I’m extremely nervous about taking a second language in college. I only have to take one language class and then I am finished! I graduate!!
I was never any good in speaking another language in high school. I took 3 years of spanish and I do not know how I passed. I know that if I were at a college level, my professors would have never passed me. I can memorize vocabulary just fine but I have an awful time with the grammar and rolling the tongue etc…
The choices are, Sign language, arabic, chinese, spanish, or french.
I work with children, and I think that learning sign language would be pretty cool. I dont think that I’ll ever need to be totally fluent in sign language, but I think that as a teacher in a preschool classroom it can help me through my day. I’ve heard of teachers using sign language to communicate quietly with the children (instead of yelling clean up time the teacher preforms a certain sign that lets the children know its time to clean up, etc..)..
Sign language seems pretty reasonable as far as the difficulty goes. It seems like just memorizing hand gestures.
Is there a lot more to it than that??
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I mean, of course it is a structured language with (sometimes strange) rules, just like any other language; but the most important thing is to take what you’re interested in. I’m sure you know this if you’re about to graduate college, but it will make the hours go by a lot faster if you like what you’re learning.
And if you found the typical language-learning environment (grammar rules, borrrring, etc.) just wasn’t for you, this could be your portal into a different language.
Also, you seem to know just how you are going to apply it (and yes, I’ve heard of those classroom techniques being used effectively). Unless you have a Chinese boyfriend or strong interest in French culture, ASL seems like the most practical choice.
So go with your gut; ASL is still hard to learn, just in a different way. I find it refreshing, because it uses a different part of the body, giving the mouth a break. 🙂