10/6/98
Hi Everyone -
Thanks for your great messages and I know I have a long list of messages to
answer and I am looking forward to answering them later :-)
I do want to share a piece of information. I just received a long distance
phone call from someone interested in trying the SignWriting Literacy
Project (SWLP) in another USA school system. So we talked about the project
at length. They have one copy of the three little books that I gave to the
SWLP participants this fall.
It was terrific getting feedback over the phone! And in the phone
conversation, I started to realize that the person thought that our Reading
Levels 1, 2, 3, 4 are meant to be ASL Levels 1,2 ,3 ,4.
No! Not at all! They are "SignWriting Levels", not "ASL Levels". There is a
BIG difference. True, the books are written in ASL signs, but they are
trying to encourage people to read and write the symbols themselves.
I am assuming that the teachers already know ASL and have their own way of
teaching it. And I hope they will develop their own books using
SignWriting. That would be best.
Teachers in other countries do that. They develop their own materials in
SignWriting for their signed languages. But in the USA, people were not
"taking that first step". So I tried to give them a little nudge, by
starting the SWLP.
I hope the teachers in the SWLP will feel free to give me all their
feedback - negative feedback is good too - it can really help us improve -
so don't feel shy to criticise - I am open to improvement and I look
forward to it...
So from the conversation on the phone, I have learned something. From now
on, to make it clear, instead of saying "Reading Level One" I will say
"SignWriting Level One". Does that seem better? What is your opinion?
Valerie :-)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Visit the SignWritingSite:
https://www.SignWriting.org
Valerie Sutton at The DAC
Deaf Action Committee For SignWriting
Box 517, La Jolla, CA, 92038-0517, USA
(619)456-0098 voice
(619)456-0010 tty
(619)456-0020 fax
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
|
SignWriting List Forum