"follow directions"?

[kyle]

Sadie is two and talks a mile a minute, but she still loves signing (and "the kids" as she calls her Signing Time DVDs.) She is also two... and learning to push some independence when she can. I could find neither "follow" nor "directions" on http://www.lifeprint.com/ I'm hoping the sign(s) would be a fun nonverbal reinforcement for both when she does... and doesn't remember
Thanks,
Kyle

[tweejy]

check out http://commtechlab.msu.edu/sites/aslweb/browser.htm and click on the 'f' for follow and 'd' for directions.

You might want to even sign 'pay attention' (depending on the situation) in which, The two hands shield the eyes from distractions on the side and then move forward as if drawing attention to something.

Hope this helps. :D

[c01dunlap]

...You might want to even sign 'pay attention' (depending on the situation) in which, The two hands shield the eyes from distractions on the side and then move forward as if drawing attention to something.

Hope this helps. :D
That is what we use with Sophie.

[aligreat]

We sign PAY+ATTENTION (as described above) and then repeat the instructions.

[kyle]

Thanks for the ideas. We were experimenting with just using "follow" today, but I think the "pay attention" sign would catch on more quickly. Sadie is currently having fun with her new signs for "tea party"

p.s. aslpro.com has a remarkable collection of signs too! Just discovered it.

[ASLReBecca]

check out http://commtechlab.msu.edu/sites/aslweb/browser.htm and click on the 'f' for follow and 'd' for directions.

You might want to even sign 'pay attention' (depending on the situation) in which, The two hands shield the eyes from distractions on the side and then move forward as if drawing attention to something.

Hope this helps. :D

For FOLLOWING DIRECTIONS, "PAY ATTENTION" or "OBEY" would work.

To follow someone (as first described in the quote) is to be behind them and follow, and a direction is typically which way you want someone to go.

So please, PLEASE, do NOT do a word for word interpretation. It will only confuse your child if you continue with signing through the years and it will certainly confuse you later on as you learn more about our wonderful language.

Remember, ASL is a language in its' own right. English and ASL do not mesh together always in the form of picking words from the English language and matching them up with a sign. Look at the word or phrase you want to sign, then look for the meaning. When you find the meaning, THEN look up THAT word or phrase.

Sincerely,
The absent professor, ReBecca

[ASLReBecca]

aslpro.com has a remarkable collection of signs too! Just discovered it.

I am NOT trying to crush anyone's dreams about ASLPRO, but then again, maybe I am. I have written a few times to some of you in regards to this web site, so if you want more clarification, feel free to continue reading further. A dear friend of mine, an interpreter and someone who has grown up with deaf folks, took it upon himself to write to the authors of ASLPRO. Here is his e-mail.


Here are just a few of the trouble spots I found on the site. And before anyone accuses me of not taking this directly to the source, I want to let you all know that I sent a very long letter to the owners of the site. The email I received back basically told me that I just didn't understand the audience whom they were trying to reach.

I am posting the entire message I sent to the website owners. Since my letter, they have removed the sign demonstration for RAPE, and added a second deaf person to the list of people involved with the site (though I was unable to locate her or the other deaf woman in any of the sign demonstrations. .. perhaps I just wasn't looking in the right places).

What I still find interesting is that the only qualification for the two deaf people listed is the fact that neither one can hear. Yes, one of them has taught ASL in a community college, but I see no representation of her qualifications to do so. Seems that not being able to hear is good enough in their eyes. *sigh*

Read on and then look at the site and decide for yourselves.

David

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

Hello. I had seen comments about the ASL PRO website as being a resource for interpreters on several different interpreting listservs, so I decided to check it out for myself. I'm writing to you because I am concerned about a site that promotes itself as providing high-quality ASL educational products that will enable people to communicate with the Deaf Community more effectively. I, unfortunately, find the site to be anything but that.

I looked through a number of the clips, both for individual words as well as conversational phrases, and have yet to see many that I would say are accurately interpreted. Note a few examples below.

Single words:

Caboose: TRAIN. The caboose is a very specific part of the train, namely the very last car in the line. Signing TRAIN does not convey that specificity at all!

Galaxy: STAR+ ABOVE. Again, there is a complete lack of specificity in this translation. The galaxy is more than just a few stars overhead, but this video clip would have people thinking it's just what you can see up in the night sky.

