January 31st, 2021
Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen!
It has been some time since I have posted on the Ning, and I apricate your patience. My final semester at University has begun, and we are approaching the end of the third week. Additionally, I apologize for the delay of this journal as I meant to post on January 31st, but due to a combination of medical and scheduling issues, my sessions with Reba did not begin until yesterday. Nonetheless, I have exciting news! Two new students have signed up for the SDLP’s ASL program. Yesterday, during our first meeting with Reba, I helped translate the ASL alphabet as well as some elementary-level signs including “baby”, “tree”, “sad”, “happy” etc. Although I have only completed two semesters worth of ASL, I am faced with my progress and development of the language head-on when I act as a translator. As I see myself two semesters ago where the students I translate for, I feel a sense of accomplishment for my devotion to the langue and excitement to continue my journey with it.
This brings us to the current semester and what I hope to achieve. In the past, Reba and I have focused on the building of vocabulary and terminology in ASL. As time has progressed and I can form complete sentences, thoughts, and maintain a conversation, I hope to improve my speed of signing as well as my understanding of ASL grammar. I hope to not fall into the habit of translating ASL directly from English sentence order, thus, I am trying to solidify a foundation of proper ASL grammar from this point on, so that as my language abilities grow, my fluency of the grammar grows in conjunction. To enhance such a goal, Reba has provided me with a new textbook, Barron’s “American Sign Language A Comprehensive Guide to ASL 1 and 2 by David A. Steward and Jennifer Stewart. Since receiving the book, I have made it a goal to read at least 25 pages of the book a day and practice whatever exercises are in it. So far, this has been the most helpful book in addressing questions regarding the language, offering advice towards classifiers, grammar, directional verbs, role-shifting, and more! I am excited to continue working through the book and am beyond grateful to have Reba guide me through the more challenging chapters.
An additional form of learning that I have picked up is the watching of The Deaf Moth. This is a youtube channel with the Deaf host, Alex Abenchuchan, which covers trending stories and Deaf topics with a twist of humor and Deaf culture (www.dailymoth.com). Each video is fairly short, around 5 minutes, but it offers me the opportunity to practice interpreting from another ASL user, learning new vocabulary, insight on global news, and gain a sense of how the deaf community reacts to the hearing world. Often, I will watch the videos at reduced speed to discover the meaning of every sign, thus converting the 5-minute video into a 15-minute exercise. I figured this could be a helpful way to practice my skills, especially because with many auditory languages, one could practice their language skills by listing to music, reading books, or watching movies in said langue. With the limited amount of Deaf friendly entertainment, I must utilize what is out there to ensure my own success.
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