Learn the fundamentals of ASL GLOSS

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Medic18

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I am a fully hearing student of ASL (4) and my professor is showing my class many new vocabulary words that are not covered in any of my textbooks. I am very happy my professor is trying to increase our vocabulary words in ASL, but it is hard to recall them on memory alone. I would like to use and start using glosss so I can recall all the new vocabulary words from note and not embarrass myself by trying to guess the sign using an using an inappropriate sign (ie: hungary vs horny, just to think of one).

If you are deaf and/or an ASL student, what books or websites have you found to help you to learn to recall from notes new words using gloss or any other forum of written text? Any help in this matter will help this driven student out

Thank you

PS
I hope I picked the right area to post my question. If not, MODs, please move my question to the correct area. Thank you
 
Well I'm deaf, but I know I learned everything from my ex who happened to be a CODA. When I really started losing my hearing, my family wanted to learn and we were referred to ASLPRO.com. I'm not as sure what words you're speaking of that wouldn't be in text book as I never took ASL and just learned through exposure to it... O.o Maybe it will help? Other than that, there's a group of ASL students on this site that use Skype and stuff to practice... maybe that will help you? Good luck and welcome. =)
 
When I was taking classes that covered a fair amount of vocabulary and I wanted to make sure I didn't forget, I just took detailed notes. I'd write the word presented with the sign, then I'd write what the handshape was, where it was signed (forehead? chin? in front of body? center, off to the side etc), palm orientation, I'd try to describe any motion in the sign, and mention if both hands were involved, what each of them were doing.

There were times when I couldn't get this stuff written down fast enough, so some of my explanations would have been funny if I'd let anyone read them. I'd just find the most efficient way to describe the sign so that I'd recognize it from the description. Like maybe a sign reminded me of an action, so I'd write the name of the action, with maybe some further tweaking like "dog begging, then hands drop" or something like that.

I'm not sure how gloss would enter into this. For new vocabulary words, the gloss would just be the word written in capital letters - it wouldn't give you any hint at all as to how to form the sign. Now if you're talking about how to gloss variations on a sign you know, like "do this one with repetitive motion" or "use both hands with alternating motion", there are transcriptions symbols for things like that. A book I really like for that (and lots of other things) is called American Sign Language - the original green books - A teacher's resource text on grammar and culture. There is more than one book in the green books series, so look for the whole title. It's old but I still found it to be very useful.
 
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