Hearing Loss LIVE! What We Learned Gestures and Sign Language

There is so much more to lipreading than lip shapes. That's why we here at Hearing Loss LIVE! created Lipreading Concepts.

Gestures and Body Language are very important for communication and understanding. So important we dedicate an entire hour lesson to help you become comfortable with it's use.

Basic American Sign Language can help as well.

We are not ASL professionals but if you would like to become more fluent in ASL, drop us a line and we can hook you up with ASL Classes.

Join us this fall for our Lipreading Concepts class and/or Lip Shape classes starting September 12th. Only $50 per class and just like last spring buy one bring a buddy free!

hearinglosslive.com

Transcript

Hearing Loss LIVE! podcast what we learned gestures in sign language. 

Julia: Good morning, and welcome to Hearing Loss LIVE! We hope you're sharing, liking and following us on every platform, we have Buzzsprout, YouTube, social media, whatever that looks like. We are here to talk about what we learned for the month of August, we practiced on gesture and sign language. And we have a couple of takeaways from our class that we hold, I guess, workshop not class. That's free every month. One of the things I think I took away when we were first off, was visual language. We say gestures and sign language. But really, both of those are a visual language. It's a good way to think about it. I had not thought about that in the past. I think that's what Gloria calls it. I don't remember if we went into it in the workshop, but I know we talked about it before the blog. We all kind of depend on visual language, whatever that looks like. Right. So when somebody's not understanding we do gesture. And that's another way to look at it. What else Chelle? Sorry, my mind just went blank. Figure that out. Right?

Chelle: [laughter] It happens more and more often between both of us, not just you. So I did want to say that if you watch our podcasts and you watch the short reels, you see me do gestures as I talk and a lot of this comes about because I was in Toastmasters. No, even before that, but Toastmasters when I was in the Audible Talkers Toastmasters Club, which meets online, and they're accessible to people with hearing loss, you know, they really push the gestures. And I was like, I got this. Because I just gestures a lot. When I'm talking to hard of hearing people, I did a short reel or reel that's like, there's one minute video shorts that we do. And I pointed to my hearing aids, and you can see it and I was like, gosh I do use gestures a lot, especially if I know I'm talking to people with hearing loss. So you can watch old podcasts, old short videos of ours, and you will see how I incorporate gestures into conversation. A lot of times it gets in the way of my mouth. Well, that's because I'm sitting down and when I'm standing up, it's, it's not so bad. The other thing I was gonna say real quick is that sign language is not universal. A lot of people mistake that. And Julia sort of went over that in our last recording. But you know there's Canadian sign language, British Sign Language. So American Sign Language is American. And you're not going to be able to go somewhere else and use the sign language. If you watch Three Weddings and a Funeral. One of the characters is Deaf. And it's in a British setting. So he uses BSL, British Sign Language and you can see it's totally different than American Sign Language. We didn't learn that from each other. And that's that's what there's a quote somewhere I found of actress. And I don't remember her what her name is. And she says when I found out it wasn't universal, because she works in the United Kingdom and she works in the USA. She's like it was I didn't want to learn it anymore, because it's only good in one spot. So anything is a visual language I've been trying to think about the visual is super important to us, and the facial expressions and all of that is super helpful. But it's not just that. We're all still using our logic. Sometimes we're guessing trying to fill in the holes. It's knowing the topic and how well we know person too. So all this incorporates into lipreading and language so we can really truly call it a visual language.I think it's a different word lipreading versus speechreading, because a lot of mental mental processing goes in with it too. Whoa. Did I spark anything for you, Julia? 

Julia: No, that's interesting though.

Visual Language

thought process and how how I guess it looks different. I have to think about that some more. I. So here's one thing we talked about at our workshop. The tapping, right? Gesture of tapping to get your attention. Someone felt it startled them a lot. So what to do in that case, and it came up that you know, flip a light switch to let somebody know you're in the room. This is where, you know, this is one of those telling your hearing loss truth, right? What do you want your friends and families to do for that type of gesture? Do you want to tap? Do you want a small you know, grandma just would touch her arm, it wouldn't be very difficult. But I can see where kids can get you know, a little bit. All over the place type thing. I have to think more on the visual language and process that sorry.

Chelle: Yeah, so we can't say it's just a visual because it's, it's not. But a visual gives us a good chunk of information that helps us a great deal. So as far as tapping, I have brought this up in the past with some other hard of hearing people. For me, when I get on an airplane, I am deaf. The engines drown out all speech for me, I never hear this, the stewardess or the airplane person coming up and down and asking me what I want. So I generally tell the other person who's sitting next to me, I can't hear. I use a lot of lipreading. If somebody needs my attention, please, pat me. And I'm okay with a top a lot of times people would just put their hand on my hand. They can also if they don't like touching, because sometimes they don't like touching, they can, I say give a little wave in front of my seat and, and I will figure it out. Well, those are, those are gestures to lay the hand on or waving your hand to get somebody's attention. But another person said she didn't want people to touch her. And I'm like, well, I guess, you know, it's all in our truth and what we say, when we sit down in the airplane, wave your hand, tap me, lay hand down, whatever.

