I am working on my Spring Break project with the Power Pics and was wondering about using more American Sign Language for gestures. For example the gestures for colors could be the ASL signs for each color. Is there a reason for making different gestures?

I know several WBT practitioners who have used ASL signs with great success. If you are ambitious enough to do the research, or already fluent, it can provide you with a deep stable of signs, allow you to differentiate for hearing impaired students, and even teach you students a new skill.

At the very least it can make finding the gestures simpler, and provide a consistent set of gestures.

How in dept are your gestures and do they follow American sign, not "home" signs. I may be interested. I use some sign in my classroom from my way long ago work, but I am terribly out of shape when it comes to these.

Annette

Since my BA is in Deaf Education I try to stay true to ASL as much as possible :)I find that I use WBT gestures for concepts like capitalization and ASL most other things. It became to confusing the more I used gestures to remember the WBT gesture instead of the ASL sign. And I figured if I was going to spend the time to teach gestures why not make it as universal as possible? I let the students know if a gesture is an ASL sign and they love learning a new "real" gesture. Here is a great site with video of American Sign Language signs. Just go to the Main Dictionary
Like Jeff posted it makes it easier to find new gestures to find the sign.

I have been using ASL as well. I am using books and the internet to find gestures for my students. I want to take a class to learn it better.

Good insights. Many years ago (late 70’s through the early 90’s), I used ASL in my language arts classes for a couple of purposes. One, the students thought learning sign language was fun. Two, teaching the students to sign had a positive impact for students being comfortable using gestures when speaking.

As I watched some of the lessons of WBT, I realized that some sign language would make sense for students by benefiting from the use of movement and gestures and having the added bonus of learning specific signs. There appears to be great potential to use ASL with WBT.

I've been using the ASL/main dictionary that Scrapbunny recommended to find gestures. I'm looking to purchase an ASL book. Any recommendations for primary students?

Thanks.
Karen

The book I used is set up to teach in phrases and short sentences (however, the copyright is 1977). Each lesson was grouped by a common theme. It worked well with middle school students. My students had a high interest in being able to communicate, so the book served us well. Check Amazon or Barnes and Noble, both have a pretty good selection, and you would be able to read the reviews. Good luck!

I teach English as a Foreign Language in a small town in northern Brazil. I have used some ASL in my classes, especially the alfabet and the kids love it. I used the ASL and not the Brazilian signs because I am familiar with the ASL gestures for the alphabet and numbers and it was confusing too confusing for me to use the Brazilian signs. But I am wondering if it wouldn't be more appropriate to use Brasilian Sign Language with them since that is the context and culture in which they live. Any ideas?

Sister M. Josefa, FSGM

josefafsgm

Just one person's opinion. I think it is better to use the sign language of the home country than ASL.

I am in Vietnam and have decided to use the Vietnamese sign language to augment the WBT gestures. I chose to do so for several reasons.
The students will learn a few signs that may help them with understanding their own deaf people.
In Vietnam the general culture does not support people with disabilities as is the case in Western cultures and I see this as a small way to introduce some small understanding of the deaf.
The possibility of using the signs in any context other than the classroom is hugely greater than if ASL is used. While English is the world wide international language, ASL is not equally recognized.
It can give the local students pride in their own people's language rather than creating the feeling that ASL is somehow superior to Vietnamese sign language.
It is a way to get more local people engaged in understanding brain based teaching and WBT in particular because I am getting support from the local deaf school. This is important because I am working on getting WBT into the regular subject classes taught by the local teachers.

I could go on with more reasons, and someone else could pretty easily come up with an equal number of reasons why ASL should be used. So as I said at the beginning, it is only one person's opinion, and that opinion is that using the host countries sign language is the better way to go.

All of that said. I am mostly using the most popular WBT gestures, and certainly those published in the power pix books. And yes, when I go to Thailand or Cambodia or China with WBT it will mean redoing a lot of basic work.

My thoughts... not an authority... Jason

Dear Jason,
Thank you for your thoughts and your motives for using Vietnamese sign language. I agree with your motives and if the ASL signs for the alphabet weren't so engrained in me I probably would have used the Brazilian signs. We live in a rather remote corner of Brazil - the farthest west you can go and still be in Brazil - and the students have had little or no contact with deaf people, much less with sign language. I am currently using teh Genki English system for numbers because it is very explicit and easier for me to manage than the Brazilian signs. However for other signs like the days of the week, months, and other vocabulary I was thinking of using the Brazilian sign language gestures.

Thanks again for your input.

God bless you!
Sister M. Josefa

Sister M. Josefa

First, I am a bit envious of your comment about the ASL signs being ingrained as I am completely uneducated when it comes to signing so have to struggle with every gesture as it is all a new language to me.

What I should have, but did not say in my earlier post is that ultimately it must be up to the teacher and team to make a judgement call on the best choice for the region. It sounds like you are making that choice for your situation.

I have another issue to consider. We currently have campuses in 5 cities with plans to open more campuses throughout Vietnam over the next 10 years. Even now we have some teachers and students transferring between campuses. I expect that to continue. Therefore it is best for us to be consistent across the system. It certainly is easier to train the same thing at each campus.

Jason

David,

What is the name of the book?

Thanks,
Jason

My book is A Basic Course in Manual Communication, O'Rourke (1985). It is on the internet as a used book.

I checked Amazon... The American Sign Language Phrase Book, Fant, Miller, Fant (2008) is $11.97. Talking with Your Hands, Listening with Your Eyes, Grayson (2003) also looks like a good choice and is $17.31.

As a teacher, you would most likely be able to make any book work for you.

David

I find the internet fastest but a great book is The Joy of Signing www.amazon.com/Joy-Signing-Illustrated-M...nguage/dp/0882435205

For learning ASL I love the Bravo family tapes, www.harriscomm.com/catalog/default.php?cPath=1192_1196

You might be able to sign up for the caption media program to rent tapes/dvds to learn ASL www.dcmp.org/Register.aspx

Signing is a wonderful tool, but one does not have to be fluent in ASL to become effective in using gestures in WBT.

Create gestures that will assist your students in learning and remembering the concept. The gesture should not be so complicated that the student becomes more focused on remembering the gesture than the concept! In college, I would often create mnemonic devices to help me remember things-but sometimes I could not pull out of my memory what the mnemonic represented!!! Obviously, I focused more on the tool than the facts! Oh no!

One idea is to take a photo of one of your students doing the gesture, and then label it with the concept and definition. Stick it up on the wall for a reference. The students LOVE this!

Have fun!
Deb Weigel

Again another mentor speaks up. I debated answering this post because I have taught in deaf ed. I really feel that the gestures we use as Wibbeteers should not be confused with ASL, both for academic reasons and respect.

Thanks for your reply - Deb