ASL Level 3

Last Friday, there were only 3 people signed up for my Level 3 ASL class.  We need 12 for the class to make, so it wasn’t looking possible.  But Monday afternoon, they got enough people at the last minute.  Hurray!

So Monday night, I had to teach Brandt the last two lessons from Level 2, which I had finished back in early March.  We kept putting it off, since he was so busy with his doctorate classes and didn’t have time to learn anything else.  It was about 100 words, but we got through them pretty quickly.  Then I went through the entire Signing Naturally Level 1 book, which we used for both our Level 1 and Level 2 classes.  Luckily I could remember almost all of the signs.

When I got to class, I discovered that we only had 8 students.  I think this is better; when we have too many in the class, it’s hard for everyone to get the assistance they need with learning the signs.  The second surprise was that our teacher, Mary, is Hearing.  She doesn’t have any family that is Deaf; she learned ASL after graduating college.  I think it’s strange that we had a Deaf teacher for Levels 1 and 2, and a Hearing teacher for Levels 3 and 4; reversing that probably would have been easier.  Since my previous teacher, Susanne, was Deaf, it was much harder to understand her.  I didn’t know enough signs to talk to her extensively and ask all the questions I had, and because she spoke primarily in Sign, I didn’t always know what she was saying.

I had a few freak-outs when Mary told me that several of the signs Susanne had taught me were wrong.  Now, a lot of words have several different signs—there are regional differences, and some are even personal preferences.  But this wasn’t the case; the signs I used were just wrong.  Then she announced that we would all have to take Level 3 again, at least once, because it was too hard and we couldn’t advance straight to Level 4.  I’ve always been a straight-‘A’ nerd, so being told that essentially I’m going to fail a class didn’t sit well with me.  Granted, it’s not really “failing,” but in my mind, it’s just as bad.

I calmed down after the first hour of class.  Mary told us some stories in Sign (no voice), to see if we could understand her.  The first story was about her new $25 refrigerator bought from a friend, which she had to put in her garage because her kitchen is too small.  I understood what she said!  I started feeling better about the class.  Then she told us about the house she grew up in, which was a ’70s all-glass house that was not conducive to high school parties because the neighbors (and cops) could see inside.  I got it again!  Maybe this won’t be so bad afterall…

I was on the phone with my mom when I got home from class; Brandt was taking our dinner, homemade pizzas, out of the oven.  He asked me just in Sign if I wanted milk.  I signed back, “NO, WATER.”  He nodded and walked away to get it, then paused and looked back at me with a big excited grin.  We communicated in Sign!  I grinned back and signed GOOD!  He beamed.