With this lesson, I wanted to use iPads as a recording tool instead of being the main focus. My class is exploring the different parameters of ASL: handshape, location, and movement. There are two others (palm orientation and non-manual markers) but I’m saving those for a later unit. I have a funny relationship with the…
Tag: Sign Language

A Guide to the Maternal Reflective Method
Often, deaf children learn to sign so that they can communicate their needs and also learn in schools for the deaf. However, signing is not the only method of communication. In schools today, there is a Maternal Reflective Method, sometimes called Oral Reflective Method, which teaches partially or fully deaf children how to learn and…

On Reading Levels
Jon Henner posted a great article here and at Deaf Politics about deaf education and various relevant statistics. There are profound implications for the deficiency in reading level in our deaf and hard of hearing peers. Citizenship depends on reading level: the simplest newspaper, USA Today, is written at a fifth grade reading level, which is just barely…

Hearing Privilege
Hearing privilege is a concept that’s come up often in discussions in and around Deaf Echo posts that deserves to be called out and looked at in depth. I also find that it has personal relevance: some uncomfortable situations have come up with my family that made me think of this important concept. Let me…
What Makes an Interpreter Satisfactory or Acceptable?
So, I recently had a couple conversations with a pretty cool person, Robin*, who is just really starting to really dive into the field of sign language interpreting. We had some conversations about expectations of interpreters, etc. Robin admitted wanting to work on his/her [guess Robin’s gender!] interpreting skills so that one day I might…