Effective study habits | Study Hints for ASL Students | Hints for Interpreting Students
Introduction
"Learning is doing. It is an active process in which you must be involved. You do not learn effectively by sitting on the sidelines; you must be involved and participating in what you are trying to learn."
Your high school learning experience took place in a "teaching environment." How much you learned depended largely on the knowledge and skills of your teacher. Now you are in college – in a "learning environment." The responsibility for what you learn is yours, NOT the instructor’s. You are expected to be an independent learner.
You know you need to study. You know it is important. But, maybe it has been a while since they were in classes in high school or college. And very few people have studied a visual language before. So, while you are committed to doing whatever it takes to be successful in learning sign language and interpreting, you wish you had a better idea of exactly what it does take.
This booklet was developed to help you succeed and achieve your goals of language fluency and interpreting knowledge and skill.
We start with a basic overview of general tips for effective studying. The second section focuses on specific activities you can do when studying American Sign Language. The last section describes activities to help you practice and develop interpreting skills.
We hope these hints and suggestions will help you on your learning
path.
Back to the top
Establish your goals. What is it you want to do? What is it you want to become? Why is it important to you? Without specific goals how do you know where you are going or when you get there? The goals you set will provide meaning and direction to your studies.
Try making short-term, intermediate, and long-term goals. Make goals for one course. Make goals for one year in school. Make goals for three years in the future.
State your goals clearly and positively.
Make your goals specific and observable/measurable.
Set a time frame for your goal. This helps you keep moving and working.
Aim high. A challenging goal will be much more rewarding than one that takes little effort.
Write your goals down. Post them on the refrigerator or bulletin board. Make them visible.
Compare your goals with the goals the instructor has for the course, and the goals the interpreter training program has. Do these goals match? Dovetail? Or conflict? If you notice that your goals and the instructor's or the program's, are not the same, make an appointment with the instructor or program advisor to discuss the differences.
Periodically review your goals. They may have been accomplished, they may have changed, they may need revision, or they may no longer be necessary. Rewrite them an necessary.
Organize and plan your study schedule. The expectation in college is that students spend two hours studying for every hour spent in class. For a class that meets 2.5 hours a week that means five hours of study per week. Students in the interpreter training program spend eight hours a week in class and can expect to spend AT LEAST sixteen hours a week outside of class studying. But we all lead such hectic lives. Where can you find the time to study? It takes organizing and planning.
For one week, keep a time inventory. Record everything you do during a day. Then, look for patterns in how you use your time. Consider your priorities in your life Where can you cut back? Where can you insert a study session? What things are you spending the most time on? When are you most productive? Are you spending the majority of your time on the priorities? Are you scheduling the priorities at your most productive times?
Make a calendar to record events, deadlines, tests and other important dates coming up during the semester. For the crucial items, go back one and two weeks before and put warnings on the date. "One week until Mom and Dad’s anniversary." "Two weeks until the portfolio is due."
Design a study schedule. Then, keep it! Don’t wait for inspiration to strike – it usually doesn’t. Practice self-discipline. Many times you will find that once you have gotten into the activity or study, it really is interesting, challenging, and enjoyable.
Most people work better with shorter, more frequent study periods. Or with breaks during longer sessions. Think of it like interpreting, a complex task requiring alertness, multiple-tasking and processing, and physical strength and stamina. It is common for assignments over two hours to be shared by a team. This is because we acknowledge that our effectiveness as interpreters is compromised after long periods of work. Most teams rotate every twenty to thirty minutes. This is based on research about the effectiveness of interpreting over time. The twenty to thirty minute rule might be a good one to try in your study schedule.
Don’t procrastinate. Do it now! Research has shown that without review, after two weeks the average student forgets approximately 80% of what was covered in class. Cramming is not real learning. It is only trying to remember a large amount of material for a short period of time. You cannot "cram" for a language or a skill. If you wait until the night before basketball try-outs to start practicing your free throws, you will not make the team.
When doing a long-term assignment, plan out the steps and assign them deadlines. Break it into doable pieces, and complete them according to your time line.
Overlearn. Continue past the point where you can just barely recall or do something. Continue past the point where you can do that thing without struggling. Continue to the point where you can do it without thinking about it. Then you know the language lives inside of you.
Control your study environment. Select a place. Stock it with the necessary materials and equipment. Make sure there are no distractions or routine interruptions that could give you an excuse to stop studying.
Join study groups. This gives you the practice and feedback you need to develop better language skills. It also gives you a broader perspective on the subject, a support system when you need it, and a gentle kick in the behind if you start dragging your feet.
Maintain your overall physical and mental health.
Do not go straight through the alphabet, or say the letters as you spell. Practice spelling letter or word combinations: bat, cat, sat, mat, hat, attic. Many games can be played with fingerspelling rather than spoken or written words: Boggle, Password, Scattegories, etc.
Make sure that you work with a partner to practice reading fingerspelling, which is much more challenging than producing the letters yourself. As you improve, begin fingerspelling within phrases and sentences.
To practice numbers, play bingo or math drill games. Look up phone numbers in the yellow pages. List birthdates. Fingerspelling and number comprehension are among the most difficult skills for the sign language learner. To become proficient you must practice with others routinely.
(Hint: If it is impossible to get together with a partner on a regular enough basis, consider making videotapes for each other. For example, fingerspell the names of restaurants, movies, streets in Atlanta, the 50 state capitals, the names of people at the Oscar broadcast, etc. These categories make it easier to think of items to add to the list, and give the reader context in which to comprehend the word that is fingerspelled. A study group could easily make enough tapes to rotate and practice with all semester. Then, the tapes could be donated to the department for use by future students.)
