ESL = Gang Signs?

[fireheart]

The Australian comedian Adam Hills frequently has a signer at his shows so that deaf people can attend, and he has some good material on signing.

Fun fact: that actually started after he did a show in Adelaide. It was for a disability art conference so there was an interpreter anyway. He found that the audience responded really well to the interpreter so now he does it all the time and has found it benefits him heavily.
Now he gets hearing people who only book the shows where he has an interpreter.

[PepperElf]

Now he gets hearing people who only book the shows where he has an interpreter.

I'm not surprised. I already mentioned that my family's priest does some of the services in ASL. Plenty of hearing parishioners go to those services too.

Some go to the signed services because it's just interesting. And some - like my Mom - also go because it's quieter. *grin*

[telecom_goddess]

"Why don't you?"

(Video NSFW)
I took ASL in college, but barely remember any of it. It would've come in handy today.

I have one better

This is not safe for work, language. But it's funny as hell and and fun to watch.

I also took ASL in college and loved it. I wish I could have kept it up better ...I don't remember a great deal of it anymore.

[LuvianBlue]

A little late, but I have to echo everyone else in saying: Wow! You took it upon yourself to learn sign language? BRAVO!! That is seriously impressive!

[rapana1]

Our next door neighbours growing up, the parents were both deaf and the kids could hear. Mum chatted to Ivan and Hilda using a shorthand of sorts, as no-one in my family knows how to sign- so mainly lipreading, indicating her wedding ring to mean my dad, and mimicking cradling a baby in her arms to mean me.

We have a regular customer at the shop where I work who is deaf, and a couple other hearing impaired and deaf semi regulars. I think they (like most of our regulars) like coming to us because being smaller than Big Box Craft Shop, we can offer less rushed, one-on-one service, and we always make the effort to understand and make ourselves understood. So it's less hassle for them all round.