Maintaining eye contact while signing

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metalangel

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In class today honey.toronto and I were practicing fingerspelling while maintaining eye contact. I was having a bit of trouble clearly seeing her hand while I was looking at her face. She had her hand in about the right position, it just wasn't always 100% clear/in focus to me.

Any suggestions? Could I be that I might need ASL glasses to help me see more clearly to the side like that? Could it just be annoying fluorescent lighting?
 
It's one of those things that will come with practice. The problem with trying to shift your gaze to look at the hand is that you will miss the first few letters. The general trick is to use context and configuration (that is the overall shape of the fingerspelled word; for example, "apple" looks different than "cherry") to figure out what is being spelled. Unfortunately, there are no shortcuts for this (believe me, I wish there were). Just lots and lots of practice and experience.
 
metalangel said:
In class today honey.toronto and I were practicing fingerspelling while maintaining eye contact. I was having a bit of trouble clearly seeing her hand while I was looking at her face. She had her hand in about the right position, it just wasn't always 100% clear/in focus to me.

Any suggestions? Could I be that I might need ASL glasses to help me see more clearly to the side like that? Could it just be annoying fluorescent lighting?
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not much you can do about it. like what mountain man said... just lots and lots of practice and experience and you'll be able to figure it out. we don't even read each letter.

depending on context of conversation, we can figure out what he/she is saying when he/she is rapidly fingerspelling - "C-H-R-Y" for cherry. mouthing the word while fingerspelling does help so you'll have to try to simultaneously read his/her lips and fingerspelling at the same time but if the signer is 100% ASL (no mouthing, silent), then that comes with experience and practice to figure it out.
 
Thanks. I might try adjusting her arm (sorry to talk about you in third person like this) slightly just to see if it makes any difference. If not I might ask an optician anyway as it doesn't seem right that someone within my field of vision (as per below) should be that hard to make out!

All we were doing was various names so there wasn't any context so much as 'repeat back to me the name I just signed to you'.

image019.jpg
 
That's something you will probably have to learn yourself.

Being able to see a person sign and talk at the same time is something that us deafies have spent a lifetime learning.

There are some deaf people who look directly at the hand and never learn to lipread. (I have a few friends like that. They spent their whole lives in deaf institutes. They either look at the other person's hands only and not the mouth... or they spend most of their time with people who sign without moving their mouths.)

Practice makes perfect. Although, there's no "perfect"... but close enough. ;)

I'm sure you'll do fine. Be patience and you'll get there! :thumb:
 
VamPyroX said:
That's something you will probably have to learn yourself.

Being able to see a person sign and talk at the same time is something that us deafies have spent a lifetime learning.

There are some deaf people who look directly at the hand and never learn to lipread. (I have a few friends like that. They spent their whole lives in deaf institutes. They either look at the other person's hands only and not the mouth... or they spend most of their time with people who sign without moving their mouths.)

Practice makes perfect. Although, there's no "perfect"... but close enough. ;)

I'm sure you'll do fine. Be patience and you'll get there! :thumb:
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I lipread, and just wanted to point out that its not the same as making eye contact.
 
metalangel said:
Thanks. I might try adjusting her arm (sorry to talk about you in third person like this) slightly just to see if it makes any difference. If not I might ask an optician anyway as it doesn't seem right that someone within my field of vision (as per below) should be that hard to make out!
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If this is an uncorrectable visual impairment issue then you may have to ask people you're signing with to keep their hands within your field of view. For instance, they may have to fingerspell more in front of their face rather than near their shoulder.
 
Give it time and practice. As you become more confident at reading finger spelling, you will naturally depend on staring at the hands less. It just takes time.

In our finger spelling classes we also had to practice, and be quizzed on, reading finger spelling from different angles, including behind the signer. Now that's fun! :lol:
 
Wirelessly posted (Blackberry Bold )

Also, keep in mind that we tend to stand farther apart when signing to each other than hearing people do when talking. Try adding an extra foot distance and see if that helps :)
 
metalangel said:
In class today honey.toronto and I were practicing fingerspelling while maintaining eye contact. I was having a bit of trouble clearly seeing her hand while I was looking at her face. She had her hand in about the right position, it just wasn't always 100% clear/in focus to me.

Any suggestions? Could I be that I might need ASL glasses to help me see more clearly to the side like that? Could it just be annoying fluorescent lighting?
Click to expand...

What are ASL Glasses????
 
Thanks, MM, I think that's where I had it.
Metalangel is also about 6" taller than me, which can be a disadvantage, even when sitting and signing.
 
I think the classroom setting is part of the issue, we're paired off and told to converse with the person next to us, which means just turning in your chair. I had the same sort of issue today with C.C. (another classmate) because again I was so close to her. Meanwhile, the teacher is at the front of the room for most of the class, 15 feet away give or take, and apart from when she went REALLY FAST I didn't seem to be having too many problems keeping both her hands and eyes/face in view.
 
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