Feedback on math signs.

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krobertson

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As part of a NSF grant (your federal tax dollars at work) we are researching how best to help math and science teachers, their Deaf students, and educational interpreters. From feedback we have gotten from Deaf and hearing teachers of Deaf students, we have learned that there is a need for more standardized math and science signs. If we contribute to an ASL technical online dictionary we want to respect ASL and the Deaf community. Webster doesn’t hire a group of experts to define the set of English vocabulary. Instead, the editors go out to the people who use English and record what they are using and inventing. As much as possible, we want to show ASL and the Deaf community the same respect.


We want to produce an online technical ASL dictionary that is interactive. First, we want the users of the language to be able to check out the terms of their choice. Second, we want the dictionary itself to be a forum for the discussion, development and evolution of technical ASL terms. When possible, we will post signs that we have seen in use in the Deaf community. When there isn’t a standardized sign we will offer a suggestion to start the discussion. Everyone is welcome to comment and offer alternative signs, which will be posted to advance the discussion.

We have two signs posted to start the discussion. They can be viewed at:

http://www.shodor.org/succeedhi/DEAF_STEM/dictionary/


When you open the first page click on the A ( the first words start with A). That will take you to the A page. Click on either ABSOLUTE VALUE or ADDITION. On theses pages you can click on the film/concept icons to see the word, definition, or term signed in a sentence. There are examples of both preferred ASL and non-recommended signing.

Please send your comments either to this discussion or to me at:

krobertson@shodor.org

Let me know if you are willing to have your comments posted on our site and what you want to be called.
 
Having interpreted several high school and college math classes now, I can now say I feel pretty comfortable doing it. Most of the students I interpret for just show me the signs they use for things like absolute value. They aren't always, according to the website you have, the "conceptually acurate" signs, but who am I to argue with them?

I don't mind math so much, but interpreting it can be a pain in the ass when the teacher is nicknamed (my myself and the students I interpret for) "Speech Talker." C'est la vie.
 
krobertson said:
As part of a NSF grant (your federal tax dollars at work) we are researching how best to help math and science teachers, their Deaf students, and educational interpreters. From feedback we have gotten from Deaf and hearing teachers of Deaf students, we have learned that there is a need for more standardized math and science signs. If we contribute to an ASL technical online dictionary we want to respect ASL and the Deaf community. Webster doesn’t hire a group of experts to define the set of English vocabulary. Instead, the editors go out to the people who use English and record what they are using and inventing. As much as possible, we want to show ASL and the Deaf community the same respect.


We want to produce an online technical ASL dictionary that is interactive. First, we want the users of the language to be able to check out the terms of their choice. Second, we want the dictionary itself to be a forum for the discussion, development and evolution of technical ASL terms. When possible, we will post signs that we have seen in use in the Deaf community. When there isn’t a standardized sign we will offer a suggestion to start the discussion. Everyone is welcome to comment and offer alternative signs, which will be posted to advance the discussion.

We have two signs posted to start the discussion. They can be viewed at:

http://www.shodor.org/succeedhi/DEAF_STEM/dictionary/


When you open the first page click on the A ( the first words start with A). That will take you to the A page. Click on either ABSOLUTE VALUE or ADDITION. On theses pages you can click on the film/concept icons to see the word, definition, or term signed in a sentence. There are examples of both preferred ASL and non-recommended signing.

Please send your comments either to this discussion or to me at:

krobertson@shodor.org

Let me know if you are willing to have your comments posted on our site and what you want to be called.
Click to expand...


When you say you do research into math and science signs, do you mean general signs or specialized ones you would see signed by deaf mathematicians and scientists?

By the way, I am very interested in your research. I hope you don't mind if I contact you.
 
ayala920 said:
Having interpreted several high school and college math classes now, I can now say I feel pretty comfortable doing it. Most of the students I interpret for just show me the signs they use for things like absolute value. They aren't always, according to the website you have, the "conceptually acurate" signs, but who am I to argue with them?
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Ain't it the truth! I terp for college students, and whatever signs they used in high school, conceptually accurate or not, is what they insist on. It drives me crazy but as you say, "C'est la vie"! :D
 
Reba said:
Ain't it the truth! I terp for college students, and whatever signs they used in high school, conceptually accurate or not, is what they insist on. It drives me crazy but as you say, "C'est la vie"! :D
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LOL. :) I'm curious, as an interpreter (both you and Ayala) what do you find is the most difficult subject to interpret?
 
Endymion said:
LOL. :) I'm curious, as an interpreter (both you and Ayala) what do you find is the most difficult subject to interpret?
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Well, math is the only college-level course I've interpreted thus far, and it was algebra, so it wasn't too terribly difficult (isn't, I suppose, since I'm still interpreting).

I'm going to have to say English. The English class my kids are in now is a lot of debating and discussing. Most of the time my kids read on their own when the students are being read to, or when they listen to the book on CD, but occassionally the teacher reads passages from the book. Try interpreting "Life of Pi." :eek:
 
Not so much a particular subject but interpreting videos is the pits. I wish they would get captions on them. :mad:

Also, the lecture style of the instructor makes a class more or less difficult to interpret than the actual subject matter.
 
Reba said:
Not so much a particular subject but interpreting videos is the pits. I wish they would get captions on them. :mad:

Also, the lecture style of the instructor makes a class more or less difficult to interpret than the actual subject matter.
Click to expand...

