The start to learning ASL

September 16, 2020 1 By Brandon Rumford

When deciding what to do for my learning project, I was completely clueless. I had zero ideas for what I could do and after looking at previous students’ projects, I thought that both ukulele as well as ASL would be a cool skill to learn. I own a drum set (that I am not great at playing) and figured having a small portable instrument would be a cool thing to know how to play. As well, the usefulness behind ASL as not only a ordinary person, but as a becoming teacher was influencing my decision. It wasn’t until a fellow friend in this class told me that we should both learn ASL to silently communicate that I was sold. I am a child sometimes and that is alright with me.

I have never really considered learning ASL and after seeing the amount of past students that have done it, I realized its potential in a career of teaching. Now I have absolutely no experience in ASL so I am going into this completely clueless. As of writing this I have not done any research to show where I was really at before this class. But I do however have sort of a plan of action, that will become more fleshed out as the class goes on. I think to start I am going to find YouTube videos or apps to learn the basics. I will learn letters and numbers to start and work my way up from there. Working from those simple terms to common expressions or phrases that will be important to know when using ASL.

This first blog might not be very informative but that is kind of how I wanted to start. Completely in the dark and then be able to look back at the end of this class and see how far I’ve come, I hope that you enjoy following me on this journey to learn ASL and I am excited to see how far I get.