GrendelQ

Who is saying its time to stop? Or "if you don't want to use ASL" -- are you referring to someone you know who doesn't? Or to me, bc I'm looking for advancement, not stopping. Knock that chip off your shoulder and READ carefully what I'm posting here: I'm asking for advice from this community, from people who have learned ASL, teach it, or whose families have found a way to learn, for ways they found to really do it (and what NOT to do) , not for how to start doing it or how to dabble in it, but how to make the language acquisition deep and meaningful and thorough enough to really make a difference in my child's life.

I'm recognizing a sudden shift in where her learning is advancing, and diagnosing that as resulting from where we, her parents are stronger (English vs. ASL) rather than what others might see as her own preference for English over ASL. If I'm shifting to telling a story in English because I know the words for stallion, mare, colt, foal, seafoam, allosaurus, etc. in English and can only dumb it down to daddy horse, mama horse, baby horse, splash water, fat dinosaur in ASL, she's going to pick up on that in a way that might not be conducive to appreciating both languages equally, and her ASL vocabulary will not grow as rapidly as her English vocabulary is.

I see this happening, but it was not our intention to shift from ASL as primary to English as primary as is occurring, and I'm looking to maintain her ASL development in the home. How is it lazy to be assessing this, and, in addition to continuing formal classes, to look to people who have learned the language for practical advice on how they did it?

Deafness

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GrendelQ

Do you use both equally at home?

deafgal001

First of all, you need to stop thinking ASL in English and start seeing it in 3-d pictural language. Otherwise, you are going to think it is being dumbed down and broken English as well.

posts from hell

dumbing it down.... ha impressive. That is the problem. ASL was made to convey visual images not linear language.

Theres signs in ASL that english doesn't have in "one word format".. like "Two days ago". In German they actually have a specific word for two and three days in future/past. Does that make English dumbed down compared to the german? Hell no. It's just language and it is just so.

faire_jour

She said SHE was dumbing down ASL, not that ASL was dumbed down English. She said that she feels like she doesn't have the fluency to grow and strech her child's language and cognition through a language that she doesn't feel comfortable with. She worries that she isn't giving her child colorful, varied, fluent language. (And if she doesn't, she is right, her child's language will suffer because of it.)

GrendelQ

Exactly! (thank you!)

deafgal001

I don't know what to think. I mean you signed baby horse for foal... but what's wrong with "baby horse" in ASL.. it is NOT speaking in English, you know. It could be very well be foal in ASL.

Just like teach - person for teacher

AlleyCat

I'm with deafgal on the "baby horse" for foal -- I actually do not know of another sign for the word "foal" itself. I don't see using "baby horse" as dumbing down the word for foal in terms of sign. If teaching Li-Li or Miss Kat the actual word of "foal" is what you are wanting to accomplish, then you'll need to fingerspell that at the same time that you're signing "baby horse" so the connection is made. If anyone else here knows an actual sign for foal I'd be interested in knowing it.

There are many, countless times when a specific word does not have a sign for it and a substitution, one that is very equal to the original word, has to be made.

GrendelQ

You don't know why I would want to have more than a basic level of vocabulary and classifiers and pursue a a better command of the language? I guess that's a valid perspective: why do we need all that unnecessary verbiage when communicating. Maybe George Orwell's 'newspeak' was doubleplusgood after all. Why would I want to introduce my child to something like this: ASL Shakespeare Project when I could just sign big rain sink boat, sister swim, she dress like boy, go to work, brother swim, he find friend. Princess (I don't know Duke, Lord, Lady, Count, etc.) love pretend boy, pretend boy love Prince, Princess marry brother think pretend boy, everybody confuse, angry, pretend boy -- true girl -- show leg, prince marry pretend boy now girl, people trick bad guy, all good at night.

sallylou

This is the key. In order to be fluent, a person has to be able to sign without translating from English into ASL. It takes time and practice but it happens.

A hearing women came to my class and was very rude to me because I would not speak while signing. I patiently explained to her that I could not speak while signing because I was not thinking in English. Speaking while signing messes me up. This woman has the whole hearing world and she complains at the deaf center that she can't understanding something (without even trying). She has a adult deaf daughter and she was at class by her request. Sound familiar? She only made it a couple of classes before she bailed. Very frustrating!

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Tousi

The only other possible sign one could use for foal/"baby horse" might be "one yr old" cuz, in the horse world, they are called yearlings from the day they are born until the day they become 2 yr olds, lol....but that's too "technical", I guess.....

deafgal001

Never read newspeak so I don't know what you are talking about.

But I'm just saying, be careful about thinking english words. it is not the same thing.

GrendelQ

But you're on the right track, in the context of my daughter's book, there were distinctions made between foals, colts and fillies, in addition to stallions, mares, geldings, dams, sires, etc... So the issue was that we needed to get more granular with what you might think of as a simple mama, daddy, baby horse description. And I'm not thinking there's a 1 to 1 ASL sign to English word answer to this in all cases, but it's that comfort level with either knowing a specific vocabulary sign, or knowing how to enhance the signs with classifiers or other means of specifying the language.

deafgal001

This make me feel that children should have ASL classes. I would volunteer to teach public school at 15 minutes ASL twice a week if I knew how. Some people's mind seem so hardwired.

deafgal001

sign very young horse and 1 years old? and most deaf would just fingerspell it.

btw, are yearling like toddlers?

you have infant, toddlers, school age (kindergarten, 1st...) , preteen, teenager, young adult, man, woman, mother, father, husband wife etc.

of course, teenage boy sound juvenile.. is there a word for "teenage boy"

GrendelQ

I don't think that ASL = English vocabulary.

Maybe it was a while ago for you, I think that Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm have been standard 9th grade curriculum that pretty much every kid in America has read since the early 60's, if not earlier?

Newspeak is the fictional language in Nineteen Eighty-Four based on pared down concepts, replacing English. The selling point -- and also the danger -- was that it was intended to remove shades of meaning from language, making for simple dichotomies that could then be controlled by the government, or a particular culture.

deafgal001

It's just fiction based on someone's wild imagination. Just like minefield.

GrendelQ

What's your point?

deafgal001

None, just that I don't use a fiction book.

AlleyCat

I get your point. That was why I was saying to fingerspell foal along with signing baby horse at the same time so that the word foal is taught, and if you want to further enhance that by adding one year old in front of that (there is a sign for signing one year old) then you can really explain what a foal is versus other types of horses.

AlleyCat

And, I have offered before that if anybody would like to skype me, they can. The invitation is still there. If you want to practice specific signs or get more comfortable with conversational sign usage, give it a try.

Tousi

This may be a bit off topic but I think, better yet: ASL should be part of the curriculum at all schools alongside the usual R's...

deafgal001

Grendal, you'll have to look for a deaf person who know ASL and lives on a horse farm. I'm sure there plenty of horse farms who work with deaf children as well. Ask them what they use to to sign for mare/colt/etc.

Or go to interpreter workshops if you want to go in depth.

GrendelQ

So you don't see any value in Shakespeare's works, in the writings of John Locke, in Milton's poetry, because it's not, what, a receipt from the gas station?

Do you know how important a full language is to facilitating the thought process? If you don't have a word, or a symbol, or a specific way of signing something, you can't effectively think it. The limits of your language influence the limits of your thought.

deafgal001

I won't use fiction to discredit ASL.

GrendelQ

My daughter's school is adding it to the curriculum this year, much like English is taught formally, now ASL will be as well.

GrendelQ

Your takeaway from this discussion is that Shakespeare, Orwell, and other great writers discredit ASL?

Bottesini

Be more to the point if you ever read Shakespeare. Then the point would not be lost on you.

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deafgal001

Never read shakespeare.

deafgal001

I don't know why you had to bring it in. If you want in depth, then go learn it.

I know about being visual. It is not meaningless. I even use drawing for more complex issues.