Ditto to both those points. My school is actually really good about providing captioned videos. We're also a small, private school (treatment) and our teachers tend to be very sensitive. Many of them won't show videos without captions. We've often spent half the class trying to make them work. Hooray for my AWESOME co-workers.

Now if only I could get them to stop walking in front of me and stoppping while I'm interpreting...
 
ayala920 said:
... occassionally the teacher reads passages from the book. ..
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Yeah, I don't like interpreting literature passages, especially unfamiliar passages with no preparation. That usually happens when I am subbing for another terp. I have absolutely no frame of reference to work from in those situations, and people read text at a faster pace than when they actually speak their own words.
 
ayala920 said:
... My school is actually really good about providing captioned videos. We're also a small, private school (treatment) and our teachers tend to be very sensitive. Many of them won't show videos without captions.
Click to expand...
You are very fortunate. In the five years that I have interpreted at this college, I can't recall even one video having captions. There was one video that had subtitles because it was foreign language--whoopee!
 
Reba said:
You are very fortunate. In the five years that I have interpreted at this college, I can't recall even one video having captions. There was one video that had subtitles because it was foreign language--whoopee!
Click to expand...

Well, at a college level, I'm not surprised. Most of my work is done with high school-aged students though. It's definitely exclusive to my school, I believe. One of my students went part-time to the public high school, and her teacher just LOVED to show instructional videos, which were never captioned.
 
ayala920 said:
Ditto to both those points. My school is actually really good about providing captioned videos. We're also a small, private school (treatment) and our teachers tend to be very sensitive. Many of them won't show videos without captions. We've often spent half the class trying to make them work. Hooray for my AWESOME co-workers.

Now if only I could get them to stop walking in front of me and stoppping while I'm interpreting...
Click to expand...

You know, I think the captions should be shown in ALL classes, where possible, including hearing classes. It's pretty annoying to be sitting in the back of the room and the teacher can't turn the sound up far enough for you to hear it without provoking the wrath of the front-row kids... ;)
 
Rose Immortal said:
You know, I think the captions should be shown in ALL classes, where possible, including hearing classes. It's pretty annoying to be sitting in the back of the room and the teacher can't turn the sound up far enough for you to hear it without provoking the wrath of the front-row kids... ;)
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If you're sitting in the back of the classroom are you going to be able to see the captions anyway? ;)
 
Rose Immortal said:
You know, I think the captions should be shown in ALL classes, where possible, including hearing classes. It's pretty annoying to be sitting in the back of the room and the teacher can't turn the sound up far enough for you to hear it without provoking the wrath of the front-row kids... ;)
Click to expand...

Once, my eighth grade history teacher turned OFF the sound of a U.S. civil war documentary so the entire class could suffer watching it with their eyes, not their ears, and get a sample of what I "must" experience on a daily basis. They end up moaning and whining in protest towards the end. I was not even in class when that happened. :eek3:
 
Endymion said:
When you say you do research into math and science signs, do you mean general signs or specialized ones you would see signed by deaf mathematicians and scientists?

By the way, I am very interested in your research. I hope you don't mind if I contact you.
Click to expand...

If you go to our site:
http://www.shodor.org/succeedhi/

there is a yellow navigation box in the lower left hand corner. Click on the Glossary link and you will see a list of general terms that we felt students might have trouble reading. They are both signed and in English.

From the same home page if you click on the For Interpreters! Link in the yellow box you will get the Interpreters/ASL Strategies page. The second paragraph has a link to Technical signs. These are suggested signs for 128 technical terms that computational scientists use.

Yes please contact me! Part of our research is to learn what the Deaf community’s needs and interests are. We also want to explore addressing these needs electronically via emails etc.
 
Endymion said:
LOL. :) I'm curious, as an interpreter (both you and Ayala) what do you find is the most difficult subject to interpret?
Click to expand...

For me ESL is the roughest. You can't just interpret "He would have gone" as "POINT GO FINISH" because the students are learning about how to put English sentences together. If the student understands SEE, it saves my hand, but otherwise it's just constant fingerspelling.

I agree that students in math classes I've interpreted usually already know shortcut signs that they prefer I use, like two index fingers drawing vertical lines down in the air for "absolute value" (showing the mathematical symbol for it). If the teacher is explaining the concept, then yeah, I can use more ASL, but it's often redundant because the teacher will write everything on the board. Maybe I've just been lucky.
 
Reba said:
You are very fortunate. In the five years that I have interpreted at this college, I can't recall even one video having captions. There was one video that had subtitles because it was foreign language--whoopee!
Click to expand...

I don't usually get interpreting services in class (and even if I did sign, it's almost impossible to get interpreters to agree to work at my uni - we have one fulltime transliterator who works for one of the grad students, and there's only one CART organization that we use), but I use CART some of the time. Right now I'm in a Soviet history class with lots of videos. One day, the video happened to be an old silent film with (translated) title cards - the captioner and I grinned at each other, then simultaneously groaned when it became apparent that the teacher was going to comment on the film continuously as it ran ... and she's one of those fast-talker types.
 
I actually found the signs helpful as a few of them relate to patient care as an EMT. Even though Ive never had formal education in ASL or any sign for the matter, I actually found the shorthand easy to understand such as "critical" "antidepressant" and "prescription" I find those signs would be VERY helpful when trying to communicate a medical history for the conscious patient, thats the part where we have to ask a billion questions and report it on the run-sheet.

Dixie
 
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