Comparing On-Line ASL Resources

I don’t believe American Sign Language (or any language) is best learned on-line, but it’s a fact of life that many of us who are late-deafened are extremely busy. Sometimes we cannot find any ASL classes nearby, and often when we do, class schedules conflict with work hours.

In the past few years I have discovered a few on-line ASL resources for those who don’t have the time or money to take a college class. Not only are most of these on-line resources convenient, they are also relatively cheap. One drawback of ASL books and dictionaries is how to convey three dimensional movements in two-dimensional drawings or photographs. Interpreting the proper movement can be challenging. On-line videos offer visibility of the entire hand-arm action and facial expressions used during while signing.

My favorite is http://www.aslpro.com/cgi-bin/aslpro/fingerspell.cgi This site shows the complete movement of each sign in its video dictionary including facial expressions. Within the dictionary is a section on conversational phrases, which I think is a really COOL feature! It also offers fingerspelling quizzes where one can choose speeds of slow, medium or fast. Additionally there are word quizzes, and a special section devoted to religious words.

The two main drawbacks of this site are that there’s no curriculum to follow. It’s a great study tool to compliment course work, but doesn’t offer a curriculum of its own. Secondly a few of the signs are different from signs in the course books I’ve been using. They may also be different from regional signs one uses in their particular area. Thirdly the fingerspelling quiz isn’t the best one, because it only has three speeds and you can’t adjust the length of your words. However, I personally like this site the best.

Dr. Bill Vicars fingerspelling quiz is way better than ASL Pros. http://asl.ms/ It has slow, medium, fast and “deaf” speed. haha! which is like “light speed.” Because you can choose the word size, there’s more flexibility in adjusting for improvement. This fingerspelling quiz is connected to ASL University at http://www.lifeprint.com/ Lifeprint offers three courses in ASL, including grammar and cultural information about the Deaf. The course is completely free, unless you want to take it for college credit– which you CAN do from home! The site is full of info, but one drawback is it’s dictionary isn’t in video. Dr. Vicars demonstrates the signs in a series of pictures that can be hard to follow. Also he doesn’t show much facial expression. Still, if used in conjunction with aslpro.com, you could learn quite a bit of ASL on your own.

Here’s another video dictionary– the ASL Browser http://commtechlab.msu.edu/sites/aslweb/browser.htm from Michigan State University. I don’t like this dictionary as well as the first one I mentioned in ASL Pro because her facial expressions aren’t right, but if you just want to get an idea how to move your hands, it’s OK. This site also offers a CD-Rom on ASL instruction for $19.95, or you can go to two other sites. One offers on-line courses with four month access per course, for $49.95 each. The other link leads you to an ASL book for less than $20.00.

This site http://www.lessontutor.com/ASLgenhome.html offers both ASL and Signed English (SE) for free. The pictures are primitive and hard to follow, but if used with one of the video dictionaries above, it might be OK. One problem I can see is a new learner could become confused between ASL and SE, which are grammatically different.

I love the way this site http://www.handspeak.com/byte/index.php presents cultural information. It also offers a free curriculum. However, there’s no fingerspelling quiz feature, and its video dictionary is slow, spasmodic and of poor quality compared to the others. Still, if you’re looking for cultural info, I think this site offers way more insight than any of the above.

Again, I don’t think this is the best way to learn ASL. Just as you wouldn’t become fluent in French listening to French tapes, you can’t become fluent in ASL by watching videos. Like any language it takes tons of practice and use with native speakers. But if you want to start with a few basics, then these sites would be a great place to begin.