Learn ASL

Let’s see if I can stick to it. I began self teaching yesterday. I now know the alphabet, numbers from 1-10 & some colors…I am sure at some point I will need some professional instruction but for now I think I can start this way…

I’ve learned a few signs from an ASL phrasebook I borrowed from the library over the summer. I am going to do co-op working with autistics, and will see whether knowing ASL will be helpful. If so, I’m going to take classes over the winter break.

I started to learn a bit last summer. Learn the alphabet and tried to learn a few short words but I stopped and so lost practise altogether but am bent on restarting it. I know 2 people who are deaf and who sign and so it would be awesome to be able to communicate with them. Any tips or advice would be greatly appreciated.
I wish to make lots of new friends from learning ASL.

All signed up for classes :). I plan on checking out some videos from the library so I can start studying before my class starts.

I got an A in my ASL class
=]
=D

Life got weird and busy and full of terrible distractions – but now that things are beginning to calm down, i really want to finish what i started. I’ve worked with children teaching them basic ASL and it was incredibly moving to help a child learn to communicate.

Went great! I got 110% on it. The grammar was all correct, and I used the right signs. It wasn’t choppy or too slow…just flowed nicely together. My teacher wrote on my critique paper that I had great expression and shifted my body at the right times. =D I will be taking intermediate ASL next semester…Hopefully, I won’t forget what I’ve learned by then!

I love ASL. To me, its like a language of feelings. I’ve always wanted to learn, and, when I met my boyfriend’s grandmother, who is profoundly deaf, I felt the need to learn it even more. I’m taking an ASL college course and am doing really well =]

I think this would extend the range of services I can offer as a clinical psychologist. I would also learn more about a population that is sometimes excluded from discourses about diversity and undoing oppression, thereby making ability more visible to me and making my own thinking more relevant for more people.

The community college where I’m an adjunct faculty member offers free classes to current adjuncts who have taught for two semesters… so, this time next year, I could enroll in ASL I and the next semester take ASL II (perhaps they would let me start in the fall and my second class could be the one I teach concurrently with taking my first ASL course).

I’ve always wanted to learn ASL, but I have never been fully committed to it. I took a class and learned some of the basics, but I would really love to be fluent in it.