to focus on the difference in sentence structures between English and ASL. As I have mentioned here before, ASL does not have a rigid sentence structure like English does. There is a lot of fluidity in how one sentence can be said as long as you get the message across. However, we were still able to identify and practice some more popular sentence structures in ASL. I am careful about calling them “popular sentence structures” and not “rules” because an ASL sentence that does not follow these popular patterns is still considered correct. One of the most interesting sentence structures that we discussed during our language sessions, was rhetorical questions. ASL rhetorical questions are not used in the same context as rhetorical questions in English. Unlike in English, ASL rhetorical questions are both asked and answered by the signer, not by the receiver. Examples of situations where ASL rhetorical questions are asked are as follows:

1. English: I am flying to Seattle.

ASL: Me Go-to Seattle How? Fly.

2. English: I was late because my car broke down.

ASL: Me arrive late why? My car break-down.

There are also a lot of non-manual signs like raised eyebrows, continuous eye contact, body shifts etc. associated with the bolded part of the sentence. I remember feeling very confused while learning this sentence structure because it felt so redundant and unnecessarily complicated. The question part is used to emphasize the answer rather than just signing a normal non-rhetorical question. However, I wonder if it is really necessary because if you are talking to someone or signing to someone, they probably already have your attention. In my opinion, this extra step breaks the flow in the conversation and does not nearly add much value. Moreover, my language partner says that Deaf people often “shorthand” things and rarely follow rules like these. So, this rule reminded me of the differences between formal and informal English. This seems to be a case of more formal ASL, which is not common in everyday conversations.

Another sentence structure that we learned was the topic comment structure. The topic comment structure is roughly the same as saying Object+ Subject+ Verb structure, where we describe the topic first and then make a comment about it. For example:

3. English: I want that red dress.

ASL: Dress red there, me want.

The nonmanual signs associated with the topic-comment structure is the same as the rhetorical questions above. Unlike the rhetorical sentence structure, I found the topic-comment structure to be incredibly useful because describing the topic first allows the viewers to orient themselves to the topic. Speaking from my own experience with ASL, it takes a while to register things as a listener/viewer if the conversation is about something that is not present in the vicinity. So, describing the topic first is helpful in starting to think about the person, place, issues etc. being discussed and then hear the speaker’s perspective on it. The topic comment structure is also used in yes/no questions, information seeking questions, conditional sentences, negation etc. After going through all these ASL sentence structures, I can say the topic comment structure is arguably the most versatile and foundational sentence structure in ASL.

While learning the sentence structures was incredibly important in itself, there is something bigger that came out of this experience. While critiquing and evaluating the usefulness of every structure, I came to realize how my understanding of ASL had evolved in a single month! I now understood the intricacies of signing and had opinions about what is useful vs what is redundant. This was one of the biggest milestones in my ASL learning journey and made me so much more confident about learning. My goal for March was just to be able to identify differences in sentence structures between ASL and English and I think well exceeded those goals. With a firm understanding of the foundational sentence structures, I want to focus my attention back to expanding my ASL vocabulary for the next month.

Reflect on your learning experiences this semester. (a) What insights have you gained about yourself as a language learner and cultural explorer? What did you find difficult? What have you enjoyed? How will you continue your learning? (b) Which readings and learning activities did you find most useful? What would you like to learn more about?

