Teaching ASL

[SwinginBoo]

Hi. I'm about to venture into teaching American Sign Language to a friend of mine. I'm looking for ideas and activities to make it fun. Anyone have any suggestions?

[pygmalion]

My dad teaches ASL. I don't know if this helps, but he uses regular books, not ASL textbooks, as soon as the students know the basics well enough. That seems to keep it more interesting for everyone -- to be reading the newspaper, or Shakespeare, or whatever, rather than "The ABC's of American Sign Language," or whatever that book is called. You know -- the red, white and blue one.

[SwinginBoo]

LOL, yes I have that book. I think it's important to use the book for vocabulary and learning the proper grammar. However, you are correct in that using a regular book is more interesting. It is also great practice for converting english into asl.

I'm looking for some ways to incorporate vocabulary into games that will help my student with fluency and reception of the language.

[Swing Kitten]

hehehe I have that book too! Most of the fun activites we did were done in teams... hmmm....

How about learning songs and nursery rhymes in ASL? (or even limmericks ;) ) I would imagine that would be entertaining while holding some relavance. (it would be a cool thing they could show others and thus could be likely to do on their own and keep them thinking about sign language)

-- please teach them how to give and receive directions in ASL...it can be very helpful in any situation in which it is needed.

[SwinginBoo]

I've thought about that. THat will be very useful as my student progresses. Right now we're in the basics though. But thanks for the suggestion.

[SwinginBoo]

So I bought the game "Guesstures" to incorporate into my lessons. It's a great tool for practicing ASL. :D

[Swing Kitten]

fun game!

[SwinginBoo]

We should play sometime Swing Kitten...one of those nights where you have a short block of time off I'll bring it over. :wink: