When starting Externship, I decided to test my ASL skills by summarizing a clip of a Buzzfeed video in both ASL and English to compare to how I do by the end of the Externship. When interpreting a class/lecture that is 1+ hours, there is typically a team of interpreters that take turns interpreting for the client.
And finally, near the end of my Externship, I revisited the Buzzfeed video and took another try at my ASL skills
0 Comments
What qualities or characteristics did you see in the people around you that you want to develop in yourself? Why? Something that I have definitely witnessed in Dan that I have mentioned before was his confidence. He's definitely not out and loud about himself during the job, but he shows that he is comfortable in his own skin and reflects a more confident personality. This helps others know that you are very professional, smart, and know what you're doing. I want to be able to gain this confidence (which I'm sure I have deep within myself, I'll just need to let go of some things that keep me from reaching my full potential) especially since I'm going into business, and you need that sort of confidence in that industry. What new questions has your externship inspired you to ask about our world? What has it made you wonder about? What are you moved to go out and do or learn about on your own time? Being at this externship and learning about Deaf culture makes me want to dive deeper and learn more stories from other d/Deaf people. Since I'm going to D.C. which has a pretty big d/Deaf population, I'm sure I'll have plenty of chances to meet others that are willing to expose me to more things that I didn't see during this month. I want to keep questioning the hearing world's opinion on deaf people and figure out what I can do to educate more of my hearing friends DOs and DON'Ts around deaf people. KEEP IN MIND, I don't want to "help" deaf people because they don't need help, I want to learn and inform about their CULTURE. This picture was taken during my final test of ASL skills on camera, going back to the original video I made at the beginning of Externship. I showed significant improvement! I think it really goes to show that the more a person learns about another culture and is around influences as such, they can learn so much in such a short amount of time. How did you measure the success of the work you did while you were an intern/working on a project? What did you learn from this?
I've been so thankful to be given such a wonderful internship. I've definitely learned more about Deaf Culture, Sign Language, and most importantly, myself. That in itself is a huge success for me. For the past few weeks, I got to meet all sorts of people. It took me out of my comfort zone and brought me to new places I never thought I'd see myself in before. It's really interesting diving into a different culture right inside our own country. I'll definitely continue to learn ASL and push myself to be more conscious about the d/Deaf community. And more importantly, be a much more confident person because confidence is the key to success in any career, especially interpreting. How did your project go from an idea or inspiration to a final product My idea of spending an entire month not confined into an office, working a consistent six to eight hours five times a week, definitely was a huge success. The fact I was able to learn ASL and apply those skills this month was also a dream come true. I got to learn a bunch of new signs and even use them to "interpret" videos, conversations, and understand conversations solely in ASL. My absolute final product has turned into a live interpretation session from ASL to English in front of the class, with the help of Dan of course. Originally, I was going to interpret a video in real time for the class, but it's really hard to do if a) you aren't actually fluent in the language, and b) you haven't had any actual interpretation training like Dan has had. So far, this externship has only confirmed with what I want to obtain out of my college. My general major that I want to pursue is International Business, especially for the language acquisition that comes along with it. I've always been interested in different languages and how they are used to communicate with other cultures. While sitting in on all these interpreting jobs, I got to see how people light up and are more themselves when being talked to in their native language. I'm going to use that to really give me incentive to learn a language to see that same reaction from people when I'm able to talk to them in their own native tongue. This is Dan Fisher, my mentor. He went to Gallaudet University to study linguistics. For those who don't know, Gallaudet is the only d/Deaf university in the world. While there, he had been studying lingusitics, and ended up studying ASL as well. Eventually, he realized, with the help of awful interpreter stories from his deaf brother, that he wanted to become an interpreter. While being surrounded other deaf people all his life, and especially college, he realized his skills in ASL were proficient enough to become an interpreter. I commented on Eric and Jordan's blogs.
Again, due to the confidential nature of my jobs, I wasn't able to take many pictures; however here are some videos of me signing during the ASL event.
During this externship, I have had a lot of free time to myself. It leaves me wondering, what should I be doing when I'm not working? So instead of taking the time pondering about what to do, I'll go to Dan and even ask him what things I can be doing. He'll definitely listen to my two-piece and give me advice or something to do. And that's where books come in! Dan has given me plenty of books to read to help me understand deaf culture or give me tips about what it's like to be Deaf (with a capital D). Additionally, Dan has shown many times of self advocacy. When on the job and interpreting, he is definitely not afraid to ask people to repeat themselves. He really emphasizing in making sure both parties are getting clear understanding of each other unlike some interpreters that remain quiet and submissive to others. It's this level of confidence and skills in self advocacy that I see in Dan that I would also like to have someday. (I commented on Mac and Cecilia's Blogs) Unfortunately, due to many Non-Disclosure Agreements I have signed for jobs, I am not allowed to take photos on many of my job sites. However, I can show the videos I am doing (Since technically that's a bunch of moving pictures)! I started off by summarizing what I saw in the Buzzfeed video in ASL. Obviously lacking in confidence and vocabulary when trying this. Then I tried summarizing it in English afterwards, and I did better since it's my native language; however, my speech pattern itself lacks a little confidence, so I didn't feel as bad about my ASL summary.
