Rochester Method

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In class this week my teacher was going over fingerspelling and mentioned the Rochester method. No signs just straight up fingerspell. She showed us what this would look like and she spelled, “hello my name is” then spelled her name and said she was a teacher and blah blah. Well my horrible fingerspelling skills, (both expressive and receptive), I didn’t understand any of it. She said this was popular to be taught in NY in the 50’s and 60’s. I thought it was just awful and not because I hate fingerspell. No language spells every single word in the conversation instead of saying the word. You wouldn’t do the following, “H-E-L-L-O M-Y N-A-M-E I-S” you say “Hello my name is” it is so silly to me. How this ever became a method of teaching I do not understand. Yet another case of people that feel they know better than the folks that actually have to use it.
 
Whaaat? with Fingerspelling "HELLO-MY-NAME-IS..WHAT-IS-YOUR-NAME? HOW-ARE-YOU? I-AM-FINE.....". oh I dont used long word with Fingerspelling. I prefer sign "Hello my name is" It is not hard sign. :(
deafs Germany used sign, took Fingerspelling rarely.
 
Rochester is unbelievably cumbersome, artificial, and exhausting.
 
CSDR used to follow this method. I remember one teacher made us fingerspellling all the time and not allowed us to use ASL in her class for one year. It was in early 70's. I did not know about this method till I read it on video few weeks ago and now I knew where it came from.
 
I've seen the Rochester method enough to know that those very skilled at it would NOT put you to sleep.....
 
Eh? That's the "Rochester Method"? I live in Rochester and I've never seen this used.

You're probably referring to the very old days.
 
Rochester Method uses no signs--everything is fingerspelled.
 
My recollection, from having given a talk at the Florida School for the Deaf in St. Augustine back in the 70's, is that the only two signs allowed were "you" and "I". I pulled it off alright.
 
Tousi said:
My recollection, from having given a talk at the Florida School for the Deaf in St. Augustine back in the 70's, is that the only two signs allowed were "you" and "I". I pulled it off alright.
Click to expand...
I think some users allowed the "and" sign. I don't know if that was "official" or not. ;)
 
Thanks for the info guys! I have never seen any signs used, but have seen gestures indicating you and I.
 
How exhausting! I don't think of every little letter when talking to someone. I rather deal with cued speech than fingerspell. But anyway, ASL is better above all.
 
I used to go to Rochester School for the Deaf to assist the teacher once a week for one semester in late 80's. This teacher taught for over 30 or something years and she fingerspelled so fast. It was not bad in the begining, but she continued fingerspelling - my eyes started falling apart and it was harder and harder to understand her.

It took me a few weeks before I finally adjusted to her commuication style. I was fortunate she allowed me to sign.
 
I have been aware of this method since I was young. My first young impression was it is ridiculously wasting time and exaggerating and tiring.

Who would want to do that everyday?
 
When my friend was young they had a deaf neighbor, she wanted to communicate with him but did not speak sign language, she learnt the ASL alphabet and (being as she was very young) concluded that this WAS the language and began using the so-called "Rochester Method" with this boy, they could understand each other and managed to communicate just fine. I talked with her the other day and she showed me an example, she fingerspelled a sentence faster than many could sign one... I was very impressed, it's not often you see someone who doesn't know how to sign that has the fingerspelling capabilities of a deaf person who has grown up using ASL! I can see how it's possible to use such a method, and much simpler to learn, but a true language isn't meant to be "simple" ... for a language to work it must be complex in some ways and capable of expressing abstract/metaphysical concepts and ideas ... to fingerspell everything seems to be copying a single tool of another language (and to a lesser extent at that!).
 
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