ASL Withdrawal

It’s been 3 weeks since my ASL Level 3 class ended, and I am going through severe withdrawal!  And making it much worse—it doesn’t look like there will be a Level 4 (despite what my teacher told us the first night, she said I can advance straight on to Level 4!) or even a Level 3 that I could re-take this Fall.  I’m not giving up on the idea yet; after all, they didn’t think there would be a Level 3 last semester until about 2 hours before the first night’s class. 

But, I’m still having to think of contingency plans.  I don’t want to lose what I’ve already learned (“use it or lose it” definitely applies to signing!), and I want to keep improving on my skills.  I haven’t been using ASL with Brandt very much since class ended, and we haven’t been around our local Deaf Community in several months.  We really need to get back into the swing of things before I get too far behind on my signing.  I’ve been reading a few pages of my unabridged ASL dictionary every day, trying to learn new words, but I need to be using it with other people.

If there isn’t a Level 3 or 4 class this semester, I’m going to see if my Deaf friend Julia can teach me Level 4 in private lessons.  She teaches several types of ASL classes (community classes, workshops for teachers and daycares, and classes specifically for deaf/hard-of-hearing—which Brandt is going to take once he finishes his doctorate).  I’ve wanted to take classes her from since I met her last summer, but she lives an hour away and the traffic getting to her house from where we live is insane.  But she learned ASL from the same place that I’ve been attending, and she knows the Signing Naturally book well.  As much as we both dislike it, it’s THE book in the world of ASL teaching—Gallaudet University even uses it to judge the signing skills of incoming students by asking which chapter you’ve last completed.  We went through the first half for Level 3, and Level 4 goes through the second half—so I already bought it and want to finish it.

And if Julia isn’t available for private classes…well, I haven’t thought of a second contingency plan yet.  I really wish there was a local college or university that taught past Level 1, but alas, there isn’t. 

On a brighter note, I’m going to have an exciting opportunity to use ASL a lot very soon.  Stay tuned for my next post for the details!