ASL - How to Improve Your Signing Skills

ASL sign language is a language equivalent to English or any other, and is widely used in the deaf community. If you are a hearing person, you may find it equally helpful to know this language, both to learn a new and interesting language and in developing better communication with deaf members of the family, with deaf friends and with deaf people you might encounter in the community. Learning ASL will also help with a linguistic career, if you are inclined in that direction. There is a good demand in many professional disciplines for qualified and certified interpreters in ASL.

The first step towards learning ASL is to enroll in sign language classes. There are plenty of good online classes and many community colleges and universities also offer informal as well as formal ASL classes. Whether you want to go for an online or onsite class is a personal decision, but attending live classes with live interaction may prove more beneficial for a visual language like ASL, where signing as well as facial expressions and body language make a big difference in how the language is conveyed and understood. Try to find a class where they follow the immersion language learning method. Here, all instruction and activities from the start will be in ASL. While this may seem difficult to follow at the start, it's not really and you will pick up fast. You can always make signs for DON'T UNDERSTAND or REPEAT or SLOW to have the instructor and peers repeat their signs. This way you can count on knowing at least three signs very well and the rest will follow.

By taking sign language classes to learn American Sign Language, you will accomplish the following -

• Familiarize yourself with ASL alphabet, ASL grammar, fingerspelling and signing.
• Understand the role facial expressions and body language play in ASL conversations.
• Familiarize yourself with Deaf culture and social etiquette and interactions patterns between Deaf people.
• Be able to converse comfortably in ASL and exchange ideas and opinions.
• Be able to present information in ASL to an audience.
• Be able to use ASL to sign about other disciplines.

Once you have mastered the basics of ASL, here are some of the ways in which you can improve your signing skills -

• Practice a lot. Yes, that's the only way to reach Carnegie Hall or become a master at ASL.
• Work on your ASL sign language strengths and weaknesses. What are you good at and what do you need to improve? Go over how you use fingerspelling, your hand shaping and hand movements, your signing speed, your signing comprehension, the facial expression and body language you use, the way you make your presentation, the dialogue you use and so on.
• Ask your Deaf friends to help you improve your sign language skills. Practice in everyday situations with them. Attend Deaf functions, events and community activities.
• Visit sign language websites, look through sign language dictionaries, watch sign language videos and take fingerspelling quizzes.

Here are some sites that you might find useful -

ASL Pro

Life Print

Daily ASL

HandSpeak

American Sign Language Browser