Im hearing and only started taking ASL classes December of 2004, and Im not fluent yet. The first class I took was ASL 101, in which the hearing teacher signed and used voice. She would write the vocabulary or whatever we were learning on the board and then show us the signs. As soon as I started taking that class, I got up the nerve to start signing with my friend who is Deaf. Before then I would just make sure I was facing him when I talked, not slur my words, speak clearly, etc... but as you probably know Deaf people still cant lipread 100% even when you try your hardest to speak "perfectly". Alot of words can be confused with others, and some just cant be lipread.
Pretty soon I started getting lots of practice with him at work whether it be small talk or asking "someones looking for ketchup, what aisle is it on again?" (we both work in a grocery store) Before I knew it, I got to the point where I would never use my voice when I had something to say. Spring quarter rolled around and I signed up for ASL 102, where I had the same hearing teacher but this class was 100% silent. I had lots of fun in this class, sometimes it seemed almost like elementary school because we would do things like play games like "Guess Who" and "Go Fish" but it really helps you pick up ASL extremely fast.
By the end of that school quarter and after signing to my friend instead of using voice I was able to sign with remarkable pace and flow my fingerspelling fast enough to see the jaw on my ASL teacher drop. I was also at the point where I could express what seemed like nearly anything in sign with ease and at a fairly fast pace. Alot of people in my ASL class, some of which had Deaf relatives and friends told me I signed like a Deaf person, including my friend who is Deaf, and my teacher who has Deaf friends.
The hardest part for me was reading fingerspelling, by reading the word and not going letter by letter. I picked up being able to fingerspell rather fast without "bouncing" because I would see the word in my head and already know what the next letters are. I would also retain part of the last handshape when fingerspelling which can throw off alot of ASL learners, and which shocked my friend because I just naturally started creating the short cuts alot of Deaf people use. By retaining the last handshape I mean if you sign a word that goes n-i, m-i, t-i... such as nike, mike, or time, I would do the full "n" handshape, and instead of changing to a complete "i" handshape, I would just keep the "n" handshape and flick my pinkie finger up. Thats what shocked alot of my classmates and other people I signed with, because they didnt believe me that it was only my 2nd quarter of ASL.
I also believe that previously learning Japanese helped me alot with learning ASL, since the word order is the same. Before I could think of how to express something in ASL, I would just think of how to say it in Japanese and then use that word order. Some people learning ASL also have problems when they see a conversation, and a sign comes up that they dont recognize. Instead of just disregarding the fact that they didnt understand that sign, they mentally "shut down" and cannot stop thinking about what that sign was. By that time, they have missed a huge portion of the conversation. I was able to get past this rather fast, and would get the rest of the conversation except the signs I didnt know, and then I would ask "repeat that sign? Whats the meaning?" or whatever.
Sorry I rambled on about my experiences, but in short, I have gotten to where I am and I havent even been learning sign for a year yet... I also use to be self consious about the all the stares you get when you are signing in public, but I have since gotten past that, and now only communicate in ASL to my Deaf friend.
But of course, you have a tendency to forget the signs you learned that you rarely if ever use.... I learned alot of techincal signs at school, like "registrar, copy machine, elevator, etc...." Its not exactly everyday I tell someone to "take the elevator to the registrars office and use the copy machine."
Teg
) but my true ASL skills are really minimal. Even though my 2nd and 3rd semester classes were full immersion sign, (don't ask about my 4th semester, total waste of time) with deaf teachers, the focus was on communicating, not proper ASL. I picked up on signs faster than most of my classmates, and when I really needed to be learning grammatical structure and all that, I was still learning basic vocabulary.
I know that there are hearing people out there that do this with Deaf people and ASL, as I have read the threads discussing that on here. 
The first classifer I did this with was "CHA", the C handshape smacking down on an open palm... 
