Sign Language

As I go along reading the Gallaudet Survival Guide to Signing I try to find signs that I haven't learned in my year two class of sign language. I started marking the signs with sticky notes so I could go back and learn those signs. 10 of the signs I didn't know: almost, butter, catch, dictionary, disappoint, fork, long, salt, spring and vote. As I looked at how to sign disappoint Lane writes, "Right hand in ONE shape, palm in. Touch chin with index fingertip" (51). As I look at how Lane describes how to sign a sign I compare it to the picture next to it and see if I can visualize it in my mind. Reading off the book is a totally different way of learning then having a teacher teach it to you. The pictures can be hard to understand as you look at them, while a teacher can easily show you how to sign a word/phrase.

Make you dominant hand into a U hand shape, then drag it along the palm of your other by the tips of your fingers (Lane 29). This was a paraphrased version of how to sign butter. When learning ASL it is very important that you can understand how to explain signs so you can teach others. This process also lets me learn the sign better, I take in all the aspects of each sign when I find a way to re-word it. The more and more I think and practice a sign the more it gets in my head. Remembering signs isn't my biggest worry with sign language, but with others it is. With myself, I get asked a lot of questions about what a sign is, I have noticed that I remember the signs I helped others with, more then the signs I haven't been asked about.

For a challenge of my own, I have decided to try and sign the 10 words I didn't know when i first started to read this book.

Why is sign language important to you?