Pageant: PRINCE (with non-dom hand in the air). Having interpreted for the National Association of the Deaf (NAD) national conference where the Miss Deaf America Pageant is held, I can say that I typically see the sign for SASH (index finger and thumb tracing the outline of the sash as it goes across the torso) followed by COMPETE used for "pageant." The sign in this video clip is the initialized sign for PRINCE, which is simply inaccurate.

Qualification: QUALITY. It's true that I see this sign used across the country for the concepts of quality and qualify, but qualification is different. It's the act of meeting a condition, which the single sign QUALITY does not convey accurately.

Capitol punishment: LAW KILL. This is hardly an interpretation of the concept of capitol punishment. The way this phrase is signed, it appears that the law is killing something/someone. I believe ASL-using Deaf consumers would have a very difficult, if not impossible, time connecting LAW KILL to the concept of capitol punishment in their minds. They would have to work to try and make sense of what is an ungrammatical, illogical phrase in sign.

Glorifying God: GLORY GOD. A quick search of a King James Bible definition page <http://av1611.com/kjbp/kjv-dictionary/glorify.html> states that glorify means, 1. to praise; to magnify and honor in worship. GLORY in ASL is a noun, but glorify in English is a verb.

This is not an interpretation of the word.

Rape: the initialized R-fornicate sign used in the video clip is
offensive for several reasons. First, it simply doesn't conform to ASL standards for sign initialization. Secondly, because of the sign's movement, it implies that both parties are involved in the act, which is clearly not what rape is. Thirdly, it only specifies one type of rape situation. I am hopeful that this sign is not being used in interpreting situations with a deaf victim!

Phrases:

English phrase ASL GLOSS My back-translation

I've been waiting 20 minutes.

WAIT 20 MINUTE

With the absence of any pronominal reference and lacking the sign SINCE, this looks like a command, "Wait 20 minutes," or possibly a statement, "[Someone] will wait 20 minutes."

There were 150 people at the wedding.

WEDDING ITSELF, 150 PEOPLE GO-TO-REPEATEDLY

The reflexive pronoun ITSELF is anomalous and confusing in this phrase because the wedding isn't doing anything. A more appropriate sign for 'attending the wedding' would have been the open 5-CL 'flock- to'. As it is, the phrase claims that 150 people went to the wedding over and over.

I got a "D" on my paper.

PAPER, D

Again there is a lack of pronominalization in this phrase, so it
appears that there is a big letter D on a piece of paper. And, actually, "paper" in this type of sentence would be more accurately interpreted as HOMEWORK.

The prevailing trend in almost all the video clips I looked at was a one-sign/one-word approach. This is not only misinformed, but oppressive to ASL and the Deaf Community because it implies, intentionally or not, that ASL is little more than a signed encoding for English concepts. Dennis Cokely, one of the pioneers in the field of ASL/English interpreting refers to this trait as "glossism": the meaning of an English word is linked with a sign so that the English
word's meaning is imposed and the sign's autonomous meaning(s) are ignored.

And on the subject of oppression, I wonder why not one single d/Deaf person was involved with this website. This was, I'm sure, an

intensive and time-consuming project, yet when I looked at the "About

Us" page, I see everyone listed is a member of the majority culture (hearing), who presumably learned ASL as a second language. This observation is borne out in the fact that some signs are misarticulated, and almost none of the signers use appropriate ASL facial grammatical signals. This shows a marked lack of cultural sensitivity towards ASL and its community of users.

So why were no culturally Deaf, native signers involved with the project? They should have been the language models on the site (then it would have been worthy of the moniker: ASL PRO). It doesn't appear that any Deaf people were used as language consultants or site reviewers, or I can't imagine this site would have gone forward.

Lastly, based on the concerns listed above, I take issue with your use of the term "pro" in your name. Initially I found it ironically amusing that the lexicalized #PRO is often used in the Deaf Community to denote scorn at one's perceived ability to do something. However, the longer I've thought about it, I believe the name is inaccurate given the contents of the site. I would encourage a name change,
although to what, I do not know.

