Intermediate ASL - St James - End of Jan

        As we ease into the new semester, we had an ASL interpreter come to our class on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Teacher Naira's class joined my class for those days to learn more about Deaf culture, ASL grammar, and who teacher Sarah is since they can use their voices to ask me tons of questions through the interpreter. Some of the parents even participated too! 

      They learned that although ASL is AMERICAN Sign Language, it still has regional signs and accents just like hearing community do! For example, Texas tend to drawl and say "y'all", etc. Deaf people have accents and different signs too. They learned that if they see a new sign they did not know, respect their use of word even if it's different from what you learned. I showed them the regional difference between California and Arizona (I was living in AZ for 15 years), they were shocked to see a difference for the words: slow and chicken. They also was surprised to hear that ASL is not universal. Each country has their own sign language. Just like spoken languages.

I had so much fun interacting with the students in a personal way this week! I'm looking forward to the new semester. 

Teacher Sarah