deaf harassed by poor signing dvd

deafmedicalpoet

deafmedicalpoet

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There is a new dvd out, "Kweezletown: Let's Work Together" starring Debbie Clement. Debbie Clement believes that she is working with teaching children to read, interact, and do sign language in one experience. This dvd does not have any closed captioning and is precisely not suitable for any deaf or hoh children.

Most of the signs used in this dvd are not even accurate. She claims she is integrating sign language to help children interact and have fun with communication she is failing to do so and she doesn't always sign in the dvd she dances and moves the music but she does not do sign language through the whole dvd. This dvd is said to be manufactured for preschool and kindergarten level children it will not help any children interact. I am going to post a comment to her about how she is going about her sign language and is claiming to be integrating it in her dvd. If you would like more information on this dvd you may go to the following web site.

More information

not only does she not use the right signs she many times uses different signs that have a meaning. She claims no credentials as an interpreter or certified teacher of sign language.

I would appreciate your comments, but please no bashing or rudeness towards me for stating this.

Thanks

deafmedicalpoet
 
I was refering to her Kweezletown: Lets work together DVD. please reread my first post and see that I entered the title.
 
from a hearing mom of a deaf child

I am a hearing mother of a profoundly deaf boy. I have had to endure the so called "hearing sign artists" who love to sign "beautifully" but totally without meaning. I know one woman, in particular, who teaches signing at a local community college and every semester puts on a "signing pageant" of hearing people signing the lyrics to songs. Since my son can't hear the music of the songs, nor are the lyrics signed in true ASL, this doesn't make sense to him. Nor to me, so we stopped going. Yet, whenever the local minor league baseball team feels like having someone sign the Star Spangled Banner, they always have this woman doing it. It's so painfully annoying.

Aviva
 
aviva said:
I am a hearing mother of a profoundly deaf boy. I have had to endure the so called "hearing sign artists" who love to sign "beautifully" but totally without meaning. I know one woman, in particular, who teaches signing at a local community college and every semester puts on a "signing pageant" of hearing people signing the lyrics to songs. Since my son can't hear the music of the songs, nor are the lyrics signed in true ASL, this doesn't make sense to him. Nor to me, so we stopped going. Yet, whenever the local minor league baseball team feels like having someone sign the Star Spangled Banner, they always have this woman doing it. It's so painfully annoying.

Aviva
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I know what u mean. English is my first language and I grew up with it in the oral form. Then, I learned ASL at the age of 25..never learned SEE or any other forms of sign language. So, I became fluent in it and then started to see SEE..for the life of me, despite my first language being in English, I cant understand it. For me to understand the context fully, it needs to be either in written English or ASL.

I can see how your son probably wont understand it if it is not signed in ASL. We had a local magican from the library come to our school to do a show on one story my class was reading. She said she knows ASL so we said she can sign. However, during the show, it was painfully obvious that her signing was SEE and our students were bored immediately and started becoming restless and picking on each other.
 
:topic: we are going off topic here from what I originally posted. please stay on topic better!! But sharing experience is fine
 
deafmedicalpoet said:
:topic: we are going off topic here from what I originally posted. please stay on topic better!! But sharing experience is fine
Click to expand...

I clicked on the post and then unsure of where to go, I clicked on Show and Tell and I didnt see any signing going on. Can u direct me to the correct section? Thanks
 
try here: Sing and Sign ABC
I am talking about her DVD I checked it out from my library. So I figured out alot of things from her email reply to me. also it might be wise to check local libraries for it.
 
Her G and P are terrible.

I don't think it's harassment towards deaf people, though. She just doesn't know any better.
 
Ok now that Ive seen the "Sing and Sign abc": wtf? she looks like she's looking at someone behind camera instead of AT the camera, and the background is too "loud".. makes it hard to focus on the fingerspelling if the kids are going to be too distracted by the colorful scenery in the background.

Ugh.
 
At least Deafies are spared from listening to her annoying "little girl" pre-school voice. Ouch! I couldn't listen to/watch the rest of the Sing and Sign ABC link.

It's designed for hearing kids because she gives all the instruction verbally, and the guitar accompaniment is no good for Deaf kids.

Yes, there is way too much visual "noise" in the background.
 
