American Sign Language 3 was tough and draining with classes every Monday night for three hours. It really did take some resilience and gumption to go for the class. I think all of us were stubbornly in love with sign language that we put up with it and survived the horrible time slot of the class and pulled through. As usual, I enjoyed the cultural aspect of it the most, especially exploring the area of Children with Deaf Adults (CODA) and their upbringing. ASL 4, please come next fall. I will take you.
October 2014
Transitioning from ASL 2 to ASL 3 has been a big jump for me at times as the speed of signing and interpretting signs are getting faster. However, I enjoy the class and the autobiographical readings always give me a new perspective on Deaf culture and its community. I hope to catch up in class before the quiz comes up and will work harder in practicing signing and interpretting signs--a good challenge overall!
December 2014
American Sign Language 3 was a class I had really wanted to take as a continuation of my American Sign Language 1 and 2 classes and was incredibly happy to know that it was offered this semester. Academically, I did feel this class challenged me because the speed in signing was very fast for me. I also thought the timing of the class in the evening for 3 hours and only once a week was a challenge in and of itself mentally and physically. I did thoroughly enjoy signing and communicating in sign, however, did feel like my pace in improvement was slower because I could only practice once a week and felt the need to put in a lot of effort trying to understand what was signed in the homework videos because the signers’ speed was faster than I was prepared for. Nonetheless, it was always a challenge I would always try my best in. The way in which our exams were conducted (receptively and expressively) was a new approach and I thought helpful because it helped us not only practice understanding what was said, but express ourselves with sign.
As usual, the exploration of Deaf culture through the readings and movies from this class was what I enjoyed and felt most passionate about. I feel my knowledge and critical thoughts on mainstreaming Deaf kids, deafness outside of America as well as children of deaf adults (CODA) expanded as a result of this class. I am finding myself increasingly interested in the education and social aspect across my classes, including ASL 3. I find myself thinking about whether the learning potential of Deaf learners are maximized in the learning environments that they are in. My term paper on the cultural identity of CODAs as well as my response to the Life Without Words DVD encouraged me to think about the role culture, our family, our experiences, and the relationships we try to sustain can affect who are, essentially, as humans—hearing or Deaf.
Moving forward, I have seen some instances in which I risk slipping out of mastery in ASL because of heavy course loads from other classes and lack of time devoted into this class. Hence, I hope to counter that by becoming more active in ASL perhaps attending ASL lunches more often, finding times and spaces in which I can practice my signing, as well as strive for an ASL 4 class at Hampshire that meets more than once a week in the day or early evening. Whatever it is, I have found myself still coming back for more even in a hectic schedule this semester because of the love of this language and the joy of communicating, listening, and understanding people more. I am and will always be excited to learn even more from this world of the Deaf I have been privileged to get a taste of.
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