Some of you who have known me for a while know that I have always been interested in sign language. When I was young, I was given a book to show the signs and I used it quite a lot. My sister and I enjoyed pretending that I couldn’t hear sometimes and she would talk and use some signs and I would sign back to her. It was fun. In college, I met Michelle and she showed me some more signs and we took a class at a church in signing some of the church songs. Jeremy did that with us as well. I’ve used it often since then so I wouldn’t forget, but it wasn’t enough to have a really good conversation with someone though I could converse a bit.
Recently, there had been some talk at church of having me teach a sign language class for anyone interested. I refused this time because I don’t know enough, but I did teach the babies in the nursery for the last 11 or 12 weeks some of the signs like please, thank you, more, help, excuse me, mommy, daddy, milk, cookie, hungry, and all done. It was a whole lot of fun.
For my own education, I have been looking up words as I want to know them on the internet. As I was looking up some words on the American Sign Language University (ASLU) site, I found that they offer free lessons for people like me who just want to learn. The first lesson is mostly signs I learned long ago, but some have changed in that time, so it’s always good to make sure I am still up to date on the signs. The lessons that ASLU has to offer are what they have for college credit too though you have to register and pay for that, so it is a good course. The only thing different is that I don’t have the CDs to use for reference, but I think most of it is on the site, so I don’t think it will be a problem. So far, I’m finding it fun and interesting. The nice part of taking the free lesson is that I don’t have to do the research paper, though I can if I want. What do you all think? You want me to do a small research paper on something that has to do with sign language and put it on here? I don’t know if I’d want to do one as big as what is required for the paid course, but I might like to do a small one to help me with my understanding of the deaf community.