Professional Learning Network (PLN)

    Here are some outstanding people who have made this project so much better than what I could have done on my own. From answering my (many) questions to offering their invaluable advice, these people have supported me and are deserving of more thanks than I can give.

Dr. Bill

    Dr. Bill Vicars is the founder of ASLU/Lifeprint.com (an online ASL curriculum), profoundly Deaf, and a professor of ASL and Deaf culture at California State University. Dr. Bill is a hero in ASL education with everything from lessons, games, assessments, and resource pages on just about everything to do with learning/teaching ASL. 

    I went to him for advice on how teaching ASL in a casual setting to high schoolers might be different from what he does, and any suggestions he might have. He got back to me with a massive list of resources and a suggestion of using “a speed dating approach”. This certainly raised my eyebrows, so I emailed him back asking for further clarification. 

    The “speed dating” approach is where everyone lines in two rows so everyone has a partner. Each pair is given a question related to the lesson, and they have a quick conversation before moving on to the next person. 

    His advice and resources were extremely insightful and his passion for ASL managed to make me even more eager to get this club started.

My Teachers

    Starting a club meant finding a teacher to host the meetings. But the prospect of asking a dozen teachers was terrifying. But that fear disappeared soon after I asked the first few teachers. 

    I started with a hard-of-hearing teacher that is very enthusiastic about the incorporation of more non-verbal communication in our school. She replied that though she loved the idea, she was unfortunately not teaching in the school due to Covid. But that she would love to help upon her return. 

    Then, I asked my English teacher if she might be willing. She said she would love to, but was unfortunately only free on the weekends. She suggested two possible teachers and offered to ask around. 

    After sending the emails, one got back to me saying that it sounded great, but he was regretfully fully booked for clubs and asked that I tell him how my search turned out. 

   Though they couldn’t host, these teachers actually taught me a great deal.

    That asking for help can be hard but gets easier each time, regardless of past outcomes—by the last email, I no longer had that same anxiety hitting, “send”.

    And each of their responses showed that they weren’t annoyed by my asking—they were happy that I thought to ask them. They genuinely cared about the outcome, and they wanted to help as much as possible. They taught me that teachers are more caring than we students sometimes give them credit for.

Ms. Nguyen

    Now, you’re probably wondering what became of that second teacher in that last round of emails (from the section above).

    Her name is Ms. Nguyen. The head of our Leadership SHSM  left our school at the end of last year, and Ms. Nguyen came into our school to replace her. She's taken on just about any challenge, offering help to any student who asks and becoming incredibly involved in the school community (and all in just the first month!). And as it turns out, she stays after school most days, and it just so happened that her Wednesdays were free.

    She replied saying that she would love to offer her classroom and supervision. And thus, my search for a host came to a close and a new relationship was forged. 

    In the first week alone, she posted announcements and printed posters for advertising the club, pointed me to a person in my school who is fluent in ASL, and set up a Google Classroom for me. I hadn't actually met her until this project. So I'm once again grateful for this opportunity to expand my social network and work with some really outstanding people.

James Madison University ASL Club

    I reached out to the ASL club at JMU as an authority on teaching and learning ASL with Covid.

    ASL relies very heavily on facial expressions—it’s used to indicate emotion and grammar (e.g. “Play the green team.” vs. “You play the green team?!?”). So I was curious how they worked around the Covid masking restrictions last year and what their plans were for this year. 

    It turns out that they did their club online last year, and made use of a lot of videos for teaching ASL, instead of trying to demonstrate. Even now that they’ve moved back to in-person, they still use videos so that everyone in the class can see while still social distancing.

    They proved that ASL can’t be bound by restrictions and can be learned by whoever, wherever, whenever.

    This club has given me great ideas for fun activities and they’ve shown us all how to rise up to the challenges we face with determination and creative thinking. 

Anthia (@teachmesignlanguage)

    Anthia is a Hearing young adult who has an Instagram account (@teachmesignlanguage) where she teaches an ASL sign a day. She also teaches ASL to people with special needs and individuals who are non-verbal/limited vocabulary at the Alive Montessori & Private School near The Junction in Toronto. I've been following her account since I got Instagram, and I recently decided to reach out to her with some questions. I wanted to know what inspired her to learn ASL, what motivates her to continue learning and improving, and why she decided to teach.

          

     She decided to learn ASL because her home church had an ASL interpreter to cater to their growing population who were deaf or hard of hearing. So she decided to study American Sign Language and Deaf Studies at Humber College. She wanted to learn something hands-on that she could use to help people. 

   

    She is very passionate about sign language and continues to learn more and more for herself and for the glory of God. 

   

    She started her Instagram account in response to a request from a number of her friends to teach them ASL. After a while, her followers expanded from her small group of friends to over 5.6 thousand.

    She's inspired me to include more Deaf culture in meetings and really make the meetings fun. She is so cheerful and passionate and, even through a screen, it's infectious.

Amber Galloway Gallego

    Amber is a Hearing ASL song interpreter who is passionate about making music as moving and emotional for Deaf people, as it is for those who can hear. She wants to create a connection between music and the Deaf community that hasn't been seen before. She specializes in hip-hop/rap songs and has attracted the attention of people around the world, including Jimmy Kimmel and TedMed.