I wish I could say that I appreciate the time and effort that went into your website, but at this point I cannot. I know it was done with the best of intentions. That much I do appreciate. However, you know the saying about the road to hell... As a hearing member of the Deaf Community who has grown up watching hearing people mangle ASL, step over Deaf people in an attempt to "do good for them," and
benefit from a language that isn't truly theirs in the first place, I couldn't sit back and say nothing in response to this site.

I'm hopeful the site will be taken off-line, revamped with Deaf language models, and reopened once it truly is ASL PRO.

Thank you for your time and consideration. I welcome any response.

David

__________________________

David N. Evans, RID CI & CT

ASL/English Interpreter & Trainer

Bridge Communications

[Bill]

Oh no Gracy again!!

I would close the books, tapes, etc for this exercise
and make up your own directions and follow her to
them. Nothing is better than understanding than doing
it yourself. There is so much in directions that a
video cannot initially teach. Right, left, straigh, behind,
signers perspective. Then when both parties are facing
each other the opposite of the signer happens.

So, no point until have mastered her left, her right,
straight ahead, behind her.

Now teach her street. intersections, all this could take
a while before any video is shown. I personally believe
learning all ASL this way by creating your own
situations and then incorporate STetc... into the
picture.

this is my opinion

gracy

[ASLReBecca]

Oh no, Gracy,
You misunderstand. This parent was asking about how to get a child to obey. Someone suggested to sign "Follow Directions". That's all. Sincerely, ReBecca

[Bill]

oh i see,
what do you think of the direction idea?

g

[tweejy]

I totally understand what you mean, and what I posted is meant to be to 'follow directions' as if they are actually following a direction, per se, as in following someone.

Then I posted more along the lines of what I thought was being asked as in 'pay attention'

It is difficult to know exactly what is being 'asked' and how one is 'answering'. There are many times I have seen 'misinterreptations' for words. I should have been more clear. Guess I know why I never post. :confused:
I appreciate the correction. I didn't mean for it to get out of hand! :(

[aligreat]

I really like the idea of using OBEY. Recently, I have been saying that to Alexandria when she is being willfully disobedient. It makes sence to use it with Cassia as well, given that she is also a 2 year-old and is prone to disobey.

[dmmetler]

In addition, since it's on ST, I know my toddler takes it more seriously-recently, she's been really oppositional about a sign unless she sees Rachel do it (NO SIGNING TIME WORD!) I'm hoping that this is a temporary phase-I thought they were usually teenagers before they decided their parents couldn't do anything right.

[ASLReBecca]

oh i see,
what do you think of the direction idea?

g

Your description of directions is right on. So many people want a word by word sign, because that's how most people start when they learn a new language!

Actions, baby, actions! You got it girl!
You ought to see my class when it's classifier night. Ugh! They absolutely HATE me on those nights!
Smiles,
ReBecca

[ASLReBecca]

I never use the word 'pageant' or 'rape' or any other words that I wouldn't use in my day to day life of two kids, but their description of it is upsetting. I would also expect that a site that carries the name 'pro' you could "trust".

While I do understand those are not typical words to be used with small children, I did not want to eliminate any of his verbiage. He makes valid points and the main point is that it's not all it's cracked up to be and a lot of newcomers to signing are looking to it as gospel truth. Take, for instance, the song Silent Night that is on this site. It will soon be Christmas and I know a few people who have been watching intently so they can "interpret" this song. It's not ASL, that's fine, but how many of you interpret the word 'round as in meaning Mary has a round belly?

[jenml]

....... It will soon be Christmas....

Nooooo... I'm not ready!!! :eek:
I'm still enjoying my much deserved summer vacation!! :D


But good point, Rebecca... just teasing because I can't have summer end yet!

[ASLReBecca]

And I am nowhere near ready myself! I'm still waiting for hubby to come home after 13 month deployment. That's ENOUGH celebration for me! And it's happening in 1 day, 21 hours, 40 minutes and 52 seconds! I don't even have my house cleaned yet!
Grins,
ReBecca

[c01dunlap]

And I am nowhere near ready myself! I'm still waiting for hubby to come home after 13 month deployment. That's ENOUGH celebration for me! And it's happening in 1 day, 21 hours, 40 minutes and 52 seconds! I don't even have my house cleaned yet!
Grins,
ReBecca
Woo Hoo for you, ReBecca!! Doing the happy dance for your family!