The teachers in my Enrichment class has assigned us a Genius Hour project, and we were told to explore and learn almost anything we want. To be honest, I was aware of this project ahead of time, and I already knew exactly what I was gonna learn: Sign language.
Over the summer, I came across a site where a college student going by the pen name "Lila" drew cartoons about her daily life and the many struggles she goes through everyday. Although Lila does not communicate through sign language but rather auditory-verbal communication where she lipreads and tries to imitate sound, I still developed a profound interest in deafness and deaf people. For the same class, I studied the effect of learning sign language on the brains of hearing individuals, which only deepened my love for this topic.
When the teachers gave my class the signal to go ahead with the Genius project, I went straight ahead to look for resources. The best one I found was a site called ASL University (lifeprint.com), and the sign language teacher was Dr. Bill Vicars.
Dr. Vicars is a Deaf professor who teaches deaf studies and American Sign Language (ASL), the most common form of sign language used in the United States. ASL University is beautiful in many ways: it's online and accessible anywhere I have internet connection; it currently has 45 full lessons that include a list of words and common phrases that use those words; throughout the lessons, it teaches certain aspects of sign language, different types of of sign language, elements of Deaf culture, and a quiz at the end. It was laid out as a semester-long course, so the lessons were already organized for me.
Another site I found was handspeak.com. This website doesn't have set lessons like ASLU, but it does have a dictionary where I can look up certain words. The perk about this website is that it lists almost every cool thing you can do with sign language! Signwriting, culture, literature...anything you can or could not have imagined!
Out of everything, the most appealing to me was ASL poetry. Although I'm not an awesome writer, I still loved it whenever we got to write poetry in class. Rhyming with words was a challenge for me every time; now I have to rhyme with my hands? That sounds so hard, yet so awesome!
Here is my timeline plan for now:
Week 1: Lessons 1-5 on lifeprint.com
Week 2: Lessons 6-10 on lifeprint.com
Week 3: Lessons 11-15 on lifeprint.com, watch ASL poetry on handspeak.com, and start to get ideas for my own ASL poem
Week 4: Lessons 16-20 on lifeprint.com, watch ASL poetry on handspeak.com, and start writing my own ASL poem
Week 5: Final touches on ASL poem and begin finalizing TED Talk
I hope to challenge my visual skills, which I use frequently to make art, a big hobby of mine. I also hope to improve my motor skills, and I probably have the worst motor skills in the tri-state area.
Deaf people live in an entirely different world from hearing people that I - or anyone else who can hear - will never understand. Through this project, I want to detach from the large crowd that frequently misunderstands and unintentionally almost neglects deaf people.
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| Dr. Vicars signing "genius/smart/intelligent/clever" (Photo from lifeprint.com) |
Another site I found was handspeak.com. This website doesn't have set lessons like ASLU, but it does have a dictionary where I can look up certain words. The perk about this website is that it lists almost every cool thing you can do with sign language! Signwriting, culture, literature...anything you can or could not have imagined!
Out of everything, the most appealing to me was ASL poetry. Although I'm not an awesome writer, I still loved it whenever we got to write poetry in class. Rhyming with words was a challenge for me every time; now I have to rhyme with my hands? That sounds so hard, yet so awesome!
Here is my timeline plan for now:
Week 1: Lessons 1-5 on lifeprint.com
Week 2: Lessons 6-10 on lifeprint.com
Week 3: Lessons 11-15 on lifeprint.com, watch ASL poetry on handspeak.com, and start to get ideas for my own ASL poem
Week 4: Lessons 16-20 on lifeprint.com, watch ASL poetry on handspeak.com, and start writing my own ASL poem
Week 5: Final touches on ASL poem and begin finalizing TED Talk
I hope to challenge my visual skills, which I use frequently to make art, a big hobby of mine. I also hope to improve my motor skills, and I probably have the worst motor skills in the tri-state area.
Deaf people live in an entirely different world from hearing people that I - or anyone else who can hear - will never understand. Through this project, I want to detach from the large crowd that frequently misunderstands and unintentionally almost neglects deaf people.
ASL sounds like a great topic to do for the Genius Project! I'm really looking forward to picking up some from you! What obstacles/expectations do you have for this project?
