Put your hands together for… the final post! (and some ASL)

The semester is pretty much done, and so are the updates for my learning project! To be honest, when I read in the syllabus that I would be required to do a weekly learning project (and post publicly about it), I was less than thrilled. That being said, I can definitely notice a difference in my ASL skills from way back in May to now! In this post, I’ll go over all my learning posts up to now to provide a helpful background on where I’ve been so far, as well as some resources I’ve found especially helpful throughout my journey!

Outline of progress

Week One: Talking without… talking?

In this post, I wrote on my prior experience with learning languages, as well as my reasoning for picking ASL as my learning project! I also outlined what my expectations were with what and how much I would learn, and some resources I thought of using.

Week Two: “Now I know my ABCs”… but now what?

In week two, I delved into the world of StackSkills, and started one course that was designed to teach the alphabet in ASL. I reviewed my experience, providing details of techniques the instructor used throughout his videos, and showed off my progress in a short video!

Week Three: Does a bump in the road ruin the journey?

This post was a bit more philosophical than the others, as I hadn’t made as much progress in my ASL as I had hoped. Looking back, I think it was important for me to write this post, as anyone trying to work towards something (learning project or not) should be aware that bumps in the road happen. But I was still able to set some goals going forward, and share some resources I found!

Week Four: Zencastr, Sentences, Numbers (oh my!)

This post was more of a review of Zencastr, an online digital podcasting tool that I thought would be a great, easy-to-use program for the classroom. I shared some screenshots of my recording process, reviewed the process itself, and managed to create a short video of my ASL progress for that week too!

Week Five: Who? You? Me? Us? Uh… CAT!

With some of the basics down so far, I started learning more about the pronouns, possessives, and some vocabulary and emotions to improve my ASL skills. StackSkills again came to the rescue with their extremely helpful and well-tailored lessons and videos!

Week Six: ASL: There’s an App for That!

In week six, I took a chance and braved the world of ASL resources outside of StackSkills (I know, scary). Going along with learning vocabulary, I decided to look through some apps and try them out to see what kind of learning techniques they offered, as well as building up my personal ASL dictionary.

Week Seven: Put your hands together for… my final post! (and some ASL)

And that brings use to this week! I kept on the vocabulary train, challenging myself to learn more themed vocabulary, so I decided to learn words for everyday school objects! Just as a refresher, read below to see what progress I’ve made!

Quick glance at my learning:

Before EDTC300 Learning Project	After EDTC300 Learning Project
– Did not know the alphabet or numbers – Unable to construct sentences – Unable to spell through words or sentences – Did not know emotions – Limited range of vocabulary – Unable to ask questions	– Able to sign the letters of the ASL alphabet – Able to fingerspell words and sentences – Knowing numbers 1-20 – Pronouns (I/Me, You, He/She/It, We/Us, You, They/Them) – Possessives (Mine, Yours, His/Hers/Its, Ours, Yours, Theirs) – Basic emotions – Small bank of vocabulary – Basic sentence structure – Question words

So I ventured beyond my usual of StackSkills and apps on my phone, and challenged myself to learn all of the signs in this video:

I really liked this video, as it was straightforward and had good visuals for me to learn the signs. I also really liked how it included actions as well as vocabulary, not just “paper”, “pencil”, and “desk”, but things like “grade” or “stand up”. I was surprised to learn that I was already using a few of these in my work as an educational assistant, and didn’t realize that there were actually ASL signs!

It was definitely a challenge to get all of the signs down, and I am still practicing them, but I think that I have a solid foundation to keep learning from, as well as plenty of resources to share that I found most helpful!

Resources I’d recommend!

• StackSkills
  • This was my main resource throughout this entire learning project. Although it was a paid resource, it only came out to about $20 CAD, and for that I got access to 14 full courses, each at least an hour long! I found the lessons very straightforward and engaging, and this would be my first recommendation to anyone looking to pick up ASL.
• The ASL App
  • I reviewed this in one of my previous blog posts, but it was too good to not include on this list! This free mobile app helps you practice your ASL on the go, with everything from the ABCs to specialized vocabulary in helpful, short video format. Each video is about 2-3 seconds long, and the progression through each vocabulary “pack” was easy to follow!
• Pocket Sign
  • Pocket Sign is another app I used in this project, and good news: it’s free! This app was definitely more “gamified” than other ones I tried out, as you would learn vocabulary, and then pick between provided options to earn points. It was very engaging, and even offered notifications to remind me to learn the sign of the day! Pocket Sign was very helpful in maintaining my day-to-day progress in this learning project.
• Handspeak
  • This was more of an “as-you-need-it” kind of resource, but it was still very helpful! Handspeak is an online, free to use ASL dictionary! They have an index of words to choose from, as well as a general search bar whenever you want to learn more specialized vocabulary.
• YouTube
  • “But Benton, you can’t just recommend all of YouTube. That’s kind of a cop out, isn’t it?” And my answer is: not at all! There are plenty of ASL dedicated channels to follow, including ASL THAT, who made the video above. They would be one of my number one recommendations for ASL YouTube channels, as their videos are short, to the point, and range from absolute beginner to videos like “Car Accident Narrative Sequence” (yes, that is a real video, designed to test your comprehension of ASL, and you can watch it here)

It has been a journey so far, but I have no intention of stopping here because the assignment is finished! I have been able to use what I have learned through this project in my work, and I plan on building my ASL skills more and more to be able to communicate and reach the students I work with. So this isn’t a “the end”, but more, “to be continued”!