ASL: There’s an App for That!

“There’s a mobile app for almost anything you may want too do, any situation you confront.”

Jacqueline Leo

In this latest installment of my ASL journey, I’ve decided to take a break from StackSkills (nothing against you Michael, I still cherish your excitement over the sign for ‘purse’). So where am I now? In case you are just reading, here is what my journey has looked like so far:

• Learning the letters of the ASL alphabet
• Fingerspelling words and sentences
• Numbers 1-20
• Pronouns and Possessive Pronouns
• Basic emotions and vocabulary
• Basic sentence structure

So today, I am going to continue on my journey of vocabulary, and also review some helpful apps along the way!

The ASL App

One of the first apps I downloaded when starting this project was free The ASL App, which has language packs including everything from the ABC’s and numbers to vocabulary about mood swings and the great outdoors! I decided to start with the “Universal Gestures” pack, which had 22 short videos, each about 2-3 seconds long. I also went through their “Basic” pack and learned some question signs, as I figured I would be asking them a lot! Here are all the signs I learned:

Pocket Sign

Pocket Sign is another app I downloaded at the beginning of this project, and am just getting around to using it! One of the main differences from The ASL App is that it had what are called “Daily Challenges”, or introductions to random vocabulary, with hints and quizzes throughout. I really like the way they set this up: they had gifs of the person signing, as well as written hints at the bottom. This is definitely something I would use in the classroom, as it appeals to various learning styles (visual, auditory, kinesthetic).

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Final Thoughts

This week was definitely less structured than ones in the past. I have usually had a plan on how to go about learning ASL; that is, I learned these basic signs, now I’ll do structure, etc. Now that I have some basic understanding and structure for my ASL knowledge, learning signs is the next (and arguably hardest) step. I must admit trying to remember all of the signs is tough, but I think I am doing the right thing by taking it slowly every day, rather than trying to learn 400 signs in one day and calling it good. And I know that this post drifted into the review territory more than a progress report, but I have been learning the signs in the pictures as well as more, and I wanted to share what was working for me in the hopes that others learning ASL can find them helpful too! Stay tuned for my final learning post next week, where I’ll be posting a longer, more comprehensive video on everything I’ve learned so far!