In-depth night!

Welcome to Emma’s In-depth night blog post!

Hello! My name is Emma, and I chose to learn American Sign Language for my In-depth this year. I feel that communication is a large part of my day-to-day life. I found it so incredible that people who cannot speak have such an amazing way to communicate, and I knew I had to take this opportunity to learn ASL! 

I have spent the last few months learning ASL with my mentor Sandra. The following video shows a few of the signs I have learned and outlines some very basic ASL grammar used when asking questions:  

Emma’s ASL In-depth video   

 

When watching the “How to sign questions section of the video, you might notice that for certain questions my eyebrows are raised, and for others, my eyebrows are lowered. This is very important for asking questions in ASL. When you are signing yes or no questions, you should raise your eyebrows, and when signing wh- questions (who, what, where, when, why), you should lower your eyebrows. These facial expressions clarify what type of question you are asking.  

 

If you have any questions or comments, please leave a comment on this post and I will respond as quickly as possible!

 

Thank you, Sandra, for teaching me ASL over the last five months! You taught me so much, even though half the time we couldn’t meet in person due to the pandemic. I could never have learned this much without you! 

And thank you for visiting my blog for In-depth night!  

66 thoughts on “In-depth night!

  1. I loved your video! I think it’s cool how you need to create different facial expressions to sign different types of questions.

    1. Thanks Simran! I agree, I found it really interesting that they have different body language for different questions 🙂

  2. Wow I love how you showed us how much you’ve learned in your video! It’s cool that you showed us different areas of the language and put some focus on questions!

  3. This is amazing Emma! I really enjoyed watching your video! I can tell you put a lot of time and effort into it. You’re going to have to teach me some more sign language when we next see each other!

    1. Thank you Grace! I hope we can see each other soon, and I would love to teach you a few signs! 🙂

  4. Your presentation is so cool Emma! I love how you talked about facial expressions as well as sign language as a way to communicate!

  5. I loved your presentation, Emma, and what a great project! Not many people can sign and it must be wonderful for a deaf person to meet someone who can. I’m curious if you feel it’s possible to become totally fluent in five months or if it takes longer?

    1. Aw thank you! I think that it definitely takes longer than five months to become fluent, but I do feel that I learned a lot in those five months! Thanks for visiting our blog posts tonight!

  6. Emma, we are so proud of all the work you put into this project! Love that you are learning not only the signs but how to communicate. Our thanks to Sandra too!

  7. Hi Emma, Thank you , I knew almost nothing about signing and you have given me an interesting glimpse into it. Do the signers behind the prime minister use ASL or another language? Are there many other signing languages? Is the grammar based on another (not English) language?

    1. Hello! Thanks for visiting my blog! Yes, the signer behind the Prime Minister use ASL, but there are also other forms of sign language based on different languages. ASL is the most common and has it’s own grammar, which is very different from English and other spoken languages. Thank you for the question!

  8. Thanks for teaching us how to sign. More important than ever before and more recognized as another language. Which is your favorite sign and why?

    1. Thank you! I agree that it is definitely very important, especially these days. My favorite sign is probably dancing (it was shown in the activity section of the video). I like that it seems very upbeat and happy! 🙂 It also reminds me of a very fun activity!

  9. Hi Emma. We are so impressed with how professional your project was presented,
    and how thorough your presentation was. It clearly showed how much time and effort
    you spent on learning and using ASL. What a fun project to learn a different way
    to communicate with others!

    1. Aw thank you so much! I really appreciate that you took the time to visit my blog! I really enjoyed learning to communicate in a way that was not speaking. It was such a cool experience!

  10. Wow, this presentation was everything I didn’t know I needed. I love how you demonstrated the importance of ASL!

  11. I really enjoyed your presentation and you seemed very natural in your movements and confidence. Congratulations on your final project!

  12. Your video was so informative and clear! You look like a natural!! Do you plan on continuing to learn this skill?

    1. Thank you Jian! I will definitely continue learning! My mentor, Sandra, has given me a lot of really great resources to further my learning!

  13. Good job Emma! I too learned ASL for a number of years and so I understand firsthand the hard work that you dedicated to this project!

    1. Thank you! That’s really cool that you, too, learned ASL! Yes, it is a lot of hard work, but very rewarding! Thanks for coming to In-depth night and visiting my blog! 🙂

  14. Great job Emma! You seem to have learned a lot from just a short time of learning a new language. How fluent are you? Would you be able to hold a conversation in sign? Everything you have shared here is so interesting, thank you so much for sharing and congrats on a successful in-depth project!

