This project could not have actually come at a better time. See swimming, which consumed most of my life for the past four month, has just ended leaving me with more free time then I am used to. Even before the season ended, a had begun making a mental list in preparation for my freedom. Amoung the things on my list was teaching myself some basic sign langauge.
I have always been interested in American Sign Language (ASL), but never new more then the alphabet. My sisters and I tried to sign words to eachother by spelling out words, but spelling each word was tedious, and difficult to understand, and we eventually gave up. For a while, I naïvely thought that deaf people communicated this way, word by word, letter by letter, and was fanscinated to discover that sign language is its own language. My intrest peaked about 3 months ago when my friend Cara taught me some signs that she learned from an old book she found in her house. I went home and taught myself a couple of other signs using an online dictionary. Cara and I could communicate, but couldn't really say much more than "you are..." and a series of adjectives.
But now I'd like to know a little bit more than "you are pretty..." Or "you are ugly...". In seven weeks I hope to make my way through one of the American Sign Language University's online courses by completing 2 or 3 lessons per week. Lessons each include a 20-30min long video, a list of objectives, a list of vocab, practice sentences, and a quiz. In addition, I want to learn an additional verb each day.
At the end of the seven weeks I would like to be able to have a simple conversation in sign language with someone else who speaks sign language. People who speak sign language are hard to come by, but fortunately for me, Alyssa, one of my classmates, is also learning sign language for her project. At the end of the seven weeks we will test out knowledge by trying to communicate solely through signing. Throughout the seven weeks, we will be able to practice with each other, and teach each other new signs we have learned. We have set up a wiki, where we can collaborate and mark our progress, and also share useful documents with each other.
I recognize that sign language is a difficult form of art. I won't be able to become fluent in just seven weeks. However I do hope to gain a basic knowledge of beginner's ASL, providing a solid foundation for becoming fluent in the future.
