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Showing posts with the label American Sign Language

My Thoughts on ASL and Deaf Culture

 This semester, I am taking a course in American Sign Language. I've wanted to learn ASL for years but never had the opportunity before now. Taking this class, I have generated several opinions that I will now share. 1. The amount of facial expressions required in ASL is utterly impressive. I can't lie, I'm extremely timid with my expressions as I'm in an online class with about fifteen people that I've never met signing for the first time in our lives. However, it truly is astounding the difference that facial expressions make. Like the intonation of someone's voice, they can indicate a question, emotion, sarcasm, etc. Watching experienced people sign is mesmerizing, and I think that someone that signs well will always impress me. 2. Learning to sign is criminally underrated. ASL is a language, so of course it takes some practice to learn. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't be learning it. In the U.S., approximately 600,000 people are deaf and only abo...