Tag Archives: american sign language

Total Failure of the ASL-Only “Switched at Birth” Episode on ABC Family

March 5, 2013 By in United Stage Tags: , , , , , , , , , 14 Comments

Last night was supposed to be the premier of the penultimate “American Sign Language Only” episode of ABC Family Channel’s teenage soap opera, “Switched at Birth.”  Janna and I urged our ASL students to watch the episode because we believed the hype and the PR that this would be an episode to remember.  It was not.  The show was a tremendous disappointment and I’ll tell you why.

The one bright spot in the show was this “Deaf Power” banner that struck a long-ago memory in Janna when one of her teachers at the Iowa School for the Deaf said that action was forbidden on campus because it was was rude and disrespectful.  For Janna to see one hand covering an ear and the other hand raised in a fist filled her with both terrible regret at believing a repressive Hearing teacher, and terrific pride that, in the end, the Deaf will own their own place in the world.

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New from Boles Books Writing and Publishing: Hardcore ASL Textbook for Levels 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7

December 27, 2012 By in Boles Blogs Tags: , , , , , 21 Comments

As the New Year springs us forward into perpetuity, Janna and I are delighted to share the news with you that we have finally taken the advice of our Hardcore ASL students and instructors who have wanted to have all seven levels — all the teaching — in a single reference book.  Introducing, from Boles Books Writing and Publishing — Hardcore ASL Textbook for Levels 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 — available right now from Kindle Direct Publishing:

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Preventing the Re-Ghettoization of the Uneducated and Untrained Deaf in America

October 26, 2012 By in Boles University, Carceral Nation Tags: , , , , 20 Comments

Educating the Deaf in America is an expensive proposition — especially in a modern mainstream setting with Hearing students and interpreters are required.  Educating the college-capable Deaf is an even more daunting project because of the massive amount of money it takes to educate just a single Deaf student.

The Americans with Disabilities Act is now 22 years old, but that Act still doesn’t begin to really protect the rights of the disabled.  All the Act does is try to level the playing field of fair play by mandating equal access and opportunity but, in many cases, if you want full and verified ADA protection, you have to hire a lawyer and sue.  That’s an expensive proposition for any disabled person to conjure.

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What's in a Deaf Sign Name? Hunter and his Gun!

September 11, 2012 By in Carceral Nation, Urban Semiotic Tags: , , , , , , 17 Comments

The last week of August caught a firestorm in the Grand Island, Nebraska Public Schools system as administrators scrambled to recover from banning a three-year-old Deaf child named Hunter Spanjer from using his sign name because his fingers “looked too much like a gun” — and any sort of suggestion of a gun, even as a sign name, is verboten.

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When Fluency No Longer Matters

February 28, 2012 By in Memeingful Tags: , , , , 9 Comments

There’s an infuriating move afoot in several major universities to “dumb down” graduation requirements by removing foreign language fluency from the core program of study.  Some schools incredibly want to make a mere semester of a foreign language an elective and not a hard requirement for earning a diploma.  When I was in college, we had to take four semesters of a foreign language in order to graduate.  Soon, that minimal forced fluency that formed many generations of students will no longer be important to a college education.

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Steve Jobs Replies from the Grave: From iBoles to iPad to iAuthor

January 19, 2012 By in WordPunk Tags: , , , , , , , 6 Comments

When the iPad was originally introduced, I was already an Apple fanboi with iBoles and iJanna and a couple of Apple books in the pipeline — and I was especially interested in the iPad as a book publication vehicle.  At that time, Steve Jobs was still alive and randomly replying to email inquiries, and on March 23, 2010 at 8:29pm, I decided to take my shot with Jobs and I emailed him my iPad Book Publishing Query:

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Using Google+ Hangouts to Communicate in ASL Group Video Chat

July 13, 2011 By in Carceral Nation, Urban Semiotic Tags: , , , , , , , , 11 Comments

I was finally able to get into Google+ this morning.  I think my invitations to the service from my friends and associates were getting caught in my Gmail trash from what I can tell in my postmortem investigation.  Today, I just tried to login to the service, and I was finally met with this Join screen:

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Teaching American Sign Language with a Stick

April 14, 2011 By in Carceral Nation, Go Inside Tags: , , , , , , 6 Comments

In the History of Bad Idea the — the worst one, in my humble estimation, is the practice of teaching students of American Sign Language with a stick.  Yes, a stick made of wood.  In some ASL programs, instructors use a stick during class to manipulate — and intimidate! — their students.

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American Sign Language Classes at CUNY-SPS Off-Campus College

March 9, 2011 By in Boles University Tags: , , , , , , , , 23 Comments

Janna and I are delighted to announce we will be teaching our “Hardcore ASL” style of American Sign Language as a new series of American Sign Language courses offered by CUNY-SPS — the City University of New York’s School of Professional Studies in the Off-Camps College.

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American Sign Language in Performance: Stop Bullying Now at Gallaudet

December 20, 2010 By in United Stage Tags: , , , , , , , 4 Comments

We know American Sign Language is the fourth most popular foreign language on American college campuses, and when you combine ASL to help battle bullying in the classroom, you begin to empower and enliven the downtrodden and the misbegotten. When we remember Tyler Clementi, we must always see our own vulnerabilities exploited by others in his demise. Some Gallaudet University graduate students have created an anti-Bullying video in American Sign Language to help spread the word. I promoted their — “Stop Bullying Now” — video from my Facebook page last night, and I was delighted to see how quickly a positive wave was built in support of the video.

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American Sign Language Explodes on Campus

December 13, 2010 By in Panopticonic Tags: , , , , , , , , 7 Comments

On December 6, 2010, the New York Times ran the following article — Colleges See 16% Increase in Study of Sign Language — this excellent graphic from the story demonstrates how American Sign Language is now the #4 “Most-Studied” Foreign Language on campus with a 16.4% increase over the last three years, and that translates into a very real nationwide increase of 91,763 students.

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Is an Interpreter a Clarifier?

March 6, 2009 By in Urban Semiotic Tags: , , , , , 17 Comments

As an ASL instructor at HardcoreASL.com, and as co-author of books on American Sign Language and as co-sponsor of the sosASL.com emergency communication website and, most importantly — as the Hearing husband of a Deaf Wife — I was shocked to learn a major hospital interpreter teaching program in the New York City area is instructing its students that the role of an interpreter in the patient/doctor dyad is one of a “clarifier.”

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Buy My New American Sign Language Book

February 15, 2008 By in WordPunk Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , 4 Comments

My newest book, written with Janna M. Sweenie is titled Picture Yourself Learning American Sign Language, Level 1 and you can now buy it directly from Amazon.com and at Barnes and Noble and from your nearby bookstore!

Picture Yourself Learning American Sign Language, Level 1 is our second ASL book that employs our “Deaf Way” of Hardcore ASL teaching. 

We have a DVD bundled with the book so you can learn ASL with us in real time!

The most inventive measure of our new book is the “Pick and Say Rubric” that leads you to create quick — “three idea” — sentences constructed in ASL. 

You just pick one or more words/ideas from a RED column, a GREEN column and a BLUE column and then sign them in sequence. Easy!

Using that rubric method you can forge more than 27,000 American Sign Language phrases by learning only 90 words — and getting to understand how to “Pick and Say” takes less than 10 seconds.

I know you’ll love the book.  You can use the book as a base for understanding Deaf Culture and for learning an exciting foreign language. 

If you have any thoughts or feedback, please find me and share your mind!

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