Sign With Robert: Best ASL Course Ever! Tru Biz!

Growing up, my dad was extremely hoh and worked as an interpreter, so I grew up signing SEE (Signed Exact English) until around the age of seven, when I started school and ended up deciding I didn't want to sign anymore and felt embarassed over signing after getting bullied and made fun of by all the students. Years later, when I was a teenager, I tried over and over again to relearn how to sign, but it was just impossible without any sign language classes near me. Not to mention how outdated the books in my small-town library were, combined with my dad's slightly outdated signs too (we still signed "deaf" as "ear-closed"!!!). I ended up all but giving up on trying to relearn sign language,

until a few years later, when I met the now love of my life at work❤❤❤ With his help, I was able to rapidly learn asl (since he hates see), but I noticed that I'd hit a plateau and since he's from Pakistan, I realised I was signing in a mix of asl and psl (pakistani sign language) and decided to find an asl course to use to help with my asl.

I used Life Print for a little and found his fingerspelling app really helpful! My Darling has a little difficulty with english so we always fingerspell at a snail's pace 🐌🐌🐌. But I felt a little like I needed something a little more and kept looking while simultaneously continuing to study. But there just didn't seem to be any course available that would work with both my work schedule and signing needs :(

So imagine my surprise and excitement when I found out that the super talented Deaf actor, Robert DeMayo, from See What I'm Saying and No Ordinary Hero: The SuperDeafy Movie, was coming out with an asl course that could be both both on dvd and streamed online! 

Robert DeMayo is a native signer and along with being a super talented actor, he's also an asl consultant and teacher having worked previously at Juilliard School and has also taught asl immersion classes at other schools for years and currently teaches an immersion course in Arizona. He's a graduate of NTID (National Technical Institute for the Deaf) in Rochester, NY and is an extremely talented and amazing and the perfect person to make an asl course!! 

You might remember him from See What I'm Saying, the documentary about four Deaf artists trying to break into the mainstream, where he was trying very hard to become an actor while also struggling with being homeless for a while. The part where he talks about not being able to really talk to his mum really hit close to home, especially the heartbreak as my Darling could never really communicate with either of his parents before they passed and I saw the heartbreak, even if I couldn't full understand it. During the documentary, he takes part in CJ Jones' first International Sign Language Theater Festival and wows everyone with his amazing acting! 

When I saw online that he was producing an asl course, I was more than excited and anxiously and excitedly waited for the release date although, I admit that it's a little pricey:

The price starts at $59.99 for a year rental, but I really think if you can save up for it, it's more than worth it since you get 30 episodes of 150 chapters that covers topics about Deaf culture and history, as well as every kind of subject you could want to learn signs for. Although you can get the episodes on dvd, it's actually way more cost-efficient to get them online and stream them and you can stream them from anywhere! I streamed them from work during break or lunch, though I do wish it were possible to temporarily download an episode since sometimes the quality/streaming speed isn't always the best when you're using free wi-fi The really good thing is that you can watch the episodes repeatedly however many times you want to for the full year that you own the episodes, which is really nice. 

I love that you can the facial grammar as well as the motion of signing it

I think that this kind of asl course is better than getting a book, simply because you are getting to see the signs in motion as opposed to the static (and often difficult to read) pictures in books. Another thing is that a lot of the books tend to have somewhat outdated and/or SEE signs, especially with the grammar which makes it more difficult to pick up the language. If you've ever bought an asl book, I'm sure you can agree with me when I say that they are super expensive and normally tend to just repeat signs from other signs from every other book. 

Another thing I really love about this course is that it's being taught by a native-signer as opposed to someone who only recently learned it, as so many asl books and courses are taught by hearing educators, who don't always have the best grasp on the language or grammar. I can't imagine how many books I've gotten over the years that claimed to teach asl only to find that it was full of very outdated signs and SEE-grammar as opposed to true asl, which given the price of most of these books (despite many being secondhand) was really disheartening. I think it's also important to support Deaf educators, since sign languages belong to the Deaf community and it's so important to never forget that.

If you are looking for an awesome and amazingly comprehensive asl course that will teach everything you could ever want to learn in asl and then some, while also supporting the Deaf community, then this is definitely the course for you! 

It's available at this website, which is also the same place you stream it from.