I really like the way the ASL Primary DVD has the videos and the printed ASL glosses so that I can follow along as I was teaching the kids the signs for our program in a few weeks.

I was looking for a similar thing for the hymns - mostly because I watch the hymns at home - try to memorize them, but when I get to church, the ASL slips out of my brain, somewhat. If I had a cheat-sheet written Gloss Book, it would be so nice.

Just wondering if something like that is available or am I going to have to watch the DVD and make my own? (Oh, the time consuming aspect of *that*! lol)

Greta

I've never seen anything like that but I do think it is a great idea. If you do tackle that beast I would love a copy of it. I have the same problem with my hands and brain wanting to do more signed English than ASL when singing. What do the more seasoned interpreters do to over come that? Is is simply practice, practice, practice or is there a trick? Do the Deaf prefer ASL for songs or is english word order "just as good"?

We have our primary program next Sunday and the kids are doing one song in sign language. For the ease of teaching we are doing more in signed English. We have no Deaf in our ward. The primary just asked me to do it for fun. The kids love it too.

Natalie

We did our Primary Program last Sunday - and our one Deaf girl couldn't make it - her parents were sick. *sigh* But the kids signed the song they were supposed to anyway, even with no Deaf in the audience.

As far as the ASL GLOSS hymn book transcription, I started making one last night when noone showed up for the adult ASL class I'm trying to teach. I just sat at church with my DVD and did play-pause-play-pause and wrote down what I think are the signs.

I'm doing the Christmas songs first since that's the season we're coming up to.

My problem is writing what they do with classifiers - I've got stuff that looks like:

BABY (keep one arm as BABY then use other hand to sign) SWEET(look down at 'baby') SOFT
(from "Silent Night" in case anyone wants to look at it)

I need to check my ASL books to see how they write glosses for that kind of stuff. Any help/suggestions from the professionals??

Well, I'm off to do Halloween stuff with my kids and my preschool class! Whee!!

Greta

That's always the downside of transcription systems: remembering what the code and selected glosses actually represent. It's important, I think, to remember that transcription merely fills a prompter role and not a pedagogical role; no one ever learns/ed to use ASL from its transcriptions. There are some consistent conventions in the variety of ASL transcription systems (e.g., nonmanual behaviors are typically shown above the glosses, glosses are typically capitalized while extra-peripheral movements and commentary are in lowercase letters, etc.), but it's a crutch at best.

_______________________rhq ____t
WE BELIEVE CL:4"list" WHAT? FIRST, FAITH...

etc.

I have a "flattened-out" system that I've devised over several years that I use for all of my translation work; I'd be happy to post it if you're interested.

True. I keep thinking I need to be as specific as my green beginning ASL book from BYU was. Drat that perfectionism!!



That would be wonderful. I'd really appreciate it. That way, if I ever move on to other wards, I could leave something that others might actually understand.

Greta