Watch the videotapes and note new vocabulary items.
Notice the natural "accent" of ASL. What is the signing space? What expressions and body movements are used? Try to copy what you see on the screen. First the expressions and movements, then the signs, then the two in combination.
Notice the sentence structure. You may want to take notes and see how the word order in ASL differs and resembles English.
Watch a selection, signing along with it, until you feel familiar and comfortable with it. Then, videotape yourself signing the material, and compare your production to that of the original tape.
Look for one specific feature of ASL while viewing a selection. For example, you might want to find instances where the verb is modified to show who is acting and what is being acted upon (directionality). Or, find instances where a classifier is used to describe a thing or an activity. Note use of a specific classifier (for example, the vehicle classifier) and list how it is used. Watch the signer's mouth movements and note what movements accompany what signs, and for what purpose. Select features you have discussed in class.
Retell the story you have watched. Videotape it for completeness and accuracy.
Many of the hints previously mentioned apply to interpreting students as well as sign language students. The following are additional things you can practice.
Use audio and videotapes as source material for practice. The National Clearing House on Rehabilitation Materials in Oklahoma has a collection of inexpensive videos. You can contact them at http://www.nchrtm.okstate.edu/pages/INTERPET_3.htm. Libraries are also a good source for audio and video tapes in English. However, often those are read from a script or "canned" and they do not simulate the real pace, register, and grammar of spontaneous spoken English. You may find it more beneficial to make your own tapes. Talk about things you know. Describe a personal experience. Retell the lecture you recently heard at work or school. Summarize the news headlines. Tape a staff discussion at work. You can exchange these tapes with study partners to get more variety. When you are finished with them, donate them to the interpreting lab at your school.
Finding source materials in ASL can be more problematic. There are commercial producers of ASL tapes, including Sign Enhancers, Dawnsign Press, and Sign Media Incorporated. If they are not available at your college you might consider buying some together with study partners. Or, make your own tapes. Get permission to bring your camcorder to the Deaf softball game, the Silent Dinner, or the Sunday school. Ask people to tell you about their home, family, health, job, or school. Share these tapes with others.
Now that you have sufficient source material from a variety of situations, here are some ways to practice.
Shadow the tape. Copy what the speaker is doing. Make sure that you include not only the signs/words, but also the affect, tone, non-manual markers, and intonation. You might want to tape yourself doing this, and play it back to see how accurate and complete your rendition is.
Summarize and rephrase tapes. Listen to (watch) a section of the tape. Then, turn it off, and re-tell it in the same language. Your summary should contain all the main points. See how many of the details you can also remember. Can you rephrase it and give an equivalent message?
Simultaneous rephrasing. When you can comfortably do the above, you are ready to do the exercise without stopping the tape. Do NOT repeat the same words you see/hear, but rephrase them. Work on giving yourself a long enough time lag to hear an entire thought or phrase before producing your version. NOTE: In this exercise you are NOT interpreting. You are working with only one language. However, you are working on some of the mental processing skills necessary to interpret.
Practice translation of short stories and speeches. Listen to/watch a tape. Get the main points and relevant details. Absorb the speaker’s delivery style and register. Make notes to organize yourself.. Then, try to retell the story or speech in the target language. For English to ASL interpreting, read a news article and then retell it to a friend. Listen to a self-help tape and tell it. For ASL to English interpreting use videotapes for source materials.
Practice consecutive interpreting. Using your tapes, listen to/watch thirty to sixty seconds of tape. Turn off the machine at a natural pausing place. Then sign/voice the information in the target language. Continue on through the tape.
Practice simultaneous interpreting. Use you tapes again, but interpret while they are playing. Develop a processing time that allows you to see/hear the entire phrase or thought before giving the interpretation.
Role-play with study partners. Set up mock interpreting situations: a doctor’s office, a phone call, a job interview, or any conversation. Practice the skills of interpreting and the proper etiquette for getting clarification when necessary. Practice both consecutive and simultaneous interpreting. When possible, ask a deaf person to practice with you.
Videotape yourself. We all hate those cameras rolling! But how else can you monitor your own performance? With spoken language, you can hear the message coming out of your mouth. But, in a visual language, you cannot see yourself signing, so you cannot give yourself feedback. On videotape you can notice signs produced incorrectly, portions of the message omitted or skewed, and mannerisms which detract from intelligibility. If you are really brave, you can swap videotapes with partners for feedback, or ask a qualified interpreter to comment on your interpretation.
1. • = You did this, and it was great
2. Ö = You did this, but I would have done this
3. s
= You did this, I don’t think it is right, but I don’t know the answer,
let’s talk.
Back-translate. Videotape yourself doing an Englishà ASL interpretation. Wait a week for the source material to fade from your mind a bit. Then, watch your interpretation (without sound) and voice what you see. Where is the original interpretation confusing? How can it be made clearer? Watch the videotape again with the volume turned up, and note what parts of the work are accurate and which are skewed or missing.
Check up on your voicing. Videotape the television screen (rather than yourself) as it is showing the source material. Render the target language from off screen. Your voice should come through on the audio track. Play back just the audio and assess if it sounds natural, grammatically correct and articulate. Where did you stumble? Then, playback both audio and visual and analyze the work for accuracy.
Practice "covert" interpreting. We often find ourselves in situations where one or more people are speaking and we are watching/listening. You can mentally practice interpreting without lifting a finger or opening your mouth. Visualize how you would interpret each thought. Make a note of concepts you did not know how to interpret. Later, pose the question to your partners or your instructor.
Bibliography
The College Success Book: Whole student approach to academic excellence. Groccia, James E. Glenbridge Publishing Ltd., Lakewood, CO 80232. 1992