Final Essay - Final Self Assessment

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Final Self-Assessment
In truth, and overall, I cannot say that I am very satisfied with my improvements to my ASL this semester. I think I had high expectations coming into the semester, and they were difficult in being realized. One biggest area that needs improvement is the fluency in my signing, especially concerning English mouthing. I am obviously not at all satisfied in this area. This area is one of a great mystery to me, because I have not had that much issues with English mouthing in ASL I. For example, in VJ#3 for ASL I, I did not mouth many words. I guess picking up this habit this semester or maybe not addressing the formation of this habit and being able to ignore it was due to the increase in difficulty and complexity of what was required in ASL II. Additionally, it could be because the videos for this class were done with a partner while the video journals for ASL were done by myself. I think that having an additional person, having to coordinate what we are siging, as well as having much longer notes and requirements made me have to think a lot to produce my sings. They were not the simple, “I have 2 brothers and 2 sisters” kinds of sentences. I tend to mouth more when I have to think about what I have to say. This issue is most evident in my first video journal for ASL II, where I literally mouth every word. Although it got a bit better for the second one, the habit and issue still persists as evidenced my the feedback I received from the professor. I think what hindered my improvement was actually lack of practice. Not just lack of practice, but specifically lack of practice signing with other students about topics that were not precisely covered in class. I needed more practice on spontaneity; my mastery of the...

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...complexity of my sentences as well as my confidence is to practice more and attempt to step out of my boundaries. I think overall there was definitely some improvement. My ASL now and my ASL in the beginning of ASL I is incomparable. Even from the end of last semester to now, there is definitely an increase in knowledge at least. I know more vocabulary, I am capable of discussing more information, and my comprehension of the language has improved. However, I still need to work on increasing general fluency in sign production. One important thing to remember is that this is a language class and learning a language requires a lot of time and effort. Improvements and differences might be slow in coming. However, if I take time to recognize my weaknesses through self-assessments and feedback from the professor and try my best to practice more, I will certainly improve.

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