ReplyDeleteI think some of the biggest obstacles would be just like learning any other languages. I might have trouble remembering certain words, and I'm probably going to mix up certain words with other similar ones. Also, I don't know anyone who signs ASL, so it might be hard to ask someone whether I'm signing with a bad "accent." And yes, I'll definitely be using some sign language around you! :)
DeleteI am so excited for your ASL poem, maybe you can teach me some basic sign language once you finish all those lessons! I think you definitely have enough information through Dr. Vicar's website; his videos are very in depth and great practice. If you stick to your general plan, you'll be on your way to becoming an ASL genius. Do you have anyone to practice with? Are there any other students learning ASL or who already know ASL? I think it would benefit you to use ASL on a daily basis. Looking forward to your next blog post! Good luck :)
ReplyDeleteI don't have anyone to practice with actually, since my best friend (ehem) left me to learn oil painting...I don't know anyone who's learning ASL at the moment, so I guess I'll just have to go on this journey without you. ASL would be nice to use on a daily basis, but I don't think I'll be able to use much since you're not supposed to talk and sign at the same time. I'll still try my best to write at least a half decent ASL poem!
DeleteHanna, I was considering doing sign language too! I checked out a book on sign language in third grade out of curiosity, and I didn't pick up much, but I can still sign the alphabet. One thing that I came across by chance a few weeks ago was the different dialects of sign language. Obviously, we call ASL "ASL" because it stands for American Sign Language, but we don't consider other countries' or even regions' forms of sign language. Would you consider looking into these different regions and some of the differences from ASL? Can't wait to see your progress!
ReplyDeleteThat's actually really cool, I don't remember doing productive things like that in the library when I was in elementary school. I learned just the alphabet in September but I still have a bit of trouble with some of them.
DeleteJust like how there are dialect in American English like Southern dialects, ASL does have dialects depending on region. It's almost impossible to gather the different dialects, as many signers argue that certain forms of ASL are unacceptable while others are. Dr. Vicars gives different signs for each word concept and explains which ones are widely used and which ones might be more esoteric. I try to learn just the formal ones just in case. Nevertheless these signs are all categorized as ASL, though one may argue whether or not they are "truly" ASL.
There are different sign languages depending on the country as well. I have an Android app, Spreading Sign, that has at least 10 different sign languages. I'm trying to stick to ASL since I live in America, and learning different sign languages at the same time would be like learning any other two languages at the same time. I think you'd be interested in the similarities and differences of sign languages by country. For example, ASL is branched off of French Sing Language so they're similar like English and German, but ASL and British Sign Language are very different like Japanese and English (I'd expect).
Sign language is one of the most unique languages to learn! It seems kind of difficult but it is definitely able to be pulled off. I actually want to know more about sign language and the difference between ASL in comparison to other places (countries?) that use sign language. Also, how will we know what you are "saying" when you are reciting the poem? Is it going to be a well known poem or a poem you made yourself? Anyway, I love the idea and I think it will be very successful if planned out the way you have it planned so far! Good luck!
ReplyDeleteHere's an example of difference in sign languages:
DeleteLove in American Sign Language is making an X with your arms across your chest. (babysignlanguage.com/signs/love.gif)
Love in British Sign Language is one hand on top of another near your heart. (tinyurl.com/kzqvw7g)
If you want more, you can download "Spreading Signs" from the Play Store and there's about ten different sign languages, I think.
I'll be writing my own original ASL poem. Synthesizing my small pool of vocabulary into something that means something to me seemed more valuable than simply memorizing and copying someone else. If I were proficient enough, I could have been able to express it with my own style of interpretation, but unfortunately I'm not that good.
While I'm reciting, I'm probably going to have a voice recording of the rough translation playing in the background. I wanted people to experience poetry without any sound, but I figured if I have text on the screen, people would be looking at the words rather than my hands, which defeats the whole purpose. I also thought of breifly outlining the poem first and then reciting without any translation, but then I thought people would get easily bored.
If you're confused on what ASL poetry exactly is or just want to know, you can look some up, but I'm planning to write more about that in my later posts when I start exploring how to come up with one. :)