In my first reflection paper, I had expressed that I struggle to embrace the process of learning. The goal that I had set for myself was that I wanted to be comfortable with only knowing small fragments of my target language and its culture in a single semester. This turned out to be a much harder goal than I had anticipated. One of my friends from the class- Emma pointed out in her reflection how not being able to voice complex thoughts in her target language was really frustrating. That is exactly how I felt! Having to start from zero level in ASL was both humbling and intimidating. Often times, there would be so much I would want to say in my head, but I would only have the option of fingerspelling to voice that thought. Looking back, I think I started as an impatient language learner who would get easily discouraged from failures. However, over the course of the semester, the encouragement from my language partner Ms. Kaye Wise started to do wonders for my confidence. I think my rapidly increasing ASL vocabulary helped a lot too. However, that process of adjustment was truly uncomfortable. On the other hand, I really loved learning more about the Deaf culture and its relationship with ASL. As someone who is very passionate about social rights and activism, the issues surrounding Deaf culture really resonated with me. So, when it was time to do a cultural presentation on ASL, I chose to present on the fundamental challenges that the Deaf community is facing in the current socio-political climate. I really enjoyed working on that presentation because it gave me an avenue to advocate for the Deaf community, even though it was only in front of a few people from my class. This experience reaffirmed my love for ASL. I will continue working on ASL using the online resources like: lifeprint.com, signingsavvy.com etc. that I have been frequently using all throughout the semester. As a pre-med, the ethical issues surrounding cochlear implants also struck a chord with me. I am in the process of scheduling shadowing sessions with otolaryngologists / cochlear implant specialists in the Richmond area to further explore my combined interests in medicine and ASL. Finally, I intend to find more in-person ASL opportunities when things get better with COVID-19. Doing language sessions over zoom and not having that outlet to practice the language in-person, has made me feel like I am still  missing a critical part of my ASL language skills concerning body language and facial expressions. So, finding in-person opportunities such as silent dinners and volunteering activities is going to be the next step in my language journey.

In terms of readings and learning activities, I found the 2007 interview When Languages Die most useful. It is one thing to just do readings and try to imagine the gravity of things in your head, but it is an entirely different thing to see it visually and understand why we should care. The words of Dr. Harrison and examples of his field wok were fascinating. Especially, the parts were they showed the challenges of working with old native speakers and trying to weed through the ramblings to make sense of the language, really made me think what a difficult and novel task linguists like Dr. Harrison are doing. In mainstream media, we only see the urgency in saving biological species and historic buildings/ artifacts, which are facing the threat of extinction. This class on dying languages was my first exposure to the extinction of spoken languages and it successfully managed to highlight the extent of loss that comes with losing a language. In addition, I also found the class activities on morphemes really helpful. My previous knowledge of morphemes was limited to prefixes and suffixes. The jamboard activities and problem solving as a group really expanded my understanding of morphemes.

Overall, this class has made me realize that I will forever be fascinated by languages and cultures around the world. I am so grateful to have been given the opportunity to learn ASL and also work with this amazing cohort of friends from diverse cultures and backgrounds. Moreover, I have been greatly inspired by the wealth of knowledge and enthusiasm that Dr. Soloway has shared throughout the semester. So, I would like to thank all my friends and especially Dr. Soloway for being a part of my language journey and creating this wonderful class.

Hello everyone,

I cannot believe that we have reached the end of the semester! My language sessions this semester consisted of me, my friend Nibras and our language partner Ms. Kaye Wise. Our podcast serves as a trip down the memory lane where we discuss our triumphs, our failures, and our future plans of continuing ASL learning. We also talk about the upcoming ASL class this fall, which Ms. Kaye Wise will be co-teaching with our another ASL language partner- Ms. Reba Poole. What an exciting time to be an ASL learner at U of R!

Nibras and I have LOVED working with Ms. Wise.  We also greatly benefitted from Ms. Poole’s lived experiences as a Deaf person and as an ASL instructor. Nibras and I went into ASL not knowing much about it and have managed to develop an incredible love for the language, and a strong passion for Deaf rights advocacy. We hope that shines through in this podcast! Enjoy!

https://richmond.box.com/s/gauupior92mlpczyzar5zc1pyqm2hvj4

Unlike other spoken languages in SDLC, the American Sign Language (ASL) does not have its separate cultural components like foods, festivals, cultural practices etc. ASL seems to be influenced by both the Deaf culture and the American culture. So, when it was time to prepare a presentation distinct to ASL, I wanted to do it justice by touching on issues that are exclusive to the Deaf community. In this presentation titled “The Politics of Deaf Identity”, we have tried digging deeper into some of the biggest challenges that deaf communities face today. They are relevant, thought-provoking,and raise a question about what hearing people can do to help the Deaf communities navigate these challenges. We hope you like it!

