So I did it.<\/p>\n
I stood up on a platform in front of a room of native signers, and delivered a (pre-prepared) five minute presentation without making a sound. In front of cameras, with my ugly face beamed out to multiple large screens.<\/p>\n
That was stressful, though less so then many different public speaking engagements I’ve participated in. It was a different kind<\/em> of stress. I’m sure I made all kinds of mistakes of which I wasn’t even aware of. ASL books, videos, and web sites tend to focus on particular signs, and vocabulary is one important part of learning the language–but not the only part. A huge amount of the communication comes through facial expression, body shifting and language, and other “non-manual markers.” I’m learning, if slowly.<\/p>\n It’s also helping me in everyday situations, among hearing folks. I’m better able to express myself and I’ve picked up some new gestures (like non-dominant-hand indexing…more on that later), and I tend to, even if in the back of my mind, think about how you’d express such-and-such an idea in ASL, and having thought it through more, better express it in writing or speech.<\/p>\n It’s also helping to finally tame my inner-introvert. When a fundamental part of communication involves displaying play-by-play emotions on your face (and indeed, entire body) it changes you. Better than acting lessons.<\/p>\n What have you done lately to push yourself out of your comfort zone? -m<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" So I did it. I stood up on a platform in front of a room of native signers, and delivered a (pre-prepared) five minute presentation without making a sound. In front of cameras, with my ugly face beamed out to multiple large screens. That was stressful, though less so then many different public speaking engagements…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1111],"tags":[1112,1117,1121,1122,1119,1120,1118],"class_list":["post-1011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asl","tag-asl-2","tag-comfortzone","tag-deaf","tag-hearing","tag-presentation","tag-public-speaking","tag-signing"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t