...
Show More
The theory of this "program" is sound and using it did increase my confidence in being able to communicate using sign, but not in the grammatical sense.
Chapters begin with a "Practice Learning Signs" section illustrating different sentences, with the sentences printed underneath(+). The bottom of each page usually gives brief descriptions of any new signs introduced (+)... It is essential to read these because the arrows don't always show the move-direction as described or the picture merges in with that of the next/previous sign so it is hard to tell the two apart(-). Both simple and "complex" words are used so you aren't endlessly reviewing simple "apple, box, cat" exercises (++).
This section is followed by a few other practice exercises to review (sign this sentence, match the sign to the word, etc.)
The last section of each chapter is "Practice Receiving Signs":
"Practice Receiving Signs" could be the most essential part of the book, but it fails to reach its potential. The phrases are VERBATIM the phrases of the first "Learning Signs" section. Once you've gone through it once, you don't need the illustrations to recite the phrases, so you are memorizing rather than learning (-). In future editions the authors should consider some variety between the "Learning Signs" and the "Receiving signs" sections.
My goal is to learn American Sign Language to communicate effectively within the Deaf community, but this book shows Signed English (exact word order) rather than ASL. Imagine taking a German sentence, for instance, and translating each word to English but not changing the word order and not taking into account words that should be left out or added. With concentration, you'll probably understand... but is vocabulary all you really want to know when learning a language? If you are serious about learning ASL, this book may steer you in the wrong direction (-). There are better books than this for learning ASL such as A Basic Course in American Sign Language.
Because of its ease of use, this book is appropriate if you are a casual learner of signing or specifically only want to learn Signed English.
Chapters begin with a "Practice Learning Signs" section illustrating different sentences, with the sentences printed underneath(+). The bottom of each page usually gives brief descriptions of any new signs introduced (+)... It is essential to read these because the arrows don't always show the move-direction as described or the picture merges in with that of the next/previous sign so it is hard to tell the two apart(-). Both simple and "complex" words are used so you aren't endlessly reviewing simple "apple, box, cat" exercises (++).
This section is followed by a few other practice exercises to review (sign this sentence, match the sign to the word, etc.)
The last section of each chapter is "Practice Receiving Signs":
"Practice Receiving Signs" could be the most essential part of the book, but it fails to reach its potential. The phrases are VERBATIM the phrases of the first "Learning Signs" section. Once you've gone through it once, you don't need the illustrations to recite the phrases, so you are memorizing rather than learning (-). In future editions the authors should consider some variety between the "Learning Signs" and the "Receiving signs" sections.
My goal is to learn American Sign Language to communicate effectively within the Deaf community, but this book shows Signed English (exact word order) rather than ASL. Imagine taking a German sentence, for instance, and translating each word to English but not changing the word order and not taking into account words that should be left out or added. With concentration, you'll probably understand... but is vocabulary all you really want to know when learning a language? If you are serious about learning ASL, this book may steer you in the wrong direction (-). There are better books than this for learning ASL such as A Basic Course in American Sign Language.
Because of its ease of use, this book is appropriate if you are a casual learner of signing or specifically only want to learn Signed English.
