As we choose ASL as the language we are going to teach in our group project, we have to design a 50-minute lesson to teach other two groups in class. Because all the students never learn ASL, we plan to teach some basic of the language.
First, we start from the brief introduction of ASL to provide the learners a view of the language. We use a short video to explain some misconception of ASL, for example, there is no article words like ‘a, the’ in ASL and people don’t need to sign all the words in a sentence. We hope the video can answer some of the questions of the students before they really get to know this language.
And then, we teach them how to sign the alphabets from A to Z. In this part, I find the most interesting is that some alphabets like ’N’, ‘M’, and ‘E’ can lead to a confusion to the learners. And I also get excited when I see the shape of myself from those classmates who first learn ASL. Their appearances of confusion and enthusiasm because of learning remind me that I also encountered some confusion and difficulties when I learned ASL myself. There is a great sense of accomplishment when I see the students really understand what we teach after we answer their questions.
After the sign of alphabets, we move to the part of self-introduction. We have an easy structure of self-introduction; there are only four sentences. We start from the basic greetings like hello and nice to meet you. After the greetings, we teach them how to introduce their own name and their characteristics or hobby with sign language. In the process I find that our way of teaching is appropriate and the atmosphere is comfortable because the students are willing to give it a try and share their feelings with us. The most interesting thing in this part is that lot of students love using a sentence: ‘I love to drink alcohol.’ and they all remember how to sign it on the next day. As a teacher, I am very honored to see they actually learn something they can use in daily life.
In the last part of teaching, we decide to teach them sign the lyrics of a song. We hope this way can make the teaching more appealing and effective. The song we choose is ‘Call me maybe’ because it is so famous and almost everyone remembers its lyrics. We use JIGSAW in this part and we divide the students into five small groups and each group has three students. And each of us should teach four sentences in the excerpt of the song. I find my part is so difficult because I can hardly keep up with the original speed of the song. And it is also a challenge to explain how to sign the sentences swiftly to the students. This part is the most challenging and the most impressive to me.
Overall, in this teaching project, I first understand the feeling of being a teacher. Hopefully, our classmates do a great job as our students and I appreciate them very much. This is really a meaningful experience.