Essay On Sign Experience

Going into this experience I was a little nervous like I always am, because I do not know what to expect. I’m comfortable signing in front of my peers, but signing to people from ASL 2 that are more experienced than me made me a little nervous. After this experience I realized that it wasn’t as nerve racking as I thought it would be and it was much more realizing and enjoyable than I imagined it would be. I learned a few new signs I learned how to sign I don’t care; I’m full, and weird. I talked to the people sitting around me. It was hard to talk to every person, because there were so many students there.
There are many things that I would have done differently, but like always I wish I would have signed more. I always get nervous and I’m always afraid to sign the wrong thing, etc. I need to practice signing in front of people that I do not know and become more confident in my signing. I’m not fully confident in my signing ability and being in a situation where you only know half of the students makes me a better listener and observer, than a signer.
I was able to understand almost everything that was being signed. I observed many
conversations and it was a very relaxed atmosphere that I really enjoyed. I was mainly focusing on conversations that used fingerspelling and I tried my best to understand what they were saying. I also observed people around us that were customers at Airliners and I was observing how they were watching others sign and stare. I also watched our server try to communicate with us and I watched her learn a few signs, but most importantly I learned what it was like to be in a restaurant and order food without speaking, I really got to see and feel what it was like to be deaf in that type of situation.
From this experience I have realized how a lot of hearing people view Deaf people.
If someone is different in our society stares are usual as well as not knowing how to treat a person who is so called “different”. The waiter didn’t want to come off rude and you could tell that she never had a table of people this large who ordered there food and drinks from not talking and were using sign language. This was very interesting to watch and see how she interacted and reacted to being in this type of situation. She was pretty nervous, but made sure to ask if what she was doing or saying was rude in the Deaf culture. She also caught onto a few signs and made comments like “this is awesome” or “I like a challenge”. She was optimistic in helping us and being our server, which I think that she did a great job at treating us as proper
guest.
In this course we are learning about proper ways to interact and be polite in the Deaf culture and I think this event out of all the events I attended really showed what it was like to be a Deaf person. Although there were a few stares, I really feel like I got a good glimpse of what it would be like to be Deaf. I also was very surprised on how well we were treated. I really enjoyed this experience and learned a lot from it.