I want to welcome those of you who joined my session this weekend in Singapore! What a great group you were! With more than 40 countries represented at this conference, it will be interesting to see where you are all from. Please post where you are from (home country), where you are teaching now and a little bit about your position.
The session had to move very quickly so I have included the pdf, ASL Signs Handbook_Singapore, which includes the signs I taught during the session, along with the two PowerPoint presentations, ASL in ESL Classroom-Singapore, ASL in the ESL Classroom_behavior-Singapore. Please feel free to download these and use for your personal use in the classroom. To use the material outside your classroom, please contact me and let me know how you would like to use it. Thanks for coming to my session in Singapore! I’m looking forward to you using ASL with your students! Report back in this blog and ask any questions that you might have. I will also be posting additional information from time to time.
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It is significant to understand what is meant by ‘signing space' with regards to a Deaf person. This is the area that provides for optimum viewing of signs as they are formed. As a general rule, signs stay within the dashed circle, allowing for the movement of the signs. The shaded area is for fingerspelling and you need to be careful that you are holding your hand still, not bouncing it as you spell. Of course, if you are addressing a large audience, your ‘signing space’ will increase and, if you are talking privately with another person, this area will decrease. I have discovered that teaching ASL handshapes first is a very effective and accurate way for non-signers, teachers and students, to learn American Sign Language for the first time. It is important that teachers understand and produce the sign correctly as they will be the ones teaching their students the signs. It is not as crucial for the students because they will gradually self-correct just as in the process of learning to speak.
By learning a specific handshape properly, teachers are able to sign many different words by just changing the location of the sign on the body, the direction of the palm of the hand and the movement of the sign, allowing the learner to not only learn one sign but a multitude of signs in a very short time. It shortens the time necessary to accomplish the goal and it enhances the teaching/learning experience. There are approximately 40 different handshapes and every one of them has these four parameters in relation to our body:
I have discovered that teaching ASL handshapes first is a very effective and accurate way for non-signers, teachers and students, to learn American Sign Language for the first time. It is important that teachers understand and produce the sign correctly as they will be the ones teaching their students the signs. It is not as crucial for the students because they will gradually self-correct just as in the process of learning to speak.
By learning a specific handshape properly, teachers are able to sign many different words by just changing the location of the sign on the body, the direction of the palm of the hand and the movement of the sign, allowing the learner to not only learn one sign but a multitude of signs in a very short time. It shortens the time necessary to accomplish the goal and it enhances the teaching/learning experience. |
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