Learning Activity

I was fortunate to have all four of my ASL students in attendance today

to further advance our ASL skills. To begin the day we began by
introducing ourselves by our sign names, and creating sign names for
Dakota and Grace. I then observed the girls as they signed the entire
alphabet as a group. There was very little error on any of the girls part
and they were able to do so with complete accuracy on the second try.
Dakota seemed to become withdrawn at this point, so I decided to
explain ASL etiquette to them. I had the girls stand up and act out
different parts in a skit as I showed them how to get a deaf persons
attention and two methods on how to get past two deaf people having
a conversation. I tried to ask Dakota repeatedly how she thought one
would complete these two tasks but she simply crossed her arms and
shook her head at me. Gina did offer up one solution and I explained to
them how her solution would work out. She suggested that I tap one of
the people on the shoulder to ask them to move. I explained to her
that if you tap a deaf persons shoulder that signals to them that you
want to have a conversation. I then explained to them that you quickly
walk between the speakers if hat it what is necessary and it noticeably
shocked them. Even Dakota showed some interest. After that exercise
we sat back down at the table and moved the lesson back on track. I
explained to them that they needed to each take out a piece of paper
and a pencil. They needed to list the numbers 1-10 down the side of he
paper. Once doing so I explained what fingerspelling was and we
practiced the new skill. Then I signed single 2-5 letter words about
things that I knew interested them from previous discussions. One
word that I used was shoes, and another was art. I was impressed that
all four of them were able to interpret all ten words accurately. In my
objective I had only given the expectation of six out of ten words. I was
happy to be proven wrong.
I chose to write about using the situational teaching method again
because on Dakotas actions. She acted withdrawn and I acted in the
moment to try to pull her out and get her to participate. It did work in a
way, but I need to find out what is at the route of the problem. I need
to speak with Miss Penny and ask her if this is normal behavior and
discuss what reasons could be causing her to act like this and if it is
something that can be remedied through the school. That is my next
goal.