ASL
January 24, 2013
ASL students see signs of love in Peru SST
Rosa Wyse began her mornings in Peru with a mug of chamomile tea, a salted avocado and a conversation with her deaf host parents, Rosio and Rolando. Knowing little Peruvian sign langauge, Wyse struggled at first to communicate with her parents–especially her dad, Rolando. Over time, though, Rolando warmed up to Wyse and loved to tell her Bible stories and Peruvian folk tales. “He would get all puffed up and sign ‘I’m an Incan warrior!'” Wyse said of her host dad. “He loved telling stories and being goofy. He reminded me a lot of my dad back home.” Wyse...
January 26, 2012
Translating language, interpreting people
Dressed in black, standing onstage, American Sign Language (ASL) interpreters express a language not for our ears, but for our eyes. Though their work goes mostly unappreciated by hearing audiences, the work interpreters put into their craft is complex and subtle. Preparation is key for ASL interpreters. “A transcript is the most ideal,” saud Sarah Rutt, a senior ASL major, “but that almost never happens.” Usually the interpreters get a summary of the content they will be interpreting so they can look up vocabulary related to the subject. It won’t always be this easy though. “In the real world, we...
November 2, 2011
Two students start deaf summer camp
Before this summer, the small South Pacific island of Guam was home to roughly 200,000 people, an abundance of brown tree snakes, and a vast coral reef ecosystem. It did lack one thing, though: a deaf camp for kids. Goshen College students Heather Zimmerman and Naomi Webster saw this void in Guam’s deaf community and decided to fill it. Zimmerman, a recent Goshen College graduate, had wanted to create and organize a deaf camp for several years but didn’t have the resources until last May. It wasn’t until Zimmerman combined her vision with Webster’s organizational skills and the support of...
September 21, 2011
ASL, Spanish may both go on Peru SST
American Sign Language students might be trading the sunny beaches of Jamaica for the snowcapped mountains of South America. Tom Meyers, director of international education, will travel to Peru this month in hopes of setting up a dual-track Study Service Term program there, accommodating both students who are studying Spanish and those who are learning American Sign Language. After ASL students returned from SST in Jamaica last fall, Goshen College decided to end the program there. The short-lived Jamaica SST location started in the summer of 2007 and lasted for three terms. Jamaica was the first SST unit that was...
September 15, 2010
New faculty members – a second look
This week we’re introducing three more faculty members to the student body: Heather Goertzen, resident director, Colleen Geier, of the American Sign language department and Christopher Fashun from the Music department.. Heather Goertzen Goertzen joins the Goshen College Community as the new resident director of the Kratz and Miller halls. She previously owned and worked in a private counseling practice and believes this background will help her work with students. “I feel like I’ve worked with some very difficult situations and at this point it’s hard to shock me, so I feel like I can be open to different students...
January 20, 2010
LifeSign premiers
The lights dimmed and the curtains opened as the Jamaican National Anthem began to blare through the theater in Umble. The culmination of almost a year’s worth of work by producer Doug Hallman and director Taylor Stansberry, “LifeSign,” the documentary on Deaf culture and opportunity in Jamaica exposed viewers to an entirely new format for a senior show as well as a new way to look at what it means to be a global citizen. The premier was a success, with 146 people, according to Doug Caskey, coming out to see the documentary, ranging from community members to ASL students,...
January 20, 2010
GC Students Premier Sign Language Documentary
Saturday Jan. 16 marks the culmination of a piece of art that began in the fall of 2008. “LifeSign,” a major collaborative work between various Goshen College students and alumni, is a documentary featuring the deaf community of Jamaica. The idea formed as five Goshen College students wrote a 50-page proposal to enter a competition for a peace and justice documentary, with a goal ofwinning the $5,000 grant. After a long period of waiting, the team got the green light in Jan. 2009 and geared up for months of planning the project. Various mishaps slowed the process down, including videographer...
January 20, 2010
Pioneering: Myers Briggs and ASL
Rebecca Buchan, an American Sign Language (ASL) professor, gave a workshop last Saturday about how the Myers Briggs personality test improves ASL interpretation. After each of the 67 participants in the workshop had taken a self-selecting Myers Briggs personality test and the 16 different personality types were explained, Buchan charted new territory. She explained that understanding the different personality types has many benefits. Understanding personality types and how that connects with interpreting improves the relationships of those in an interpreting team. This happens when the teammates are able to recognize the tendencies (both the strengths and weaknesses) of the team...