ASL Progress

Words & Sentences from: Vicars, W. (n.d.). ASL: 1 Lessson: 2. Retrieved from http://www.lifeprint.com/index.htm *

This past week I made another video of my Genius Hour project...learning American Sign Language (ASL)! I created both videos with iMovie on my Macbook Air; I have never used iMovie before so I am slowly getting better at navigating the app and figuring out how to get past the basic, as you can see between comparing the first and second video I made!

As far as the challenges I posed last week with video-taping my sign language, I think that I performed better this week. I was able to focus more on the body language and facial features of the sign language, however it still took me many tries to get the perfect one! I still need to work on refining my hand shapes with each sign, but this will come with more practice.

I have definitely learned a great deal about ASL so far; I know about 60 words and 40 sentences. I still need to work on grammar and fluidity of my sentences. Grammar is difficult because if you want to say "what is your dad's name" you have to sign "dad-name-what", which is difficult to think about in the moment when I am trying to sign. I originally had a misconception about ASL before I started learning it, that I would just speak English in my head and sign each word, however after I started learning ASL, I realized that this was not the case, and that it has a unique history, culture and grammar to it!

I have learned many things about myself throughout this process. I have learned that I am capable of learning sign language; at the beginning when I found out about ASL I was hesitant that I would not be able to accomplish it. I also learned that I need to make more time for something that I care about. Often, school work such as papers and tests take priority and I think that I don't have time for other work.

Overall, I am happy with my Genius Hour progress so far, and my next steps include continuing to learn more words and more sentences!

*Note: the purpose of this video is to demonstrate my progress of learning American Sign Language, not to serve as a lesson for learning ASL. Visit  ASL University to view the lessons that I learned from.