It’s Time to Learn the Alphabet!
Never thought I would be saying that I need to learn the alphabet, since I am 20 years old, but here I am. However, this isn’t any usual alphabet learned in school. It’s the ASL alphabet!
The image attached is one that I have used a guide for my learning. I tend to use this image when practicing the ASL alphabet on my own time, in case I need to look back at one of the letters.
Check out this super useful YouTube video that I referred to several times this week. There are a few things that I absolutely love about this video. First of all, showing the signs from three different camera angles is genius. When I looked just at the image, I was a bit unsure of where my fingers went sometimes. But then, this video showing different angles helped my understanding so much. I was able to clearly see where each of my fingers goes as I can look at the different angles for assistance.
Another important aspect of this video is the colour scheme. Like anything, the colour scheme helps with visuals so much. Since people who use ASL on a daily basis do not rely on being able to hear things, their visuals need to be enhanced. By using a black background and the person in the video wearing bright pink, I am able to clearly see the hand.
Lastly, this video has no sound added to it minus the occasional background noise. I feel like this helps with my ASL journey and experience. In a scenario where I would use ASL to communicate with someone who is hard of hearing, they will rarely be talking. Therefore, learning the alphabet without talking in the background is so important. This helps me practice for real-life conversations using ASL in the future.
Overall, learning the ASL alphabet wasn’t terribly difficult. To me, the hardest part is remembering the signage for each letter. I am convinced that with practice, I will be able to do the ASL alphabet without any assistance at all.
I am curious about how to use the alphabet in regard to ASL. For example, to sign the words do I simply just combine the letters like you would for the English language. Or, does each word have its own special signing. I am so curious to know. If any readers have any ideas, please let me know! I will also be researching this in the upcoming days. Perhaps, my next blog post about ASL might have answers to this question.
Thank you for reading this post and keeping up with my ASL journey!
Hey Ashley,
I am also learning ASL for my learning project so I am excited to see what we can both learn from other resources and each other! I found it interesting that you found it easier to learn the alphabet with silence because I found it more beneficial when I used the ABC’s song either in my head or in the background. To partially answer your question to the best of my ability I believe each word has its own special sign, but in a pinch if you know the alphabet you could always spell it out! Good luck with the rest of your learning journey!
Hey Ashley!
I love the video and visual you used in this post. I think learning ASL is a very important skill to have, especially as an educator. I enjoyed the lesson on colour visuals for children/people who are deaf, You bring up a good question at the end of your post and I am now wondering the same thing. Hopefully you can find the answer. I look forward to watching your journey!