Common Phrases

      This week was more open-ended for me by far than the two previous weeks. But it was also by far the most important; so it was key that I learned the correct things in order to build on my knowledge. Now that I'm getting out of the ASL a toddler learns and into some real learning, I can see the reasoning behind the signs and, call me a nerd, but it is really interesting. There is logic behind signs like I don't know, thank you, or event the sign for where and even if I don't exactly know the sign I now feel confident that I can logically figure it out. All fluff aside, this was still a very difficult week. Not only did I have to learn the signs, I had to figure out exactly what signs I was going to learn based on their importance and their difficulty. But, once I knew what I was going to pursue, I could find many tutorials on Youtube as well as the sites that I have been using. Here is what I learned how to say:

• My name is __________
• Thank You/ You're Welcome
• Please
• Good, bad, and okay
• How are you?
• My last name is __________ 
• Where is the bathroom? (This is the most important one)
• I don't know/ I know

    The list may not seem like a lot, but ASL is a memorizing game, and the older you are when you learn it, the more difficult it is just like with a language. Sometimes I really do wish that I had learned two languages growing up or a language and ASL, because that would have given so many opportunities as a kid without the hassle I have now of learning it independently. I realized that if I do pursue ASL and learn it fluently, I will not only use it for a job opportunity, but I would love to teach it to my kids one day. If I do have any extra time during this project though, I would like to memorize important words such as colors or days of the week especially if I end up teaching ASL to children in the future.

    This week's learning had no organization whatsoever. Unlike the past two weeks, the things I was learning did not go together in a certain order, making it even harder for me to learn. First, I had to do my research to figure out what exactly I was going to learn this week. The most important source for my information this week was lifeprint.com. They have lessons set up for people wanting to learn ASL by themselves, exactly what I am doing. I used lessons 1 and 2 on this site to base my learning off of. These lessons included things like yes/no, question words, and even learning the history of American Sign Language. For example, I learned that a man named Thomas Gallaudet, with the help of a man named Laurent Clerc brought sign language from France to the United States in 1817 and developed ASL.

     Anyway, that website was a great help in starting the bulding blocks for my learning this week. From there, I searched for video tutorials on Youtube that helped to teach the most important and most common phrases that were reccomended by the lessons on lifeprint.com. I found a video of a sassy man teaching common sign language and a woman teaching the same basics. I compared them with eachother just to double check that they were teaching the correct information. Also, they taught some the sign language that is commonly used by people and not the formal signs, so now that I know the slang I will be able to communicate better with everyone. Overall, these videos were my lifeline for this week and I did not really use any other form of learning besides watching these videos multiple times and practicing on my own without them as well. Although, at the end I did take a small quiz on lifeprint.com to test my knowledge. It looked like this:

    

Here is video #1 & 2:

      To finish, I learned so much over the course of this week. I continued to figure out how difficult American Sign Language is and how it honestly just takes memorization and practice to learn. I attempted to practice it with one of the French exchange students becuase I felt more comfortable signing than actually speaking French. That interaction went well except for the fact that he had no idea what I was signing, but I gained a lot of confidence even with that tiny, embarassing interaction. I am glad that over the course of the next weeks I have left myself with a more open-ended task because there are a lot of components to learning common phrases and sayings in sign language and due to the fact that theya re the most important things in the language, I need time to practice. Next week I will be learning question words such as: Why, Who, When, Where, etc. As well as more common questions and hopefully answers. Wish me luck!