How to learn ASL WITHOUT a tutor: A guide to resources and steps to begin your ASL journey pt.1

Though ASL is one of the most interesting and fun languages to learn, it can also be hard to find resources and guidance to learn it yourself. Unlike other written languages, it's hard to keep track of the newly learned vocabulary or grammatical structures simply because ASL is a purely visual language. How then can you make substantial progress without paying for a tutor?

At first, I was not making much progress because all the signs would slip out of my head despite the many hours I dedicated to watching ASL lessons. This year, however, I changed my study methods and found new ways to approach the language. I realized that it wasn't only a matter of finding the right resources, but most importantly, finding the right way of using them. After just a few weeks, I started seeing drastic improvement and felt more confident in my skills. Here's what I did that can hopefully help you too. I promise these methods are 100% tutor free:

1) Finding the right resources💫

(You can find a more comprehensive list of free resources HERE for all languages including ASL)

I generally believe there should be 2 sets of resources you use:

a) The actual lessons

These videos will teach you the language itself (vocab, grammar, etc)

1. Bill Vicar is by far the most popular source here and I highly recommend that you use his videos too, especially if you are just starting with the language. In total, he has 60 lessons (each one about 1 hour). Not only does he upload recorded videos of his class, but he also has a whole website dedicated to ASL with an abundance of resources and even activities to do after each lesson (which I will talk about in later sections of this blog). There's an ASL dictionary, fingerspelling chart, and learning objectives for each lesson. While there are plenty of other ASL channels out there, I find that Bill's videos are the most consistent and straightforward.

2. Some other channels to try out include ASL Rochelle, ASL Meredith, and Signedwithheart

3. Signlagnauge101 offers a free level 1 course (the rest you have to pay for)

b) Immersion/reinforcement videos

Aside from just learning from structured lessons, watching other people sign in everyday conversations is an extremely helpful way to immerse yourself in the ASL language and deaf culture.

1. Sign Duo. I absolutely LOVE this channel. Ellie and Ryan are a deaf and hearing couple (and their dog Java) and they make videos ranging from lifestyle to really informative videos about the deaf culture. They have amazing personalities and I always find myself smiling after each video because of just how much their positivity shines through.

2. Other sources of immersion can include watching covers of songs in ASL. These are especially great ways to reinforce the grammatical structure and body language and expressions as well. Additionally, since you'll probably already be familiar with the lyrics, the signs will just naturally fit together with the words. Check out Kylee Signs and Anissa,

Also, there is a large deaf community right on tik tok! Many tik tok creators actually create short videos teaching signs that I find super helpful! (It's always great to get some education and entertainment at the same time!) You can find videos under #asl or other related ones

Learning ASL through songs

2) Using the right learning method☕💯

Great, now that you have the resources, how do you use them? Here's a general routine that I follow each day:

1) First, start with the "educational/lesson" videos.

This usually looks like watching around 10-20 minutes of a Bill Vscar video (I'm currently on lesson 31). From the videos, I usually learn some new signs, practice with fingerspelling, and a bit of grammar structure. His classes are really beneficial in the sense that he reinforces the signs by incorporating them in a sentence and asking the student to consistently recall signs from both the current and previous lessons.

2) Practice and test your knowledge

This is the most important part to reinforce and solidify your knowledge. I will split this into two parts

For vocabulary

With a digital "ASL" journal, you now have a collection of signs to look over at your convenience. Before a lesson, I will generally review the signs that I just learned. Once I finish the lesson, I will do a big review of all the signs and review the previous lesson as well.

Read how to create your own vocabulary journal here:

On Bill's website, ASL University, along with each lesson, he includes mini-quizzes so that without having the answers in front of you, you can see how many signs you're able to recall. (It's generally a video of him signing some words and followed up with some questions for you to correctly match the word with the sign)

For grammar

ASL like any other language has its own set of grammatical rules. The best way to reinforce these skills is to not only watch the educational videos and do the practice quizzes but also just simply watching people sign.

For Fingerspelling

Don't forget about fingerspelling! It's always good to have a backup plan to communicate when you forget the signs. At any time, you can always practice spelling out any word that pops in your head.

3) Using the "immersion/reinforcement videos" (watching deaf YouTubers)

Here's how:

1. Watch the video with captions on and get a general grasp of what the video is about and noticing some signs that correlate with each word.

2. Then, watch the video again but without captions. Since you already have a general idea of the video at the back of your head, this step will allow you to focus more on the signs themselves and how the sentences are grammatically structured. This is a great way to learn more vocabulary and see how ideas are expressed through body language and facial expressions.

3. Rewatch the video with captions again to check your accuracy

4. Finally, (this is definitely the most challenging step) try summarizing the video in ASL incorporating the new vocabulary you had learned.

You can do this multiple times and even slow down or speed up the video by adjusting the settings under the playback speed.

All in all, ASL is an amazing language to learn that is unique from other ones. Enjoying the process makes it all the better and is the spice to complete this whole recipe!

Good luck in your ASL journey! If you found this post helpful, please leave a like and consider subscribing to my newsletter!