Category: Free Inquiry

Hey everyone! This is the final blogpost of my free inquiry project on the use of American Sign Language (ASL) in elementary classrooms. Throughout the semester, I have had the opportunity to explore a multitude of resources that teachers can use to learn and teach ASL to students. I begin the semester by reviewing some basic ASL terminology for my own understanding and from there began to explore other areas. Two-subject areas that are great to implement ASL are Language Arts and Mathematics. Integrating ASL into other subjects is a valuable way for students to learn vocabulary in an authentic way. ASL like any language is best taught when students are young as it helps with overall brain development. As educators, it is our duty to support all students in their academic journey. Through this project, I have grown to understand that only the benefits of using ASL for deaf students, but the profound impacts it can have on all students. 

My favourite part of this project was researching the possible signs that teachers can use in the classrooms. It puts a practical use of the signs into action. There are so many endless possibilities but here are a few from my previous blogs to help you out!

• Greetings → Hello, welcome, goodbye
• Questions → Who, what, where, when, why
• Colours → Blue, Green, Purple, Yellow
• Appreciation → thank you, clapping, cheers
• Math → Add, Subtract, Divide, Multiply

That concludes my ASL free inquiry project for the year! I hope everyone learned a little bit more about the benefits of using sign language in the classroom. I leave you with this inspirational video of a woman signing the song “This Is Me” from the hit movie “The Greatest Showman”.

– Ms. G 🙂

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 🙂

Happy Tuesday! Thanks for tuning in to another exciting ASL blogpost. Over the past 2 months, I have shared a variety of reasons as to why you should use ASL in the classroom. We have learned the value of having non-verbal communication and how to support both deaf and hearing students. This idea led me to wonder when is it appropriate to integrate ASL in the classroom, and when should it no be used. 

As a society, we understand the importance of utilizing verbal communication skills in order for students to formulate conversations and relationships with their peers. That said, you cannot solely rely on ASL as a form of communication. As a teacher, you have the choice of when you should teach sign language to your students. I have decided to brainstorm a list of occasions of when to use ASL and a few example words for each one.

• Greetings → Hello, welcome, goodbye
  • You can greet students at the beginning and end of the day with these. 
• Questions → Who, what, where, when, why
  • When asking students questions, demonstrate the sign to reaffirm their understanding.
• Colours → Blue, Green, Purple, Yellow
  • Can be used in art classes and learning about 
• Appreciation → thank you, clapping, cheers

Using sign language in a hearing classroom has many benefits, but one thing I noticed through my research was that there were no negatives towards using it. We often do not think of the negatives around teaching tools but its something to consider in more depth. There are no set guidelines as to when to use or not use sign language, but ultimately, you can choose what works best for your classroom.

– Ms. G 🙂

This week, I thought about what ways I want to use ASL in my future classroom. This idea brought me back to a personal experience I had a few weeks ago. I was teaching a PE lesson into a grade one class, and the students showed us a “silent appreciation” to me and my peers. I was pleasantly surprised to see all the students were demonstrating the signs “thank-you” and “applause” in sign language. This simple gesture showed was a way for the students to show their gratitude in a small way. 

In the primary years of elementary school, students begin to develop their own attitudes and behaviours towards others. As teachers, we have the responsibility to exemplify positive behaviour as our students are susceptible to our actions. We are role models and students will follow and mimic what we do. For today’s research, I decided to look into signs that you could teach your students some basic manners.

In this first video, you will learn the signs “please” and “thank you” in the tune of a catchy song. These signs are perfect for both the student and the teacher to learn and use on the daily.

In this video, you will learn the signs “more”, “all done”, “food”, “milk”, “water”, “sleepy”, and “toilet”. These signs are often taught to infants but can also be used in the classroom usually around snack time. In my opinion, the most useful sign is “toilet”. Rather than having a student disrupt the class, the could simply show the sign to the teacher and go. 

The last video demonstrates two signs that are simple confirmation signs. This video repeats a few signs we have already learned, but the three new signs are “yes“, “no“, and “your welcome“. These signs are easy to do to quickly answer a question a student may have.

Thanks for reading!

– Ms. G 🙂

Happy Thursday! I hope that everyone had a good reading break and are ready for the rest of the semester. As we approach the end of the term, I am continuing to improve my own ASL skills while learning more about how ASL can be used in the classroom. For this week, I am going to look at a first-hand account of a teacher using ASL in their classrooms.

The website I found is called “Education Oasis”, a blog where teachers can share strategies they use in a multitude of subject areas. The article “Using Sign Language in the Classroom” by Rick Morris, discusses how he uses sign language to communicate with his students. In his blog, he gave the students a math problem and had different ways he used ASL to help create more efficient conversations with his students. In the 3 images below, you will see which signs Rick has taught his students.