Thanks deafmedicalpoet for posting the link!


Her G's, H's and P's are wrong

I think it is generated for hearing chidlren not deaf.
 
Go to your library and get the dvd checked out, she has tons more wrong sign's and I hate to admit but there is very little that will keep a child glued to it. if you watch her other interactive links there they are very poor.
 
I want to share part of her email replay to me that she did and with what she told me it really makes me wonder why her website states she is intergrating sign language in her DVD and all.

Here is part of her email:

I appreciate your feedback and wanted to get back to you right away.

As you have already guessed. I have no training in sign language. I also have to training in music. (You may have gotten a good laugh about the quality of the songs and my ability to sing, too.) I also have no training in acting or theatre or filming..... or spanish or hebrew or or or or or........ (Yet I led Tot-Shabbat for 8 years in 2 synagogues because I was asked to do so -- talk about an imposter-complex!)

And while I can sign toilet, I would not be able to give a sentence of directions for a location.

Having said that, I'm sorry that you're offended by my project. My intention was not that this would be a "training" video on sign -- others are the experts there.

My efforts and love are to work with young children, introduce a love of language/music/singing/reading and a tolerance and appreciation for diversity. I'm the epitome of the 'volleyball-mom' working overtime on behalf of children. Our hope was to do a bright and colorful project that would encourage children to have some positive encouragement in their lives.

We did not close-caption, as the deaf community was not our target audience, I am not proficient in signing, and there was no budget for such. We were unable in this first effort to hire signing consultants. Ah, the limitation of time and money.

Rest assured that if your library has a copy it is one of a few dozen who do........ In the year since it's production I think we've sold a total of about 300 copies, mostly to my fanclub of preschool families here in the Columbus area.

I have somewhat anticipated a reaction such as yours (you are the first, and I totally appreciate your comments directly to me.) It has other flaws as well. It was just my little effort to shine a little light into a fairly dark era. Your comments are completely valid, appropriate and totally on-the-money. Our intent was never to have this project end up being catalogued into a 'sign' section of the library -- you are completely correct in asking them to move it.

One of the dictionaries in my collection, that I consulted is the Perigee Visual Dictionary of Signing by Rod R. Butterworth. On page 208 is the explanation and illustration for the sign I used for the word happy. That sign from the video is the sign that many of my teacher/interpretor friends here in the midwest/OH use for 'happy.' So that's not one of the signs I had concerns over. I had made a concern about happy/young in her DVD which I seem to either learned wrong or whatever. But I learned from the Joy of signing and other book plus I never heard of her dictionary she has there.

Thought I would share her email to me a little with all of you.

Deafmedicalpoet
 
deafmedicalpoet said:
I want to share part of her email replay to me that she did and with what she told me it really makes me wonder why her website states she is intergrating sign language in her DVD and all. . .

Thought I would share her email to me a little with all of you.

Deafmedicalpoet
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Very interesting.

Thanks for sharing. :)
 
Oh...oh dear God...that was hideous.

deafmedicalpoet said:
As you have already guessed. I have no training in sign language. I also have to training in music. (You may have gotten a good laugh about the quality of the songs and my ability to sing, too.)
Click to expand...

Laugh? No. I don't think it's funny when people purporting to be educators know nothing about the subjects they're educating CHILDREN about. I really hate the idea that just because children are the audience, it's okay if the signing just isn't that good, or if the "teacher" is patronizing and insipid. There's no respect there for signing, music, or the audience. (Someone really needs to teach her at least to tune her damn guitar.)

I give her credit at least for her very upfront email to you, but no one should be subjected to this video, especially kids.
 
Interpretrator said:
Oh...oh dear God...that was hideous.



Laugh? No. I don't think it's funny when people purporting to be educators know nothing about the subjects they're educating CHILDREN about. I really hate the idea that just because children are the audience, it's okay if the signing just isn't that good, or if the "teacher" is patronizing and insipid. There's no respect there for signing, music, or the audience. (Someone really needs to teach her at least to tune her damn guitar.)

I give her credit at least for her very upfront email to you, but no one should be subjected to this video, especially kids.
Click to expand...
I agree 100% with Interpretrator. She has no business creating this video. She says she didn't mean for it to be a "real" signing video, but how do parents know that?
 
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