ASL
American Sign Language
My best friend and I are practically sisters, including that I have an adopted, of sorts, nephew. I also happen to look like her nephew's mother, who is in the military. So her nephew sticks to me like glue. For this reason I was encouraged to learn ASL. My friend's nephew has Autism, which inhibits him from learning to speak. It is very rare and very often that we hear him verbally speak. He does know some ASL and his capability of learning ASL is increasing every day. It is nice now to know ASL, because I don't get peed on since I now know that he is signing he has to use the bathroom. I also get to tell him no when he tries to snag another cookie off the counter and begs for another one.
I love learning new
languages as not only do I break down another language barrier; I learn a new
culture associated with languages. I didn't expect there to be large amounts of
culture with the deaf community, but with the help of my teacher Rosemary, I
break down those barriers daily. Learning ASL I have discovered that the people
in the deaf culture are often quite humorous. Also that if they discover you
know ASL proficiently you will be stuck all day listening to them tell you
about their life.
Learning ASL has benefited me in also opening
another form of communication; with my hands, body language and expressions.
ASL teaches you how your hands are used as a form of communication for many
signs. One sign can have about 5 different meanings. How you use your
expressions of your eyebrows also affects how your message comes across. You
lift your eyebrow during the time you sign the topic of your sentence; the
topic of the sentence is generally located at the beginning of the sentence. If
you keep your eyebrows raised during the entire sentence or statement you are
asking a yes/no question. If you keep your eyebrows down for the entire
sentence you are making a statement; if you keep your eyebrows down with
aggressive movements you are generally mad and it’s the equivalent of yelling.
I had to create SAV's for my
class; SAV stands for Self-Assessment Video. Here is my first SAV for ASL 111:
Since then I have had a major
improvement in my signing in two terms. This is my last SAV.
There are many learning opportunities in the Deaf Community to learn and use ASL. One opportunity which is once a night at 7 PM, is at Broadway Coffee house. The Deaf Community gathers to have coffee, visit and if your lucky, play games in ASL! You can find the Broadway Coffee House at 1300 Broadway St NE #100, Salem, OR 97301.