Julia: Yeah, that makes sense. I'm a small caveat that came up during our workshop. When you travel abroad,

we feel

not we feel we have friends who felt that the places they travel abroad, foreign countries, a lot of gestures are equivalent, right? So I think that's mostly like pointing that's my experience as well. Even as a hearing partner traveling to other countries, a lot of times, we would point to things we need explanation about, or we're trying to buy food wise. But there are some gestures that can be offensive in some countries. So if you depend a lot on gesturing, maybe do and you'd like to travel a lot, right? Go to foreign countries, whatever you may want to Google offensive gestures, just to be on the safe side. I think for the most part, gesturing is universal, which is why I like it so much. You know, with the exception of the one off areas, I think for the most part, it's going to help you I think we talked in our last podcast and again, Julia is a big, a big supporter of mimic what you like and what you want because a lot of times people will automatically follow your direction that way and may use it in the future with you because they kind of somewhere in their brain know you're going to need that. I think that was another one that was a takeaway.

I have a

thought but I think I need to think about it because I don't necessarily,

don't I don't want to I. Okay, sorry. I'm gonna figure out how to say this.

I,

Chelle's gonna roll her eyes everybody on Buzzsprout, I do think Sign Language, ASL, American Sign Language is a very pretty language. I like language in general, I don't care. What language? I do think there's a couple of really, you know, what, where are you talking about, you know, where is sign language? I do think knowing your alphabet is very helpful. Yes, no. Potty, restroom, that's really great for little kids. That's the T shape in your hand, by the way, for those on Buzzsprout. Anyways, some of those are universal. But then there is sign language term that is not universal. Like, I would never know that that's what that was trying to say. And would be just like lipreading or speechreading lost on what I just saw. Because I don't use it every day. So learn it if you like learning languages, I'm all for that. Any, anything to help yourself, bring a partner if they're willing, bring back to your partners what could be a universal gesture slash sign that you can use and remember to help each other with communication. I'm all about better communication. Do it because it's a beautiful language, that's fine. But know if you're not going to use it every day, just like any other foreign language, you may learn. Odds are day to day communication, it's not going to be helpful to you. So be ready to know a gesture or be able to say I think you're talking about and use gestures yourself or repeat what you heard with gestures, which Chelle goes into in the workshop too, if that makes sense. Okay. I think I think we only know one person who actually went completely Deaf culture with their spouse and chose chose that that. I mean, and that's I don't know, I've been in and out of sign language classes at our local center for too many years, 15, 20 years maybe. Or they brought a CART provider in and teaching it.

Chelle: Yeah, we hear quite often I see it in social media. I'm losing my hearing, I'm going to learn sign language. And this is where, you know, I kind of like, oh no, you know, that's nice. But in the 90s. I tried to take it with my mom, my dad and my then husband. And my mom and dad were like, oh, no, if we if you want us to learn sign language, you got to treat it like baby sign language. Because we're old and it's really hard to grasp, but there went my parents, you know. And even that, then husband, he doesn't really remember anything to this day, either. So and then I tried to learn it again and I had to work my butt off. Just to get what little ideas and so it's a beautiful language. Yes. It's a lot of work. Do you really think you're going to immerse yourself in the Deaf community? That's almost what it's going to take to learn sign language. And if you don't have others and be fluent in ASL, you need to be around the Deaf community. So find somebody in the Deaf community to help you along if that is your goal.

Julia: Exactly, and we did talk about at our workshop and in our last podcast, it is flexible.

It is,

but again, for us in everyday life gestures are going to make more sense. Again, I, you know, it's just the belly of the beast. Okay. And that's, that's what I'm going to say that's just kind of how it is. Chelle, anything else that came across that you wanted to share? Okay, I hope you're enjoying our workshop series. Again, watch for the workshop and workbook, we will add some simple signs and, and the alphabet and links to places where you can take free classes possibly pay for classes, you know, you'd have to decide what works for you. Again, we are not going to teach sign language because we are not sign language professionals, and not even American Sign Language professionals. So, we do go over body language, gestures, and some sign language in our lipreading concept classes and our lip shape classes where we use the techniques to better help ourselves understand things. So our classes start September 12th. If you have not signed up for one or looked into it, please go to our webpage hearinglosslive.com, go to Events. And you can see what times are available. We are offering again, buy one, bring your hearing partner again, I don't care if they actually have a hearing loss, just anybody you want to communicate and understand lipreading better with. We want them to be involved because we're a firm believer that the hearing partner plays a large role with us in our hearing loss and communication needs. And we want everybody to have better understanding. So our classes are built for both of you to be there. Anything else that I'm forgetting? They start September 12. And next, next month, join us for our Let's Talk Tuesday, which is September 7th-- I'm sorry, let me put my glasses on and double check that. I lied. It is September 5th. It is just coming back from Memorial Day, but we hope you join us. We will be talking accessibility and how, how can we see if I can say this right? How you can be proactive or you can help others understand what's needed for real inclusion and accessibility in the captioning world, okay. I'm, I'm not, I know Chelle's gonna go over some other things too. But it's not just the captioning world. And I'm sorry, I'm struggling with words. And we need to timeout right. Better accessibility, what tools you can share with your employers, or those venues that you go to. How, how important background knowledge can be how to maybe better have clearer communication outcomes in certain settings, what you can do to set yourself up to have better inclusion and accessibility and a little bit on stuff you can share with your employer or send them to us so we can talk it out. That make a little better sense.

CHelle: And that includes assistive listening. 

Julia: Oh, yes,

yes. Sorry. Assistive Listening. I couldn't come up with that name. Don't ask me why. You know. ASR goes through my head all the time, but not assistive listening. Right. All right. We hope you join us next month. Bye.

Chelle: Bye.