Starting an ASL club

[Grayma]

I'm calling it a club and not a class because we don't have a formal teacher. But about five of us hearing from my church are going to get together once a week to work through the lessons on lifeprint. We have a deaf lady who has volunteered to help us out, so I am excited about that.

It will be probably be more than five learning from the class, as I know several of our children will be learning along with us, as will one of my sons-in-law who will be studying on his own because he works nights, they have a new baby, and they are busy with multiple weekly therapies for their one year old.

I've also decided to ride into town once a week when one of the girls has a college class and meet anybody in the group who is free to practice more together. My deaf friend told me before she would meet with me to help me improve my signing, but we live 40 miles away and I don't yet if the day I can get to town works for her.

I'm excited, but nervous, too. I'm not sure why I'm nervous. I just want it to go well.

Anybody else done anything like this? Any suggestions or tips?

 

[Grayma]

Had our first meeting today. There were fifteen of us, ranging in age from 2 13 year olds to 3 of us in our fifties. I think it went pretty well- everybody was startled when our 55 minute meeting time was over. The deaf lady from church gave everybody some fingerspelling tests and really made the class clown pay attention in a firm but friendly fashion (the class clown is, I am embarrassed to say, my own son).

I'm pleased that one of the ladies who did the most homework and worked ahead is a jr high teacher who says she wants to learn sign because she occasionally has deaf or HOH students in her class and she'd like to communicate to them directly instead of always and only thru the interpreter.
Others are there because they like the look of the language, or because they just want to be able to communicate in her language with the deaf lady at church, or because Mom made them come (my son).=)

 

[KristinaB]

That's great. I kind of wish we had something like that. Maybe I will see if I can work with some online people that way. I don't know.

 

[Grayma]

We're still meeting every Sunday afternoon. Lately, I've been printing out the questions that are attached to the lessons at Lifeprint, pasting them to index cards, and then passing them out. I also try to make up some variations of the questions using the other vocabulary words and any new words we've learned from previous discussions.
We sit in a circle and go around the room and one person turns over a card, chooses another person in the group, signs the question, and then that person has to sign back. My deaf friend is there to correct any of us, or to roll her eyes and ask us what on earth do we think we are trying to say?

Don't know if I shared this story, but outside of class I recently instructed our minister to tell my friend that he (the minister) is pregnant.

The minister was asking for the sign for thank-you, and for some reason that very simple sign just escapes me. I cannot get it right.

Anyway, we're only on lesson 4, and I think I'll be ready to stop doing this at lesson 10, not because I'm not enjoying it, but the time that works for everybody else to meet totally stinks for me and the rest of my family. Happily, my deaf friend is willing to meet with me another day in the week at a time that works better for me.

My 15 and 21 year old daughters are really good at it, but they are both too bashful to share, so my friend doesn't know how much better they are than their mum. The 21 year old's receptive skills in particular are impressive to me.

Of course, I'm hearing, and still sign at about a 3rd grade level, maybe, so maybe I'm easily impressed.