Welcome back! Over the course of the semester, I have gained a valuable amount of resources surrounding ASL that can be used for my own personal understanding or shared with a group of students. For today’s blog, I thought I would dive into my favourite online ASL dictionary that has been a huge help to me throughout this entire experience. The website is called “Handspeak” and as I have stated before, it is an online dictionary that provides videos and definitions of words in American Sign Language. There are numerous different websites out there, but this website has a variety of special things that made it more engaging.

The following subheadings can be accessed from the Handspeak Homepage:

Word of the Day → Every day, Handspeak posts a new sign that you can learn. Often around the holidays, they may post a word like pumpkin or Christmas.

ASL story of the week → With this feature, Handspeak wants to promote literacy and ASL. Each week, there is a new story posted that is signed by an interpreter and they provide a transcript of the actual story. This allows people to read the story in English while watching the interpreter translate. One way you could incorporate this into your classroom is by having the video playing on the screen and you reading the story to the students. Afterwards, you can go through and ask students if they recognized any signs or pick out a few words for them to learn.  Click on the link to view this week’s story! https://www.handspeak.com/learn/index.php?id=126

Quick Links → In the image below, they have a tab that links to other pages on their website. One useful link is “Learn ASL” as it provides step by step lessons that can be self-taught in order to learn from a proper ASL teacher instead of you teaching yourself.

 

Next week will be my last official blog for this inquiry project! Stay tuned to one last exciting post from Ms. G’s blog!

– Ms. G 🙂