Week 2.7 Sign Language

   Well so much for genius hour. When I compare my progress to Brianna's it's like comparing a supermodel to My 600 lb Life. It's not good. I did not expect to have so much trouble remembering all the signs. When I asked Brianna how she was so much farther along than Brooke and I, she said she simply practiced. She told me that she works on her signs outside of class and simply remembers them by repeating them over and over again. I realized it is not only a case of remembering the signs, but also motivation. She wants to be a speech pathologist. I do not. I understand that knowing languages can get you far in life, but I would have to have more motivation and time in order to learn sign language comprehensively. Don't get me wrong, I really appreciate and respect sign language, but I do not think I will continue to learn it after this genius hour is done. For now I would really rather practice my Spanish and focus on one language at a time. Perhaps in the future I will see where life takes me and go from there. I can't quite call it good yet though, because we still have TED Talks. 

   Brooke and I have discussed what we wanted to do for our TED Talks and we plan to find a song and sign that song. With our very limited knowledge of sign language it is going to be very repetitive and probably pretty short but that is all we can do for the time being. I am going to apologize in advance for this presentation. However, talking with other students it seems that this genius hour collectively did not go as well as the first. The only success story seems to be Channing's, because her dog is amazing. I guess the plan for next week is to finalize the song we are picking and actually prepare our genius hour. I hope I have better luck focusing next week. I was thinking that doing a partner project would make me more accountable but if that was the case then I picked the wrong person. Brooke can do anything she puts her mind to but we both have slacked off when it comes to our genius hours. This does not bode well for our TED Talks, but hopefully we can pick it up by then. I want to end on a high note. Here's to next week! 

https://www.lifeprint.com/   This is the link to American Sign Language University, a website that I have found incredibly helpful. 

Week 2.6 Sign Language

This week has been rough. Looking back at my planner, I am not even close to where I thought I would be at this point in time. Brooke and I worked on reviewing our greetings and we also learned family terms. We decided it would be best to start working with Brianna since teamwork makes the dream work and she is actually motivated. This has turned out to be very beneficial and I have found that we are learning more terms faster. It also helps to have another person holding you responsible because Brooke and I are both skilled in the art of procrastination. I am still struggling with remembering the words. I figured out that I am not a hands on learner. I need to speak to Brooke and figure out a plan for our final presentation. For now I plan to keep trying and make as much progress as I can. On the bright side, I found a new website that has helped me a lot. I'll include a link at the end.

https://www.lifeprint.com/ 

Week 2.5 Sign Language

   This was a tough week for me when I tried learning sign language. I realized I could hardly remember any of the signs I had previously learned. I tried to talk with Brianna in sign language and became aware of the fact that she is considerably farther along than I am. I was also hit with the conclusion that there are different signs for the same word and different words for the same sign. I watched a couple of contrasting youtube videos. The videos used many different greetings when the greeting boiled down to the same thing. For example, I wanted to be able to sign,"what is your name?" One video showed how to sign those exact words in that sequence, another video showed how to sign the same words but with different signs, and yet another video showed the phrase with similar signs but in a different order. At this point I do not know what is right or wrong, which is a typical hindrance of the internet. I am just going to along as best I can and hope people are able to decipher what I am trying to say.
   Since I was unable to recall many of the signs which I had learned, I spent some time this afternoon reviewing. I went back over simple greetings and common phrases. Brianna and I compared our different methods of learning and signing and found some contrasting ideas therein. She told me she prefers to use a book and learn the individual signs that make up a sentence. I have had fairly good luck up until this point using youtube videos and trying to memorize phrases. It was interesting to dissect the different ways in which we learn. For now I hope to practice a little bit more and try to get better at memorizing signs. We'll see how I do next week!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWwKwKH8M

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWCk3WqtVi4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Raa0vBXA8OQ

Here are some of the different videos I watched. Just be aware they may not all match each other exactly.

Week 2.4 Sign Language

   Another week has come and gone, and more sign language was learned. This week Brooke and I focused on simple greetings and small talk. I learned how to say hello and goodbye. I already knew how to sign my own name but now I have the abilities to use this skill in context. I now know the phrase, "hello, my name is Maci." I know it doesn't look like a lot, but it is cool for me to be able to start putting some of what I have learned together. 

