Teaching SignWriting by Videophone

Shane Gilchrist O hEorpa shane.gilchrist.oheorpa at GMAIL.COM
Sun Apr 2 00:08:42 UTC 2006


Everyone,

Regarding my first signwriting lesson with our renowned Valerie Sutton...

I'm still wrecked - lol - busy and all that. Lots of intense meetings
in the past two weeks in Northern Ireland Sign Language (and one or
two in Irish Sign Language) so my English doesn't really exist right
now - so you ll have to forgive me.

Val and I have agreed that she is to teach me SignWriting (after all
she did suggest THAT last year) to see if it is actually working - to
see if it is an effective way of learning SW rather than me flying
across the big pond to Yankland.

It is a positive experience - it was really strange for me to talk to
the TV like that - but it was good - i am actually talking to the
inventor (therefore the uber-expert) of SW and I got to learn the
history of how SW was applied etc.

Val's ASL is quite good and simple - which is a real bonus for me as I
am not very fluent in ASL - i can follow ASL buuuuuuuuuuuut for
fingerspelling and the unusual number system - and it is very easy for
most (fluent) signers to follow her shall they try and make efforts.
It was really strange using pen and paper and then show it to the
dlink videophone - but after a few mistakes we are slowly amending to
use the system - and its very positive.

When using the videophone, you would make sure you use artificial
light (lamps etc) rather than natural light - because the videophone
is not so good with natural skylight - and make sure you use the thick
pens (the ones u use to write on flipboards etc) instead of normal
pens cos you will have the trouble seeing the lines (in the SW we drew
etc)

Yes, I do know a lot of SW - but i am not very good at movements etc -
i do need interactive teaching - which Val kindly provided - and the
real bonus Val have over most signwriting trainers is that she is good
at the visual grammar of ASL which is very important for people like
me - I can say safely that i find it easy to learn SW from our
Kathleen and our Sara because they are very good at visual language  -
whereas others they would used the signed version of the spoken
language.

Even more, Val is a superb teacher - im a teacher myself and a teacher
trainer (not so good) but I can recognise a good teacher when I see
one - and in Val, we have a very talented and good teacher - we are
very lucky - many inventors are not good at teaching but for Val,
she's great :-)

Thank you, Val - and I do look forward to our next lesson! :-)

yours in SW,

Shane a bit more confident with his SW movements! :-)

On 4/1/06, Valerie Sutton <sutton at signwriting.org> wrote:
> SignWriting List
> April 1st, 2006
>
> Dear SignWriting List Members!
> Today I taught the basics of SignWriting to Shane in Belfast, Northern
> Ireland, by videophone, using ASL signs! Neither Shane nor I are experts in
> ASL (grin), but we still communicated well.
>
> And this was the first time I felt comfortable with the videophone, teaching
> SignWriting basics. We had to position the camera lens exactly right, and
> then I was able to show Shane SignWriting diagrams that were very large, and
> then we would discuss the symbols in those diagrams.
>
> Thank you, Shane, for the good experience!
>
> The videophone holds much promise, although it takes patience to learn how
> to use it, and to set it up properly....
>
> The truth is....the Lessons in SignWriting DVD teaches the same basic
> symbols well, so the DVD, for beginning writers, is probably even better
> because it does not require the videophone technology. But the videophone
> gives the human touch...and it is good to know each other in person, and
> confusions and questions can be answered more directly, where the DVD is not
> interactive...
>
> So if anyone wants to learn by videophone, write to me for an appointment.
>
>
> Val ;-)
>
>
> Valerie Sutton
> Sutton at SignWriting.org
>
> 1. SignWriting
> Read & Write Sign Languages
> http://www.SignWriting.org
>
> 2. SignBank
> Create Sign Language Databases
> http://www.SignBank.org
>
> 3. SignPuddle
> Create Sign Language Dictionaries
> http://www.SignPuddle.org
>
> 4. SignText
> Create Sign Language Documents
> http://www.SignBank.org/signpuddle/signtext
>
> 5. DanceWriting
> Read & Write Dance Movement
> http://www.DanceWriting.org
>
> 6. MovementWriting
> Read & Write All Body Movement
> http://www.MovementWriting.org
>
>
>
>



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