Like most classes at the University of Cincinnati, American Sign Language courses this semester are being taught in a virtual format. When the subject is based solely on visual learning, there is an additional level of potential disconnect.
Teaching during a pandemic when classes are mostly virtual is challenging for professors and students alike. When the subject is based solely on visual learning, there is an additional level of potential disconnect.
Like most classes at the University of Cincinnati (UC), American Sign Language (ASL) courses this semester are being taught in a virtual format. However, ASL is a subject in which you talk with your hands, and spoken word is discouraged to learn the language.
Technical difficulties, bad WiFi and teaching through a two-dimensional screen are all issues that can cause a disconnect between ASL professors and their students.
ASL and Deaf Studies Program Coordinator Emma Kreiner says the hardest part of teaching through a screen is helping her beginning-level students understand spatial requirements of ASL.
“I can’t necessarily turn myself around to show them what the sign will look like from their perspective,” Kreiner said. Sign parameters can look skewed on a screen, as students learn from a two-dimensional surface rather than three-dimensional in person.
Kreiner adds that it is sometimes hard to show how signs move or where they are produced without repositioning her body. For example, signs at the waist are nearly always out of the frame of the camera. “It’s not that it can’t be done,” she said. “But it does present some logistical challenges.”
Another huge challenge that Kreiner and other ASL instructors face is that it is difficult to see students in Zoom breakout rooms practicing with a partner or small group. If classes were face-to-face, she could monitor the whole class simultaneously, note common mistakes or offer assistance to students all at the same time.
“Online, that is much more difficult,” Kreiner said. “If I join students’ breakout rooms, it feels much more intrusive than it would in class if I just walked over.”
ASL student Jack Gullett, a third-year marketing student with a minor in sports administration, says he dreads breakout rooms in Zoom for these classes. “I get almost anxious about them,” he said.
Gullett is taking his second semester of ASL but feels …….