**This was a combined presentation with my friend Nibras, who has also been taking ASL alongside me this semester.**

https://richmond.box.com/s/g1fcf6yiskpc7j93rz2jvj2jj55bgp5y

My Learning Plan

Where are you now?  What can you do?  What do you know?

Use the Levels of Competence document and the LinguaFolio® checklists to assess your current abilities in your language.  For more information, see the SDLAP Wiki.

Interpersonal Communication

Beginning 0

Interpretive Listening

Beginning 0

Interpretive Reading

Beginning 0

Presentational Speaking

Beginning 0

Presentational Writing

Beginning 0

I have no prior experience in ASL

What is your ultimate goal?  What is your goal for this semester?
What do you want to be able to do with this language at the end of this semester and in the future?

My ultimate goal is to be able to communicate with Deaf patient population without a medical interpreter. So, I am aiming for fluency in the long term. My goal for this semester is to be able to exchange greetings/farewells, introduce myself and my role, and explain basic registration procedures in a health care intake setting.

What tasks will you complete and what activities will you do this semester to meet your goals?  How will you document and evaluate your progress?

Novice learners should consult the ‘Language Tasks’ page of the SDLAP Wiki and incorporate the required tasks in their learning.  Be as specific as possible when planning activities, e.g., “I will watch YouTube videos to learn how to talk about the family.” or “I will consult a grammar text to learn about possessives.”  Make sure you include some tasks that are relevant to your interests, e.g., “I will learn to understand soccer commentary.” or “I will learn to talk about the stock market.”  Culture and language are, of course, inseparable.  It is expected that all your language will be culturally appropriate and that every task will contribute to your cultural competence.

In addition to posting your learning plan to the Ning, provide brief commentary describing how you have organized your self-directed learning plan. What have you learned so far? Have you identified resources and textbooks to promote your task-based objectives? How will your studies allow you investigate your target language and culture more deeply? What first prompted your interest, and motivated you to start learning? What feedback have you received from your classmates? Dr. Marsh-Soloway will provide written feedback

Given my experience of being an immigrant after moving to the US from Nepal, I am in awe of how languages have the ability to overcome geographical barriers and connect people and their cultures across the world. This realization is my biggest motivation behind pursuing a new language. For this class, I have chosen ASL specifically because I often volunteer in client-facing roles in different healthcare settings for low income, marginalized communities. In my roles, I have seen how language is one of the biggest barriers to accessible healthcare for patients who do not speak English. Finding an interpreter and accommodating non-English speaking patients takes time, lengthens the already long waiting time for appointments, and mostly results in an overall disconnected healthcare experience for patients from not being able to form a closer connection to their provider. The situation is even worse in medical emergencies, where there is lot of oversight regarding Deaf patients. Hence, I have organized my learning plan in a way that I can help address these specific issues that we commonly encounter in health care. My tasks are mostly focused on interpersonal communication. For example: greetings/farewells, basic introduction, compliments, basic medical emergency questions, technology related conversations etc. Along with practice sessions with my language partner and the ASL textbook, I have identified ASL YouTube channels, ASL dictionaries, goreact and some exceptional websites created by independent ASL instructors and non-profits serving Deaf communities. One thing that I have been fascinated with is how expressive ASL is. Even though I did not know any ASL while identifying these resources, I was surprised to see how much of the signing I could feel on a more emotional level. This makes ASL learning unlike any other language. Another thing I noticed is how different it feels while talking to my language partner. There is this deafening silence, which is a really strange feeling and I often find myself lip-syncing even though my signing itself is enough to communicate. While I did decide to learn ASL after seeing its importance in healthcare, I have also found myself being really interested in the history of ASL and the Deaf culture. This happened when I stumbled across some really thought provoking articles while I was trying to identify tasks and resources for my learning plan. I think I had always associated sign language as a solution to a physical condition, rather than a whole different way of life and culture- the Deaf culture. So, it was really eye opening to read about the Deaf communities, their organizations, and their challenges. As per all the resources I came across, the biggest challenge that Deaf communities face is that media and policymakers address their issues from a distance, without really understanding the Deaf culture. I am hopeful that my ASL skills will actually allow me to immerse myself in ASL environments and will help interact with/experience Deaf culture firsthand, so that I can be a better advocate for them.