Images from Rick Morris’ Blog

I could 100% see myself using these communication techniques in my classroom. This is beneficial because if you see a student with their hand raised, you may be unsure of what they are going to say. If you are wanting an answer to a question, but someone still does not understand, the teacher can call on that student before getting the answers so it gives that student a chance to understand. Non-verbal communication in the classroom is extremely important. In the chaos of the day, it can be difficult to be consistently relying on verbal communication. Using ASL can help eliminate confusion in every classroom.

– Ms. G 🙂

Welcome back! 

This week for my inquiry I decided to take a break from classroom integration and focus on how individuals can utilize technology to develop their ASL skills. As I stated in an earlier blog, my experience learning ASL began in Spring 2019 when I took ASL 100 A at the University of Victoria. This classed used an immersion technique where we were unable to speak during the lecture which took place twice a week for 2 hours. My professor, Tim Lane, did an excellent job of teaching us the basics of ASL as well as the importance of deaf culture. However, this led me to wonder how else can a person learn sign language in a fun and interesting way. 

Here are a few interesting ways I personally discovered that can be accessed through the internet!

1. Applications → When I looked on the app store, I, unfortunately, did not find a huge selection of apps that can help you learn sign language. Nevertheless, here is a link to some of the best apps to practice sign language. There is a range from free-paid premium apps, but I have yet to personally try any and I will let you know if I do find any that I really like! https://www.healthyhearing.com/report/47829-The-best-apps-for-learning-sign-language
2. Videos → The use of videos for ASL is so important as it is a visual language that relies on physical cues to converse with someone. I have watched a variety of videos and listed below are 3 YouTubers who I think have great instructional videos that could be used in the classroom.
   1. ASL Rochelle  
   2. Signed with Heart 
   3. ASLMeredith 
   4. SouthDakotaSchoolForTheDeaf  
3. Online Dictionaries → The most helpful resource I found when I was beginning to learn ASL was the use of online dictionaries. In particular, Hand Speak is a great website the provides videos with particular words to show exactly how a human would sign, rather than simply using charts. They also allow you to slow down the speed of videos so you can truly see the intricacies of the sign.

Photo by Edho Pratama on Unsplash

Those are just a few helpful resources that you can use to develop your students and your own ASL skills. I will see you all in 2 weeks as I will not be posting this upcoming week due to reading break!

– Ms. G 🙂

Hello! I hope everyone had a great week and is ready for another exciting entry of Ms. G’s free inquiry! Over the past week, I have been considering what ways you can implement ASL into other subject areas. As you know, languages naturally fit into language arts as they part of communication. For today, I have decided to look into how ASL can be used when teaching mathematics.

Last week, I introduced the concept of numbers #1-20 and thought how can we use signing to teach math. Through my research, I found a website called the ASL-STEM Forum that lists math terminology with words from “add” all the way to “Transcendental Number”. Most of these signs are above and elementary level but can be a useful resource for students in the future. What I liked about this website is that it provided a dictionary definition of the various words as well.

Here is a list with links to some of the words you may use in an elementary classroom:

• Add
• Subtract
• Divide 
• Multiply

In sign language, when you are signing an equation, it is phrased slightly different than if you are speaking. For example, if you were signing “4+3=?”, you would sign the number 4, plus, the number 3, and the sign how many? In ASL, when you ask a question, the question word goes at the end of the sentence. Math sentences often as a question to a problem, which is why you ask the word how many at the end. 

For more information, check out the textbook Naturally Signing or head to the youtube page below to watch videos on other mathematical ASL lessons.

– Ms. G 🙂

This week I finally decided that my free inquiry project would focus on the use of American Sign Language (ASL) in Elementary School Classrooms. My inquiry question is the following: “How might we incorporate ASL into Elementary Classrooms and why is it important for students to learn?” I was inspired to pursue this area of inquiry-based on my experience in ASL 100A last year. Throughout this course, I learned a variety of basic conversation skills that are applicable to everyday life such as the following: the alphabet, numbers, colours, and greetings. Within this inquiry project, I would like to further my own understanding of ASL as I would eventually like to implement it into my own class. 

Furthermore, I also learned about deaf culture in my course, and the importance of creating an inclusive environment for people who are deaf. This is what I want to explore further with my inquiry project and learn about how to make an inclusive experience for deaf students within a classroom. With any language, it is easier for children to begin learning at a younger age as their minds are young and flexible. In an ideal classroom scenario, I would want to teach students a basic level ASL that they can take forward with them throughout their lives. I believe that teaching students ASL will not only support a deaf student in the class but also demonstrate the importance of inclusion and acceptance to all the students. 

Here is a video of deaf people answering questions and breaking the stereotypes that society has formed around the deaf community.

-Ms. G 🙂