I'm very happy I took only ASL courses this quarter. The Final Exams were pretty intense. Luckily, I was able to study a lot and I have a feeling I did really well. I know I went into the Final Exams having an "A" in my classes thus far, so even if I didn't do well, I would still pass. But, I am hoping I get good grades so I can keep my GPA at 4.0.
For ASL 1, the Final Exam had 3 parts. Parts 1 and 2 are completed one day, and part 3 is completed the following day. This was day #1:
1) Video taping yourself signing 10 sentences like asking a classmate questions and telling them about fictitious family members signing names, ages, and their jobs.
2) Culture and grammar. This was a written test taken from the assigned readings and grammar rules in ASL. This was hard. You have to think like a deaf person to answer the grammar questions. Also, you need to know about basic Deaf history.
And Day #2:
3) Receptive. This is where the professor signs something and you write down what is signed. This can be very intense, as the professor doesn't pause while signing the sentence or whatever to give you a chance to write things down. The professor does pause between repeating each sentence though. At that time, you're to write what was signed if you can remember it all. After the repeat, you fill in what details you missed the first time. My writing suffered because half the time I was writing while watching her sign. LOL...
The Receptive part is usually 5 pages long. For example, The first page will be her signing about going to the food store, what she buys and how much she pays. The second, where she travels and how she gets there. Third is family members and ages. Fourth can be where things are located at school. And lastly, she will throw in names of animals and names of basic items around the room that we should know. WHEW! That is a lot.
My other class, Introduction to the Deaf Community was harder than I thought. For one thing, they combined two courses into one starting this quarter. So, we had a lot to learn in one quarter. Part of our grade was based on our participation in class discussions, so I made sure I piped in and gave my two cents worth once in a while. The class was actually very interesting and lively. The only problem was, we had very few quizzes and only one test the whole quarter. The rest of the grade was the discussion portion I mentioned earlier, and papers/projects. GOD....those projects/papers were tiresome, but interesting and informative. I mean, they weren't super-hard, they were time consuming though because they required A LOT of research. Tons of it. We were given three projects in three days if that gives you a clue. The class was easy before that was plopped in our laps.!
Then the final exam..WOW. It was comprehensive. There was no book for this class either. It was based solely on notes you took, films we watched, the two quizzes and one test we had. That's it. So, the professor gave us a study guide....with 44 acronyms of organization names we had to know. There were laws, by-laws, medical terminology, questions about films we watched in class, what educational interpreters were and how they become licensed, 15 people's names and who they were...blah blah blah...I about went crazy. The study guide was 8 pages single-spaced.
You know what though? I studied for a solid week and weekend and the final was a piece of cake! Wow, I was glad when it was over!
Anyway, we'll see what my grades are for the two classes and then I'll celebrate. I hope I get all A's!!
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