Jump to content

Menu

ASL crash course


Recommended Posts

I know there are lots of posts about learning ASL, and I'm not saying they're not good, and I also don't want to minimize the complexity of deaf culture, but I am looking for a crash course for ASL to get my family basic conversational skills as quickly as possible. We have unexpectedly found ourselves in a situation where we are interacting with a deaf family on a regular basis, and we cannot find an interpreter (we live in a super rural area), and writing notes on paper is extremely cumbersome. If we were willing to devote 1-2 weeks of doing it full-time in our homeschool, could you recommend something for this? We will do it slow and "right" in time - just looking for a jump start!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I like Lifeprint (online) or Signing Naturally (book and dvd- older editions are just as good as the new)
Both of them are centered on conversations, but Lifeprint is more natural feeling and has additional helps. https://www.lifeprint.com/asl101/lessons/lesson01.htm

 

Adding: taking time to go through the alphabet signs more phonetically is a huge help.  It's hard to read finger-spelling, give it a letter name, and then 'translate' that to phonetic speech that makes sense in your head as a hearing person.  Practice reading each others' finger spellings phonetically to give you a quick boost.

Edited by HomeAgain
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Lifeprint is good. Bill Vicars also has a YouTube channel, he’s great https://m.youtube.com/user/billvicars 

You might want to look for a deaf tutor online as well or a class from outschool. Definitely a Deaf person if you can one.  
 

I agree with practicing fingerspelling as much as you can. A super long time ago, I used a computer program that drilled receptive and expressive fingerspelling and it was really great practice. I’m sure there’s an app these days. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...