    I decided to connect with her, asking for her opinion about the use of songs in the context of learning ASL.

    Unfortunately, she did not reply. However, this is understandable and somewhat predictable.

    I'm still glad that I tried, and I actually did benefit from it. While waiting for her response, I started thinking about how she would respond. I had watched a number of her interviews and talks, so I had a basic understanding of her point of view. From there, I found myself imagining how she would respond. I imagined her writing that songs are not only a great way to teach vocabulary, but to better understand the language as a whole. I could practically hear her saying that ASL songs demonstrate how Deaf people convey emotions. They showcase ASL's distinctness from English in the ways that it communicates ideas.

    I may have not received the insight that I was hoping for, but I gained a new point of view and broadened my personal perspective.

Gillian

    My English teacher recently introduced me to a wonderful woman who works at building and strengthening group dynamics and also happens to be one of my classmates' moms. I had been concerned about the lack of mingling and a strong sense of community in the ASL club. So I decided to contact Gillian via email. 

   

    She immediately replied with suggestions, including Human bingo, and asked me about calling sometime to discuss adapting some activities for the ASL club. 

    She gave me a host of tips, from using snacks to slip myself into small groups without everyone tensing up, to having small group discussions about how they're feeling about the club. She also provided me with a much-needed boost of confidence that I'm heading in the right directing and creating something meaningful. 

    So far, I've tried the Human Bingo and it was a great success. The room was filled with laughter and small talk.

    I also tried one of her ideas of a Paper Quilt, where everyone writes an answer to a question on a sticky note with 1-7 words and a symbol, and everyone posts it on a board. The question I chose was, "What do you love about this club" and the finished "quilt" brought a smile to my face.

    

    I've gotten some amazing ideas that I'm excited to try, and I've connected with a truly inspiring woman. It's times like these that I'm thankful for this project.

Kylee

    Kylee is a Hearing teenager who has a YouTube Account where she creates expressive ASL translations of pop songs. I've been watching her videos for a couple years now, and I decided to ask her a couple questions about her journey. I wanted to know how she went about learning a song, what resources she uses/used to learn ASL, why she decided to learn, and why she started her channel.

    I sent her a message on Instagram (@kylee_signs) a couple weeks ago but she, unfortunately, hasn't gotten back. 

    Nonetheless, I'm glad I tried getting in touch with such an outstanding person. Simply making an effort to connect with a person with similar interests made me even more emotionally invested in the topic of ASL. It also encouraged me to attempt a song as an end-of-semester project with the ASL Club.

    Kylee demonstrates how far a little determination and passion can take a person and her example has added a little more to my own love of ASL.

WTCS Christian Club

    One of the clubs that I used to attend at Western Tech in Grade 9 was the Christian Club. They've been running it for over five years but unfortunately stopped holding meetings at the start of the pandemic. There were always plenty of people attending and I was curious as to what their strategies were for maintaining membership and attracting new members.

    I messaged the club's Instagram account (@wtcs_christian_club) to ask for some tips. They responded very quickly with remarkable detail and organization.

    In short, their tips were to get constant feedback on what members were looking for in the club, provide snacks, have plenty of games and activities that required no knowledge from previous meetings, encourage interaction and discussion among members for student-led learning, and have extra events like fundraising for a related cause or a game night open to anyone with a note at the end about the club.

    I found it amazing that we had thought of some very similar ideas, including the importance of feedback and games, and I am incredibly thankful for the new ones that they gave me, including student-led learning and extra events. I plan on incorporating all of these into the ASL Club and look forward to the day when I can bring in snacks!

University of Guelph ASL Club

    I've recently been curious about continuing to teach more advanced members while still reaching the newer ASL Club members and I thought I'd look to a more established ASL Club for guidance.

    The ASL Club at the University of Guelph has been active for over a year and usually has about 30 people attending, so I contacted them via Instagram (@guelphaslclub) to see if they could offer any insight.

    They explained that they used to have a beginner group and an advanced group so they could teach everyone "with the knowledge they had on ASL". And when they didn't have the resources for two separate groups, they taught at a beginner level so that everyone could keep up.

    It's really wonderful to be able to reach out to people who are miles away over the internet and I'm grateful for the advice from a more established club. I'm definitely going to keep in mind the importance of focusing on the newer members and keep my hopes up for a day when we have enough resources to have two groups. 

FSU Signing Seminoles ASL Club

    With my investigation on balancing new and older ASL Club members, I decided to ask for another opinion on the matter. The SS ASL Club at Florida State University has been around for over two years and has a big emphasis on building community, based on their Instagram page.

    After messaging them (@aslclub.fsu), they replied in less than 15 minutes with some great insight. 

    They confirmed that they have a very relaxed ASL Club focused on having fun. They usually teach seasonal signs so that even the more advanced members might not know them and get some learning out of the meetings.

    Then, they have games for the greater part of the meetings, incorporating ASL into the activities.

    They also run a few beginner workshops a year where they teach the ASL foundations, like letters and numbers. That way, new members can feel comfortable joining any time of the year. They love themed events and focus on making people happy when learning ASL.

    I definitely learned a lot from this club and will be incorporating their ideas of themed events and more games into Western's ASL Club meetings.