Mostly post about random stuff tbh

ITS TIME

ASL Resources For Beginners~

This is for a friend of mine who's asking for some good resources to start learning ASL!

ASL, which stands for American Sign Language, is a beautiful and complex visual language used primarily by Deaf and Hard of Hearing (HOH) people.

As a HOH person myself, I was never given the opportunity to learn ASL and I think it would have been very useful to me growing up if it had been offered to me. The last year and a half, I've been learning it to change that! Here's a series of resources I've used that I've found very helpful in learning ASL!

Alphabet (Slow): YouTube Video that goes through the Alphabet slowly multiple times. I found this video very useful to easily memorize the full alphabet (with practice for a week or so afterwards)! Even though it's catered for kids, I still find it very useful!

ASL Numbers 1-100: A YouTube playlist of multiple videos that teaches you ASL numbers 1-100. If you want a single video that goes through the entire 1-100 numbering, click here. Even though it's catered for kids, I still find it very useful!

The ASL App: A learning app for ASL that you can download on your phone or other electronic device. It has 387 free short videos for beginners in ASL, and 1,633 more short videos with their $10 membership (1 time buy, not monthly). It's a great beginner app, with or without the membership!

20 Beginner Phrases: Here's a video that has a lot of good basic phrases to learn! It teaches you things such as: "Hello" "I'm learning Sign Language" "My name is..." And many more!

ASL 1 Lessons by Bill Vicars: A playlist of YouTube video lessons taught through sign! I would recommend checking these out once you have a bit more of a foundation in vocabulary!

DOs and DONTs of interacting with the Deaf Community: A good video explaining some of the ways you should and shouldn't interact with the Deaf Community when learning or using Sign Language

HandSpeak ASL Dictionary: This is a great database where you can look up how to sign various words!

ASL Fingerspelling Receptive Practice: This website provides a series of short videos of fingerspelled words that you then type out to see if you interpreted it correctly. Its great visual practice! Fingerspelling is an important skill in ASL so I highly recommend practicing as much as possible!

American Sign Language (ASL) Masterlist: A useful Tumblr masterlist with an extensive amount of links for multiple different needs, such as resources, linguistics, and ASL/Deaf websites with videos, news, vlogs, etc.

'ASL Basics' Lessons by Chris Gorges: A playlist of YouTube basics and helpful tips. He gives clear explanations for a series of different concepts, and they really help to build your vocabulary and understanding!

I hope some of you find these resources helpful! Don't forget that one of the best ways to learn sign language is by practicing with other people, ESPECIALLY with someone who's deaf! I might add to this as I find more resources and links that I think would be beneficial! Thanks for reading!💜

Basically, the point of Oscar the Grouch is so that kids know it’s okay to have fucking emotions and moods that aren’t all cheery. That’s the fucking point. And that’s even more important to the kids who are living in harsh realities. Realities where their families are falling apart or they’re not getting food every day or they’re getting abused. Telling them it’s okay to express that they are NOT HAPPY because they are HURTING is so fucking important I cannot even say it. 

Big Bird is nice, but goddamn, when you’re a kid who’s hungry and you just got beat by your caretaker and all you wanna do is hole up somewhere and tell everyone else to go away because you don’t even have words for how bad things feel? Big Bird is not your dude. Cheery happy, “well, let’s play a happy game!” Big Bird ain’t cutting it for you. Oscar the Grouch is your dude. Oscar the Grouch is the dude who tells you it’s okay to put the lid on your garbage can and be alone and be upset.

Big Bird tries to talk you out of being upset (and maybe sometimes that’s okay). But Oscar the Grouch teaches you that, no, it’s okay to be upset and you have every right to stay upset and grouchy and unhappy until you’re at a point where that can change. Oscar the Grouch teaches you that you have a right to your emotions, whatever they are.

On a more advanced level, the point of Oscar is to start teaching kids that it’s okay to have boundaries, it’s okay to want to just go into your trash can (home/safe place) and not be bothered, it’s okay to defend those boundaries and say “go away!” when you want people to go the fuck away and that you can still have a place on Sesame Street. That not everyone has to be shiny, happy Big Bird. 

The fact that people tell you things you like are stupid doesn’t make it’s true. He loves trash. He loves it because it’s trash. That’s important too.

As is the fact that *even though everyone thinks his interests are stupid*, people don’t take his trash away and they don’t drag him out of his can.

Also he has *fantastic* body language. Boundary laden but also very emotional. And just the way he likes stuff and expresses interest…