Genius Hour 2020-2021
Genius Hour
Link to learning website: https://www.signlanguage101.com/free-lessons/asl-level-1
November 9th, 2020
I started the first lesson where the instructor was explaining what we will be doing. He explained how body language and gestures are very important when using sign language, your emotions add more to the conversation and it makes it easier to understand. This isn't surprising to me. When speaking to someone you don't talk with a straight face and sign language is a language where you are still talking to someone so it is important to show emotion. I am really excited to start learning ASL so that I have a way to communicate with others.
November 18th, 2020
This week I started the second lesson, he showed the ABC's, main colors, and how to count to 20. I learned the lesson quickly but I am supposed to keep on practicing the movements so my hands will get used to the motions. I think it is interesting how the hand motions look, some of them have a connection to the word that we are describing. So far I am enjoying learning ASL.
A video to show what I have learned so far(Copy & Paste the links):
ABC"S: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1d5YnaV1XUDVdwCeLAModYEhLhotma8Ng/view?usp=sharing
Colors:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Iy_1_yPMIJV0NwtYdnXKOIchTCyktUyE/view?usp=sharing
Numbers up to 20:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RsT5Hr3XTCMJKGszrSPLkPw8JtFjI3VL/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HxpdblsLISDRr28gcOpA8Mj_c7xIAy1f/view?usp=sharing
November 25th, 2020
The instructor started off by giving us some helpful information. He explained how people who are deaf were all raised differently as children so some of them might have grown up learning sign language while others were forced to learn English. The reason he explained this was to let people know that some of them may not know how to read lips. I like to learn about other people's culture so I enjoy it when he talks about what they grew up knowing and what I should expect when I come into an encounter with someone deaf. I did lessons three and four today and both videos were showing the basic everyday words and the antonyms for them. I learned some words like, yes, no, maybe, good, bad, sleep, want, need, restroom, and ext. From my experience of learning asl, I have had quite some fun with learning, once I learn some words I find some sentences to make with the words I know. It's interesting how if you know a few phrases you can start a whole conversation.
Video on a few things I learned:
December 2, 2020
I am now at lesson five which is on houses and hobbies. I think I have been making some good progress, I have so far learned the basics pretty easily. I am catching and learning quickly and I'm enjoying learning about their culture and language. I do have a bit of difficulty remembering some things so that's why I'll go back a few videos sometimes to refresh my mind. So I'm going to be trying to sign a lot more throughout my day so that I can remember what I am learning, I do forget a few signs sometimes. In this lesson, I have learned places around the house like living and dining rooms, bedrooms, basements, and other areas. I have also learned how to count to fifty, and some hobbies terms. I'm proud of how much I have been able to learn in just a month.
Video of counting to 50 in ASL:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QPl3gYvyTj9JVHv75ZeJ39JkV5q9hxKQ/view?usp=sharing
December 9, 2020
I am on lesson six with my sign language courses. In this week's lesson, I will be learning about people, clothes, the body, and 51 to 60 in numbers. I sometimes still have the issue where I forget some of the signs so from now on I am going to be watching the videos twice fully. I did this today and I definitely feel like it helped. While learning the section about people and how to call them I noticed that the hand movements for males were above the eyes near the forehead and the female signs were below the eyes closer to the mouth. I thought that was interesting and I think it's actually a very helpful thing for me to remember, the signs are mostly the same but just in different areas of the face to show the gender. For example, Father is your hand open with your thumb touching your forehead and for Mother, it's the same except the thumb is at your chin. For the body section, it is not very difficult for the majority of it you just point to your eyes, nose, mouth, and more, the only different type of movements was for the legs and feet, for those you actually have to spell out the words with the ABC movement you learned. I thought that was also an interesting thing, I'm guessing that those are signed differently so that in the middle of a conversation you don't have to bend down and touch your feet. I will make another video once I have learned how to count to 70 so I have more to share.
December 16th, 2020
For lesson seven there is a lot of information given. The main things learned are based on time and the calendar. I learned the different months which surprisingly you just need to hand spell it out using the alphabet. I am still getting used to spelling words out, it takes me a while to spell the words where the instructor does it very rapidly. I have to practice on that but I'm sure that after practicing I will slowly become faster in my movements. There are a lot of words to describe time and I definitely will need to continue to work on it to master it. Some extras that we had were learning how to count to 70 which was easier than I thought, I noticed that the higher we go in numbers the hand movements get easier. Another important thing I would like to talk about was some of their culture or what deaf and hard of hearing people experience in the movie theater. People who are hard of hearing have an amazing time at movie theaters due to loudspeakers, they are able to somewhat hear what is going on. For deaf people it's a bit different, they can't hear the speakers so they will go to movies with subtitles but apparently, some will bring a device with them that they can put under their chair. The device detects sound and vibrates the seat so they can somewhat know the beat of music or explosions. I enjoy that the mentor in the videos shares some of his and others' experiences, it helps me understand what they go through on a daily basis.