    1. I am not fluent, but I could probably hold a simple conversation in sign. Thank you for the question! I hope you are enjoying looking at everyone’s blog posts!

  15. Hey Emma!

    You made such a clear, informative video! I found it extremely interesting that facial expressions also play a part in ASL. I had no idea!

    Do you find it difficult to memorize the different signs? What was your favorite part of the learning process?

    Way to go!
    Kailey

    1. Thanks Kailey for the questions! I do find it challenging to memorize the signs, but I found that after some practice it became more natural. My mentor helped me out a lot when it came to memorizing the signs!
      My favorite part of the learning process was just communicating with my mentor Sandra during the meeting. Since Sandra is Deaf, I had to find ways to communicate with her during the meetings, which meant I had to learn the signs faster so that we could communicate easier!

  16. Well done Emma, this is such an important communication tool, as we’ve seen during the pandemic.

    1. Yes, we can see so clearly in this pandemic how important ASL really is! Thank you for visiting my blog for In-depth night! 🙂

  17. Congratulations on a super ambitious and challenging In-Depth project! It’s amazing that you’ve managed to learn that much over a short span of a couple of months. What strategies did you find most helpful while learning/practicing ASL? Did you find anything interesting, such as sentence structure or other aspects of ASL?

    1. Thank you so much Grace! I found that watching YouTube videos to practice was really helpful as I could play the video at a slower pace if they were signing too fast for me to understand. ‘ASL That’ videos were really, really helpful! I found learning about ASL grammar really interesting, as I had no idea before learning ASL with Sandra that facial expressions played such a large role in communicating in ASL!

      1. That’s super interesting! I never realized that there was more to ASL than gestures until I watched your video. Congratulations once again on your project!

  18. A truly important language to learn. We were very interested to learn about the importance of facial expression in sign language. Well done! – Natalie and Brandon

  19. Wow! This is really cool! I really enjoyed your presentation; it was really informative and engaging! I hope you continue to learn about sign conversation! 🙂

  20. Hi,

    I am wondering if you learned much about deaf culture as well, and if so, what was the most interesting thing you learned?

    1. Hello! Yes, Sandra taught me a lot about Deaf culture while teaching me ASL. I thought that it was really interesting to learn about all the different events and activities for Deaf people. She also taught me the different ways to get the attention of a Deaf person. I didn’t really think about that before this project, but obviously there are different ways to get the attention of someone who cannot hear, such as banging on the table (which shakes the table and get’s their attention) or stomping on the ground (again, they can feel the vibrations in the floor). Thank you for the questions!

  21. I briefly checked yours earlier but forgot to comment. You did amazing! It might just be my untrained eyes, but you seem so fluid and natural!

    1. Thank you so much Nathan! I’m hoping it really is fluid and natural and not just your untrained eyes! 🙂

  22. I’m amazed at how relaxed you look in your signing video! As well, your final project is incredibly welcoming and light-hearted. Great job!

  23. Hey Emma! Looks like you learned a lot from your project!

    Totally off topic question – when all the COVID announcements were happening with the translators beside the speakers, did you find that you were able to pick up on what was being said just by looking at their sign language?

    1. Yes, actually! I really love watching the interpreter during the COVID announcements! I can catch a few signs, but he signs very fast, so I sometimes miss some of what he is signing. Thanks for the question!

  24. Emma, this project looks amazing! You look like you learned a lot. Thanks for teaching us (I didn’t know about the use of facial expressions- that’s so cool!) You should make some more videos: you’re a natural at teaching ASL! What are you looking at learning next, and what resource would you recommend using to memorize/start learning ASL?

    1. Thanks for looking at my blog Michelle! Your comments mean a lot, thank you so much! I’m thinking of maybe continuing to learn more ASL, looking more in-depth into ASL grammar. I would recommend ‘ASL That’ YouTube videos for learning signs for activities, basic sentence structure, and opinions. There are also some other really amazing YouTube videos that will teach facial expressions. Thank you for the questions and I hope you enjoyed looking at the blog posts this In-depth night!

  25. This is amazing Emma! Did you have any words you really wanted to learn how to sign? Great work, such a creative project!

    1. Thank you Makenzie! When I was starting the project, I really wanted to be able to introduce myself, so I wanted to learn signs like “my name is” and “nice to meet you”. Thanks for the question! 🙂

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