I was born and raised in Nepal where formal school education begins by the age of three. Majority of such early education is focused on teaching Nepali and English to students concurrently. Once students learn the alphabets, syntax, and grammar for both languages at a beginner level, most of the upper level education is offered only in Nepali and developing English proficiency becomes more of a choice than a need for students. Over time, my Nepali improved while my English remained at the beginner level because I never used it. I have no recollection of learning basic English or Nepali as I learnt it when I was really young. However, I do remember learning Hindi through a lot of cartoons and movies all throughout elementary school. This was mostly because Nepal just had a few news channels and most of the entertainment channels on our cable were Indian. When I grew up and moved to the United States five years ago, I began working on expanding my knowledge of the English language and have ultimately become fluent in it now.

Looking back at my language journey, I do not recall being a language learner in a formal setting, but I have a lot of experience as an independent learner. I think the most enjoyable aspect of learning both English and Hindi was associating that learning experience to a serious purpose. In elementary school, that purpose was to be able watch cartoons in Hindi and in the US, it was solely for survival- to get hired for a job, to get into college for undergrad, and to succeed in this liberal arts education system. The more time I devoted to learning the language, the better I became at it and it helped me fulfill those aforementioned goals. In addition, I loved how my understanding of the world and various cultures expanded as I learned other languages. It allowed me to compare and contrast how societal norms, values, and human behaviors vary across the world. I am also the kind of person that derives their energy from social interactions. Through my use of Hindi and English on the internet, I was also able to connect to a global audience from a small village in Nepal and it helped me grow immensely, both on a personal and professional level. On the other hand, I really disliked the feeling of being unsuccessful and/or imperfect during the learning process. I am a perfectionist and I get easily discouraged when something takes a long time to master. The biggest milestone in my language journey was convincing myself that it is not possible to know everything about any language- not even my native language. Language is constantly evolving and the best I can do is just persevere and keep  working on my language skills without expecting complete mastery. This realization has made me a much more patient and effective learner. Another thing that I really disliked while learning English was how my accent was very prominent and that really discouraged me. My insecurities stem from a few experiences where people were either dismissive or verbally abusive just because I spoke with an accent. Over time, I have begun to realize that those few people do not represent everyone and it is possible to meet people who are more interested in me and my thoughts than my accent.

Based on all my language learning experiences, I am the kind of learner that gets really motivated by a purpose. For ASL, my learning motive is that I want to be able to interact with patients that rely on ASL as their only method of communication. I want to be able to guide them and advocate for them on clinical settings, which are often known to be overwhelming. Next, I am also the kind of learner that thrives on autonomy regarding the pace and structure of the learning process. However, I do appreciate a little bit of push from the instructor every once in a while because I tend to obsess over small details and lose sight of the bigger picture. Regarding learning styles, I believe I learn the best when I get to practice with someone else. I like to link new words to the exact conversations they came up in, so that it is easier to remember the words and their meaning. In addition to human interactions, I also learn really well through visual media- it could be videos, movies, pictures, or even vivid descriptions that allow me to form mental images. Finally, I love activities that are collaborative and call for personal opinions as well as a lot of critical thinking. Connecting the language to human experiences and stories is absolutely essential for me. Based on the FIRE model, I think I am an evaluative learner. Going forward, I am thinking of trying out more commonly used methods by language learners such as flashcards and language apps. I have never used those before. So, I am interested to see whether they will make my learning process more effective. I am also hoping to find a volunteering site in Richmond where I will be able to put my language skills to use. ASL is unlike any other languages that I have learnt before. By taking ASL in a formal setting with clear goals and a designated language partner, I am venturing into a new method of language learning this semester and am really excited to see how it turns out.