It has been a crazy couple of weeks with the COVID-19 spreading, spring break plus its extension, and classes being moved to online. Due to this fact, I have been unable to meet with my language instructor for almost two weeks now and my progression with the language has been slowed. Regardless, I have been trying to keep up with my ASL assignments and have continued to practice my signing daily for around 30 minutes. Fortunately, before I had left school, I was able to grab my ASL notes, my textbook, and my ASL dictionary and have since been self-learning the material. One new interesting component of my language journey is that I have been learning from an online DVD application that strengths my visual acuity and observation. The DVD displays individuals practicing sign language and my job, as a student, is to observe and write down the translation of the simply constructed sentences the performer's signs. Through this DVD application, I have the opportunity to improve my translational abilities of the language which is extremely helpful as ASL can not be taugh through traditional means, such as a textbook (at least, not as easily). It is an interesting form of teaching, one that I have never experienced. However, since my return home, I have encountered two issues with such a method. None of the modern computers in my household have a disk drive, making it much more difficult for me to use said DVD application. In addition, this form of teaching only improves my visual interpretation of the language, not my ability to recall and actually sign. However, with the lack of face-to-face meetings with my sign instructor, I believe this modality of teaching to be an appropriate alternative solution,
I have also been learning ASL vocabulary through the application “SignSchool” on my phone - trying to improve my basic understanding and strengthing my terminology of ASL by learning approximately 30 words, or rather signs, per day. SignSchoool is essentially an ASL dictionary on the phone, however, there are also short lessons incorporated into the app that revolves around specific, topical vocabularies, such as transportation or fruit. One challenge I will be facing in the future is my ability to communicate with other deaf speakers and actually practice my sign language. However, to combat such a concern/obstacle, I will be making appointments on italki.com to practice communicating. The plan for the future with my instructor is to perform FaceTime calls twice a week for an hour in which during which we will practice conversing. I am a bit worried to be practicing through online because I will not be able to see her full picture in the same manner as being face-to-face, nor am I confident in the wireless connection’s speed, but it is the next possible best possible option so that is what I plan to do. I’m still developing my vocabulary to strengthen the basic understanding of the language. Thus, Reba and I have not learned much medical terminology, which was the goal for this course. However, the information I am learning currently will be helpful in describing events preceding and post any medical events as my terminology is revolving around common nouns, verbs, and adjectives.
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