Learning Sign Language can be a very helpful skill to have for life. One might ask why? Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you needed to communicate with someone who is deaf? It can be very frustrating, and for many non-signers, even a bit embarrassing. If the deaf person is not able to read lips, it could be tough.
Imagine the feelings of the person who is deaf. More often than not, they are left with the task to trying to find a way to communicate. What if it could be different? What if we got proactive and learned some basic sign language?
Assuming this sounds like a good idea, where would one begin? Many people start out trying to learn the alphabet. The logic behind this is that you could spell some basic words. The difficulty will be trying to finger spell quickly.
A different approach could be to learn some basic question starters. This approach is often used by journalists and writers to get a good article going. The basic starters signs could mimic this. So, you would need to know the signs for who, what, when, where, and why.
Here are the signs for the 5 basic question starters:
Who: Place the right hand in the shape of an ‘L’ on the chin, touching with the thumb. Slightly move your index finger in twice.
What: Raise palms face up and shrug your shoulders.
When: Point index finger of left hand straight up and use the index finger of the right hand to draw a circle in a clockwise motion around the left finger.
Where: Wave your right index finger in the air left and right.
Why: Start with placing the fingers of your right hand on your forehead then bring your hand down and away from the face while curling your fingers to make the sign for the letter ‘Y’.
In the next article, we can start to add some basic words to this process.
Till next time,
Sunny Ayala
Sunny Ayala is a teacher, a trainer, a coach, a Chaplain, and a wife who loves to help people reach their goals. Her other passions include fitness and life coaching, promoting the Libertarian party, and writing. She is the owner of http://thesignvideos.com a company that specializes in instructional material for learning sign language. You can reach Sunny at ayalasigns@aol.com or @signvideos on Twitter.
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