Quote:
Originally Posted by shel90
I wouldnt discourage anyone from attending Deaf socials but just to send the message that if they are ignored, then instead of saying that the Deaf community rejected them, maybe reconsider that many of them are not there to teach but there to relax and enjoy catching up with their friends. Many of the ASL students have interrupted my conversations to ask me the signs for this or that. It gets tiring after a while especially when I am in the middle of a good conversation only to get it stopped.
I was an ASL student myself so I have been there.
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I guess I could have considered myself an informal ASL student when I first began learning. I visited a Deaf club, and deaf socials as a way to interact with other deaf individuals. I suppose my purpose was to learn about the culture and the experience of growing up deaf, but it was learning that takes place in a very informal way, like two neighbors chatting about things. Of course, my ASL skills improved, because of the corrections made during conversation.
I don't recall ever being ignored at one of these events. My introduction usually started with, "Hi, my name is Jill, and I have a deaf son." I let the deaf individual I was introducing myself to take it from there, and once it was established that I was simply there to make friends and to help my son develop ties to the community, I would be introduced to others, and usually end up chatting about all sorts of things. I think two things were key in my ability to be accepted into the community: one, that my son was deaf and my motivation was to help him, and two, that I always let the deaf individual take the lead rather than saying "teach me this, or how do you sign that?" Questions that came up usually arised from just having a conversation, so that the learning came from simply getting to know the individual as a person.