Externship feels like it's going by really fast. This leads me to a very important question: Will I have enough time to learn what I need to for this externship? I definitely won't be anywhere near fluent by the end of this externship, but will we have gone over the signs I need to know, or the techniques I need to learn? I'm a bit worried but also really excited to learn in such a short time. So far, I've been working a lot on just ASL skills so far. We spend some time watching videos in ASL, talking in ASL, interpreting ASL, etc. So far it's been so-so, been having a bit of a hard time getting used to the grammar and colloquial terms but I'm getting there. I experienced what it was like to be driven by a deaf person. As expected, it really isn't that different than driving with a regular hearing person. Obviously though, if they want to talk, they'll have to sign while driving; which isn't as dangerous as it actually sounds. Yes, they can (and in this case did) have the radio on, probably to compensate for the hearing people in the car but I'm sure they like to listen to music as well. There was even a moment where some person was about to merge into our car and they had to honk at them to let them know we were there. Overall, I think our deaf driver was an even safer driver than a lot of our hearing drivers. I think Fridays can be a great time for my externship teacher to visit because we go to this event every Friday night at a coffee place where d/Deaf/HoH people, in addition to ASL learners can go and meet other people who use ASL. It's a great event to see what it's like being surrounded by a bunch of people using ASL and seeing deaf people communicate with others (without an interpreter). (Commented on Hannah and Raquel's Blogs) So far, everything seems to be going pretty smoothly. It's been a slow week, but I've slowly been starting to learn a lot. Something similar I find being on this internship and being at school is that both are very easy if you have great communication skills. I wouldn't say my communication skills are stellar, but they are above average in a professional setting.
In all, it's really just about helping out those in the Deaf community. Interpreting, especially with long-time clients, establishes a connection with the interpreter and deaf client in a way that makes both feel at ease on the job. I think that it's a really cool thing how various organizations like Deaf Community Services or Clip Interpreting sets up these kind of jobs for people who need an interpreter. As for my skills, ASL has been pretty rough on me these past couple of days. Yes it's easy when I'm talking with a friend at school or watching a video where I can go back to what they were saying, but signing with people who really fluent in ASL really takes me back a bit. I understand that I know I won't know a lot considering I only really started learning last year, but it does surprise me how little I know sometimes. Lastly, I'm excited to start on a little experiment I wanted to do for this internship. I planned that at the beginning of this internship I would record myself interpreting a video , and then interpret it again at the end of this internship to see how far I have progressed. That little experiment starts tomorrow. I will be visiting the Clip Interpreting office tomorrow and using one of their recording rooms to start my interpreting session and having that video to study and analyze. I'm really excited to do that. (I commented on Carly's and Tica's) Quick, get down your first impressions of your job before you know too much!
You might want to focus on the following: - What strikes you most about your workplace/project? Well, it's a bit hard to say what strikes me about my workplace, considering it's freelance which means that the place I'd be working at is different each day. Otherwise, I'd be at my mentor's house with him coaching my sign language and giving me feedback on progress which is different I guess since I'm actually at their house. My first day on the job was at a class at City College so I practically took an Electrical Engineering course for free today, and got to see what it's like to be an interpreter inside a college classroom setting. I'm surprised that most students in the class are just accustomed to an interpreter being there, which is great because the last thing a deaf student is going to want is an annoying peer complaining about their interpreter. - What strikes you most about your colleagues/peers? (remember this is a publicly visible blog) Oh gosh, Dan is the worst guy... I'm kidding. He's a fantastic guy, and awesome for taking the time out of his day to meet with me at different times, on and off the clock, and even inviting me into his home to teach me things. He's also very intelligent, which is great since he can give me a lot of advice on not just interpreting using sign language, but other aspects on the job like confidence, communication skills, adaptability, etc. I'm very glad I got a mentor that goes through all the trouble so I can learn these skills. - What strikes you most about the job you're doing? The thing that strikes me the most about this job is how tentative the schedule is and how flexible everything is. So far, I see that there may be a lot of last minute calls for me to go on jobs with Dan, which I'm okay with since I don't really do a lot in my free time anyways. But aside from that, I enjoy the freedom in my schedule. I can wake up a little later than I would for school, meet him for a two hour class, go back home for lunch, nap, meet him again to learn, and so on. It's a great change of pace from my 6-8 hour, stuck in a cubicle/office kind of job. And so far, I'm loving it. - Have you made any changes to your original plan? As for working, everything is pretty much the same: go on jobs that I can, learn more sign language, practice interpreting, etc. However for my product, we're starting to look more at the possibilities of showcasing it. We looked in to see what kind of videos I should interpret, how long they should be, how many should I have, what would be both entertaining, informative, and school appropriate to show, and what is in my range of interpreting. It's all a work in progress, but nothing to distract as far as changes go. - What are you excited about? I'm really absolutely excited to just be here on the job. I love the freedom of going places at different times and not being constricted to the same schedule everyday. I'm also excited to see my signing improve over the course of this internship. I plan on recording a video of me interpreting the video I choose to the best of my ability and then doing it again during my last week of internship to see how much I've improved. Lastly, I'm excited to see the different types of interpreting jobs out there. I know that Dan typically does Medical and school stuff most times, but the company he works for may also have other jobs that I can go see as well. - What are you worried about? I'm definitely worried about my ASL level at the current moment. There were times throughout today that I felt like everything was going way over my head and had to ask Dan to repeat himself like a million times (especially with fingerspelling) just to understand what was going on. However, there were some other times I pretty much followed. I guess I just need to get out of my English bubble in order to get better. And I know that even though it's embarrassing, the only way to get better at a language is practice and messing up a hundred times before becoming fluent. Can't get better unless I try, so I might as well do it. - Take and post a photo of your workplace or externship environment. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |