Everlucent

Hey folks help me out here
What is the quickest way to learn to sign? I've lost all my hearing over the last couple years and was stuborn about it insisting that others needed to learn to talk not me needing to learn to hear, hehe. The problem is that I adapted very well to reading lips of those people I know but not so good with strangers.

I would also like to be able to communicate with other deaf people as well and I looked into ASL classes and found out it"s like 32 credit hours or something like that. 2 years of school? I don't see how someone can learn in a class room setting without the whole hearing thing. I know they offer CC or court reporters but it would prolly be hard to read the screen and watch the motions.

Does anyone know a route other than collage classes that can help a person become familier with ASL?

__________________

Deafness

__________________
This advertising will not be shown in this way to registered members.
Register your free account today and become a member on AllDeaf.com

Tousi

Not to sound flip and short but total immersion's probably the best way, I think. So hang on; others will chime in.

authentic

ASLPro.com Home

__________________

RedFox

Go to Deaf events to meet others?

Everlucent

That was my plan, there is a deaf happy hour here in DFW on july 26th so i was kinda hoping to atleast learn to sign " You there are pretty, are you married, have a borfriend, want one" by then, hehe

__________________

Buffalo

try Dallas deaf club at: http://www.dallasdeafclub.org/http:/...sdeafclub.org/

You could also ask them if there is a person who teachs sign language.

I agree with Tousi that full immersion is a good way to learn ASL. Back in college, a lot of hearing students hang out in the college bar (where they can drink beer and eat sandwiches/snacks) to really learn ASL. Some of them got to be really good at it.

__________________

It isn't that they can't see the solution. It is that they can't see the problem.
- Gilbert Chesterton

Everlucent

Woh!! thanks for the link, now why couldn't i find that, I've been googling for awhile

__________________

Tousi

:

That's cuz ya gotta oogle a little bit to catch the deaf stuff on the Internet when ya Google! J/K I'm a computer dummy and strain in my travails around the Net....

Everlucent

too funny

__________________

jasin

I know a deaf girl who can't sign. She is 60 years old and wears two hearing aids.

I am trying to teach her Asl now, but I rarely ever see her. I can talk very good, even better then most hearing people, so I talk for her.

She the only one I will talk to or for. I only talk for her so she can understand me better. I will do anything, even talk, to help a deaf person learn sign language.

When it comes to a deaf person learning sign language I don't give a dam what our deaf cultural rules are because learning the language is what's important. Deafs need to know our language and that should come first above all else, even before what the rules are within deaf culture.

Tousi

Just curious here, how did it come to pass that you speak better than "most hearing people"? And how did you know? And where did this discovery take place; Skid Row?

jasin

Btw, this deaf girl I spoke of and the deaf man you mention are not alone. There are 100's of deafs who don't know any kind of sign language. I was one of them myself. I went for over 20 some years before I learnt Asl. Mainstream Schools just don't teach Asl or have a place for us deafs.

Tousi

Makes me wonder how is it that many (if true) deafies fell thru the cracks....I guess they could be mostly oralists.

jasin

Please don't mock me. There is nothing wrong with having voice or being able to use it. Voicing is natural and perfectly normal. I myself just prefer to use American sign language as its our language.

I can't really say how I aquired a better voice then most hearing people, but I can attribute it to one or all of the following 1. the 6 years of speech therapy they forced on me in elementary school. 2. The 15 or so years of being hard of hearing when I was hard of hearing. 3. My very big English vocab that I picked up in grade 2 when we studied the dictionary. 4. all the English classes I took in college 5. the residual hearing I still have

jasin

I cannot speak for others or speculate on that but I'll tell you how I fell through the cracks.

1. Mom did not accept me as deaf because the doctors would not label me deaf even though I was deaf according to every hearing test I had done. They said I just could not hear well and stuck hearing aids on me.

2. There was only one school here that accepted deaf and hard of hearing and it was almost 3 hours away and no one even told us about it or that I could go to it.

3. The school system, when I was in it, was not educated in the complexities of hearing loss they just labeled everyone learning disabled and stuck them in special ed classes.

Tousi

Not really mocking you, man. I have never revealed this but, I, too, speak very well....well enough that all understand me but I have been around a long time and this is the first time I have heard of a hearing loss person (especially a life-long loss) say that they "talk/speak better than most hearing people". That just doesn't compute. But I'm glad, at any rate, that it has apparently helped you to the extent it has.

Tousi

Were you signing at this point in your life?

jasin

Nope! 100% oral and hearing aids.

JennyB

I am Deaf and I did take (and still do, mostly along side of hearing friends) take ASL courses through community colleges and stuff. If they are teaching it right being Deaf shouldn't matter at all. I know many are, and should be, voice free zones. It doesn't matter if you are HOH, Deaf, deaf, hearing...whatever, you should be able to learn in that environment.

I was the only D/deaf/HOH student in the vast majority of my ASL classes. The teachers were mostly Deaf themselves as well so it was never a problem.

__________________
Jenny~B
http://journysofadeafgirl.blogspot.com/

jasin

In the classroom they'll teach you textbook Asl and you cannot go wrong signing like that. However, most native signers sign nativly not with what's learnt out of a textbook.

With textbook signing you have to do all that eyebrows up and down stuff and go up and down on certain letters with finger spelling. That is all a big part of signing this way.

Native signing though, you rarely see any of that. With native signing, which is how most of us deaf sign ... you will see lots of facial expressions and people signing physically how they naturaly sign, which is different from person to person.

I am taking up sign myself too. I registered for Asl 221 at the local college here for the fall quarter. It was formerly Sign 201, which is the same as Sign 4 and Asl 4. I unlike most deafs, never learnt sign language from childhood or birth; even though, I am a native signer and sign very fluently.

jillio

Agreed 100%. Nothing more need be said.

jillio

Glad that you have learned sign and are fluent, but unless ASL is your L1 language, you are not a native signer.

jasin

I used to do that until I learnt how rude deaf people can be.

jillio

Rude is as rude does.

jasin

L1 language? By that you mean what?

jasin

Yep, and thats most deaf people in my expierences.

jillio

I mean that sign is not your native language unless you have been signing from birth or shortly thereafter. Therefore, you are not a native signer. You may be a fluent signer, but fluency does not imply nativity.

jillio

Ever consider that you probably get back what you put out?