Teaching ASL With SW

Tue Mar 18 18:05:51 UTC 2008

SignWriting List
March 18, 2008

Hello Stephen and Vanessa!
Thank you for this excellent report, which I enjoyed reading. And  
thank you for sharing your teaching methods to the List. It helps all  
of us think through how to teach in the future.

I like very much, the method you are choosing. You are correct that if  
SignWriting is used for vocabulary lists, while people learn to sign,  
they learn SignWriting indirectly, and do not feel as overwhelmed as a  
formal course. Then when they naturally start asking questions about  
the symbols, they are really interested in your answers and can see  
the benefit of writing signs...It is a good approach...

You can do the same with a simple piece of literature, like Goldilocks  
Level 2...which can be downloaded here:

SignWriting Children's Stories
http://www.signwriting.org/library/children/index.html

Even though your students are not children, they are at a basic level  
with SignWriting, and when they try to read a story for the first  
time, at first they guess a lot, but after awhile, with small  
explanations from their teacher, they start picking up on reading and  
it is amazing how fast the process can start to accelerate...

So that is another idea...find some literature and encourage  
experimental reading...

Since you are a Church group, why not download the chapters already  
written from the Bible in ASL?...That is appropriate reading material!

Go to this web page to choose versions of the Bible to download:

SignWriting Religious Literature
http://www.signwriting.org/library/religion.html

Val ;-)

---------------

On Mar 18, 2008, at 8:50 AM, Vanessa Jones wrote:

> Hello all!
>
> Thank you for your interest and comments!
>
> Our lessons in both sign and SW have gone well for the past two  
> weeks.  So far, we are mainly using SW for review sheets to help the  
> students remember how to pronounce the signs later.  First we go  
> through the lesson and introduce new signs.  Then at the end of  
> class we give them a handout with the signs in SW and the English  
> word(s) equivalence.
>
> The students are picking up the sign writing.  In the first class  
> one student asked, "So is there a system behind this?"  After  
> answering an emphatic "yes!", we took the opportunity to explain  
> orientation on the wall plane, four contact symbols (touch, brush,  
> rub, and strike), and the up-down arrows vs the forward-back  
> arrows.  Our plan is to explain a few more symbols every week at the  
> end of the sign language lesson.  In this way we hope not to  
> overwhelm the students as they are learning both sign and SW but at  
> the same time we hope that SW will kind of sneak into their brain in  
> a logical way.
>
> The next lesson we are planning a tour of the church and we will  
> definitely have labels in SW on the items we will teach!  That is a  
> wonderful idea and we are looking forward to using it.
>
> We will try to keep you guys updated!  Thanks again for the ideas!
>
> Stephen and Vanessa
>
>
> On Mon, Mar 10, 2008 at 12:06 PM, Valerie Sutton  
> <signwriting at mac.com> wrote:
> SignWriting List
> March 10, 2008
>
> Hello Stephen and Vanessa!
> Happy to know you are using SignWriting...How did your lessons go  
> yesterday? ;-)
>
> And I thought everyone's ideas were really good! I like writing the  
> sign for DOOR on the door....
>
> The idea of writing signs for objects and placing the written sign  
> on the object itself, has been used with success before...There are  
> some teachers who say this method is very practical and the  
> SignSpellings become easier for the students because they have seen  
> the writing on a regular basis...
>
> Val ;-)
>
>
>
>
> On Mar 9, 2008, at 8:20 AM, Stephen Jones wrote:
>
>> Hello,
>>
>> Thanks all for the suggestions! Since this will be done at church  
>> the flashcards and signs on everything might work out really well.  
>> Also, thanks Kim for the feedback. We are going to be teaching this  
>> afternoon and will do our best to keep you updated on how the class  
>> responds. We are going to have around 20+ students.
>>
>> ~Stephen Jones
>>
>> On Sun, Mar 9, 2008 at 12:34 AM, Charles Butler <chazzer3332000 at yahoo.com 
>> > wrote:
>> The Deaf Club of Pelotas has signs for everything in SW.  Brazilian  
>> sign is fun.
>>
>> Charles Butler
>>
>>
>>
>> Thiessen Stuart <thiessenstuart at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I think this is a great idea!
>>
>> One suggestion: Make flashcards of all your vocabulary and put it in
>> the classroom somewhere and remind your students that they can drill
>> themselves on the signs that way if they want. Using flashcards for
>> language study has always been helpful for me. :)
>>
>> Another idea is to label common things around the room. Put the sign
>> "DOOR" on the door, etc. That can be another reinforcement that you
>> can use of the sign.
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Stuart
>>
>> On 8 Mar 2008, at 12:56 , Stephen Jones wrote:
>>
>> > Hello!
>> >
>> > My wife, Vanessa, and I are going to teach conversational ASL at  
>> our
>> > church just an hour a week. We want to help the students (mostly
>> > adults) remember the signs we teach them and are therefore giving
>> > them a vocabulary sheet at the end of the lesson. The signs on the
>> > vocab sheet will be written in SW. This is the first time we have
>> > used SW to teach ASL and we were wondering if any of you have had
>> > any experience with this and had advice or suggestions to share. We
>> > are not planning on formally teaching the students SW but planning
>> > on them learning the written signs as they learn sign.
>> >
>> > Thanks and have a great weekend!
>> > Stephen Jones
>> >
>> >
>> >
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