These Hands Can Do More Than Just Count!

This week for my learning project I decided to venture outside my comfort zone of my usual ASL apps and YouTube videos into the TikTok learning world. I usually watch ASL TikTok’s because I find them very interesting but I honestly never thought of searching out people teaching ASL on TikTok.

WOW, was I surprised!! The options were unlimited! There were so many amazing people on the app teaching ASL it was hard to choose just one. Fortunately, I managed to pick my 2 top favourite which were @slntwrlddd and @____onelovee. I focused on learning from hearing impaired or deaf individuals because I found it important to respect their language. I believe it is their language to share.

I knew I wanted to focus on counting, days of the week and months for this week of my learning project. I started with counting then moved into days of the week and ended with the months of the year.

Counting in ASL

I started my counting lesson with @slntwrlddd lesson how to count from 1 to 20 in ASL. I practiced counting in ASL by watching the videos for about 2 days. I found counting to be the most difficult because most people already have a particular way they count with their fingers and I had to completely forget it in order to learn how to count in ASL. After the 2 days of full on watching practicing, watching practicing etc. I felt comfortable enough to try on my own without the assistance of the video and then after 1 day of self practice I made a video of myself counting from 1- 20 in sign language! Hope you enjoy it!

Days of the Week

Next I learned the days of the week. For this learning I also used @slntwrlddd and the video for the days of the week. I kind of took the same approach. I watched slntwrlddd videos and learned along side him for about a day, after a day I felt okay to try practicing without the assistance of the video. At this point I should not have felt confident to practice without the video because for a whole day I was practicing the days of the week upside down!! I was not impressed with myself and felt kinda silly. BUT after about a day of practicing with the video again I was able to comprehend and actually learn how to sign the days of the week properly! Side note: I also learnt how to sign days, week and weekend! which I wasn’t planning on learning but happy to learn as much as my brain can retain!

Months of the Year

Last but not least I learnt the 12 months of the year in sign. For this I used ____onelovee teaching video’s on TikTok. This one was called Months of the year. I saved the months for last because I honestly thought this was going to be the toughest to learn but I was wrong. The months of the year are typically finger spelled. Lucky for me I already knew the alphabet from my first week of the ASL learning project so I only had to learn if they were abbreviated or if I was supposed to spell the whole month. They were indeed abbreviated. The only months that weren’t abbreviated were March, April, May, June and July. The remainder were to the first 3 letters. Jan, Feb, Aug, Sept, Oct, Nov and Dec.

The Proof!

I decided instead of making 3 separate videos I would try my hands at editing(again) and combine the 3 videos I made into 1! Please enjoy!

What would ya’ll like to see next? drinks? Pronouns? tools? family members? weather? The list can go on… and on… and on… I really want to learn a song, maybe learn one with my partner and make a cute TikTok of our own? What does everyone think? Share your ideas in the comments!