Cascade Canyon

Sign Language

Sign Language is a formal gesture language.  It began as a manual alphabet in the Italian monasteries of the fifteenth century as an acceptable means of communication between monks who were under vows of silence.  Since that time, sign language has been used to teach the deaf.  Our own sign language is a mixture of French, English, and Native American signs.  In this year’s sign language class, I am teaching “Signing Exact English” which is the current language used in the education of the deaf and follows our spoken English syntax.  However, I also expose the students to American Sign Language, which is a natural language of the deaf community in America and has its own sentence structure, grammatical rules and semantics.                     This year we will work on the alphabet, greetings, statements, interrogations, exclamations, pronouns, verbs of action and feeling, tense markers, possessives, and nouns from the home, family, school, neighborhood, nature and daily activities.  We practice this vocabulary through simple conversations, short skits, songs, bingo, word association games, translation teams, videos, sign language dictionaries, finger spelling challenges, and a computer program using sign alphabet fonts. I teach sign language to the students of Cascade Canyon School for three reasons.  Firstly, it is a beautiful language, full of expression and interaction.  The students love to use it.  It is fun and secretive and each student can sign in his or her own style.  There is no ‘correct accent’.  Secondly, Signing Exact English is an approach to language and English in a novel way.  While students are learning to talk with their hands, they must do so in conformity with the tense, vocabulary, word usage, and syntactical patterns of standard English.  I have observed that students whose spelling, writing, or other communication skills are low respond unexpectedly well to this new medium of expression.  Thirdly, students benefit from this introduction to a challenging condition.  It is my hope that through this class the students’ awareness of and compassion towards the challenges of a hearing impairment will carry over into other limiting human conditions. Resources Signing Exact English/Modern Signs           Sign Me a Story, Linda Bove                Communication, Alii Without Words, Joanne Ryder                Joy of Signing, Lottie L. Riekehof Koko’s Kitten, Dr. Penny Patterson Handsigns, Kathleen Fain                    Hellen Keller, Lorena Hickok Indian Sign Language, Gray Wolf Fall 1.    Introduction 2.    Colors 3.    People 4.    School 5.    Home 6.    Activities, Toys & Games 7.    Food 8.    Domestic Animals 9.    Wild Animals 10.    Transportation 11.    Nature 12.    Occupations 13.    Emotions 14.    Time 15.    Clothing Spring 1.    Numbers 2.    Glue Words and Modifiers 3.    Adjectives 4.    Verbs 5.    Holidays and Special Occasions 6.    Neighborhood 7.    Countryside 8.    Geography 9.    Medicine and Health 10.    Food

 

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