  After I learned my one little phrase, I moved on to small talk. I learned the signs for what's up and how are you. As I stated in my last blog, paying attention to every little movement is crucial in sign language. It is easy to get sloppy but that can make your signs illegible. For this week I opted to go with quality over quantity. I really focused on making my signs clear and understandable, rather than trying to learn a bunch of sloppy signs that I don't truly know. I feel pretty good about this week after learning some conversational signs. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWCk3WqtVi4 This is the video I used to learn conversational signs. 

Week 2.3 Sign Language

   I learned the animals and basic adjectives in sign language this week. It is amazing how fast you can forget a language when you are not practicing it. It is the exact opposite of riding a bike, if you do not practice it you will most surely forget it. I have found this is true in Spanish and the same goes for sign language. I forgot most of the animals in just the week I spent not practicing them. Some of the signs make sense and are easy to remember but others are not. I try to come up with little tricks for remembering them but they do not always work. I will just have to keep practicing so I do not forget what I have learned.
   All hardships aside, I was excited to learn adjectives because that meant I could start to put together sentences. I learned words like short and tall, ugly and pretty, and nice and mean. I can produce simple sentences once I learn some nouns and other words, but even just having that framework is really cool. The hard part of learning anything new is usually the beginning. It is difficult to practice something and work at it when there is no end in sight. Once you begin to become proficient in any skill, it becomes easier to stick with it because you are able to see the product of your hard work. I believe that's why most people quit projects in the early stages. While failure is an option, quitting is not which is what I like about genius hour. I look forward to learning more this next coming week.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nza_xrSQ8nQ This is the link for basic adjectives in sign language.

Week 2.2 Sign Language

   Learning sign language is much more difficult that I had anticipated. I never realized how precise every movement had to be and how much significance each and every action holds. Now that I step back and think about it, it makes sense. If you are sending confusing messages by making sloppy signs, then the whole purpose of communicating is kind of defeated. I tend to rush through things and so this week I really focused on making my movements clear and precise.
   Although I was focused on making neat signs, I also managed to learn something new. Brooke and I continued to work on animals this week. We have found that Youtube videos are working the best for us. The funny part of this whole endeavor is trying to follow along with the five year olds making the video. They really know their stuff and can go quite quickly. I try to use their skill as a motivator and tell myself something along the lines of, "if a five year old can do this, then surely a seventeen year old can." I hope I am right, otherwise I have just been shown up by a kid without her front teeth.
       I had a lot of fun learning all the different animals. I was talking to my mom the other day and she said she likes to use simple signs in her preschool classrooms. When she is teaching the alphabet, she likes to associate letters with actions so the kids better remember what they learned. She has discovered that the best way to do this is to sign the letter that they are working on. Sign language has many added benefits, besides the obvious of communicating with other people. It can be used in many different ways and that is why I wanted to learn it in the first place. I am enjoying seeing all of the ways in which sign language can be used.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-f1My_8OFE This is the link we used to learn the animals in sign language. Keep up with the kids if you can!

Week 2.1 Sign Language

   I made it to week two of genius hour! For this week Brooke and I focused on learning the alphabet and numbers 1-30 in sign language. I already knew the alphabet so this part was easy for me. I learned the alphabet in the fifth grade when Mrs. Gruba taught it to us. I do not really know how I retained that information over all these years but it has come in handy now. For the first thirty numbers Brooke and I watched Youtube videos. It is handy doing this project with somebody else because you can mirror the other's actions and learn more efficiently that way. I did not anticipate how tired my hand would get after just an hour of practice. There are a lot of small, significant movements when it came just to the numbers and my hand was getting tired by the end of it. I also realized how utterly useless my left hand is. Despite these setbacks, I was able to learn the alphabet and numbers in sign language so it was all worth it. Once I get a little more proficient in the language I think I will really start to enjoy the learning process. If you guys want to learn the sign language numbers, I will include the link for the video that I used.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFCXyB6q2nU

Week 2.0 Sign Language

   Well, we are halfway through the year and that means it is time for another genius hour. Brooke and I have decided to work together to learn sign language. Once again we started out with our shark tank pitch. For this pitch we talked about our plan and our hopes for this project. Like we stated in our pitch, we want to start simple. We are going to learn the alphabet, simple words and phrases, and work up to constructing basic sentences. We are going to use many resources to help us along, like books and websites. April McAuliffe is also going to be helping us. By the end of our project we want to be able to construct simple sentences and have a basic understanding of the language. It will be interesting to see how this project progresses since it is very different from cooking!

http://www.signlanguage101.com/ This link can help with learning basic sign language if anybody is interested.