March 17, 2021
I am going, to be honest, and say I haven't practiced or continued with this project since the last semester. What many people think including me is that sign language is easy and you can pick it up easily, but that's not the case. As I learn more about the culture and different words I started to realize that this takes time and patience, as well as other languages, do. Only working on sign language during class time is not enough so I will be going over the lessons that I need more practice on before I move on. I don't want to this just because I feel like it will set me back and I won't get as many lessons in but I have come to realize that if I'm just skipping through the lessons but not really grasping the concepts, am I learning? Starting today I will be going over the lessons I have "already learned", I do think that this was something I could've done at the start to prevent the loss of time but at least now I can learn from my mistakes.
March 24, 2021
I went over the lessons one to three to revise what I learned the past semester. I do feel that now as I am more committed than I was before I am able to learn more of the words. When I found how to sign specific words like want, don't want, need, shower, eat ext. I found myself making sentences that I would need to use on a daily basis. I am now able to spell my first and last name confidently can count to 30 with a few mistakes. Throughout the day I will be practicing them so I can remember them, I did this when I learned how to count to 10 and it helped as I constantly remembered. I do feel more confident that I am going over the lessons previously learned because I feel that with the knowledge beforehand I am able to understand it more. I will keep practicing and going over lessons throughout the weeks.
April 7, 2021
I reviewed the rest of the lessons, that was done previously, today. I can now count to 70 and make even more sentences that would be needed on a daily basis. It is great knowing that I can now say sentences that may help deaf people. I also remembered the colors, I knew most of them but needed a refresher on some. Learning sign language is fun because once you know a few words you can create so many different sentences for different topics. I still don't feel confident enough to have a full of conversation with a deaf or hard of hearing person. I can probably have a little conversation but I definitely still have a lot to learn. I like that the instructor for the videos doesn't just give us random words that we won't use. He is very organized with every video and shows the basic words that they use. Overall they are the same as you and me except they just speak another language.
April 14,2021
Now that I am caught up with my lessons and back on track I decided that I should try to figure out something new that will help me remember everything I learned. Lately, I have been repeating the alphabet and numbers throughout the day but I want to increase using sign language. I do think that the technique of practicing throughout the day helps so I am going to try and sign while I speak that way I can get used to using the signs in a conversation. I could be moving on already but I do not want to forget anything so I would rather make sure everything is secure first. Now that I am learning sing language I realize how much we use the same words constantly throughout the day, really you only need a few words to create a conversation as most of them will be repeated. Another thing that has been brought to my attention that I think will be helpful is using the movements we use every day to explain sleep, shower, eating, opening a book, just the things we mimic can also be used to talk with someone who can not hear. This helps bring me reassurance just in case I go blank while talking to someone as I can just try to explain it with different hand motions to substitute.
April 21,2021
Today I am following up on the technique I said I would try out to see if I would improve on remembering what I have learned. This did work for me I do remember almost all there are a few that I forget from time to time but I will continue to use this as I have seen great results. As I have continued to learn more I have found some topics that are difficult for me. The signs for explaining time are very confusing for me it's a topic that I just can not seem to grasp. I do think that this will be something I have to take some time on. Other than that everything else seems to be getting easier so far. I could probably have a very minimum conversation with someone but there is definitely fo much more for me to learn.
April 28, 2021
For lessons 8 and 9 I was learning how to sign for vegetables, fruits, food, and drinks. While doing these I realized that they are also one of my weaknesses. There are so many different ones that I couldn't keep up, also some of them don't make any sense with the way they show it, for example for pancake the sign looked like something you would use to say pancake and a lot of them did not resonate the same way. I have noticed that only the basic signs come easy to me but as I try to learn the more complex things I become more confused and lose interest. I can say I did learn sign language because I did with the basics but I can not say that I learned as much as I had hoped or enough to have a full conversation with someone which was the goal I had placed in the beginning.
Pancake in Asl:
It looks how you flip a pancake when you make them
As soon I read that you were learning ASL I was intrigued. You explain to the reader what the lesson were about and even gave tips and facts from the instructor to the reader. you explained your progression, "I can now spell my first and last name confidently can count to 30 with a few mistakes". I noticed you gave a exceeded amount of updates, information's, and new learned knowledge. As the reader I enjoyed reading some of the way to improve your ASL as well as the pictures. One picture showed be how it looks like to say "pancake" in ASL, Thank you and wonderful job!
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ReplyDeleteThis sounds like a really enjoyable and cool topic to do, I was think of doing a foreign language as well but I decided not to, so as soon a I saw the image when I opened the screen I wanted to see how you did and what I was missing out on. You gave many updates on what lesson you were on and what you learned in the lesson, this kept me wanting to read further on to see just how far you got. You were saying that you really need to practice more though, this makes sense all languages need practice, you would also included on how learning foods was one of the weaknesses. You did a great job!
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading about your 20% Time Project! I love how you included every detail of what you learned on certain days in your reflections. I can definitely understand you with the losing interest when things got more complex, learning a language takes a lot of patience and dedication. I also loved the images you included. Great job!
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