My New Students

I have begun teaching English and American Sign Language (ASL) to deaf middle and high school students here in Luhans'k.  They are full of enthusiasm and curiosity.  Working with them is not a struggle, as they are very attentive and full of questions.  The kids are a joy to teach, and to be quite frank, they are far more motivated than the students I work with in the U.S.  Maybe it is because I am an American, but maybe it is also because they are more serious about learning than the students I normally teach.  I don't know.  I would also have to observe them working with their daily classroom teachers, as well.

Teaching these youth is an interesting process. My new friend Sasha translates my spoken English into Russian, and Helen (the sign language interpreter) translates his Russian into Ukrainian Sign Language (USL).  It actually works very well, and we are all learning from each other.  It is quite enjoyable.

I have noticed that there are some similarities between USL and ASL.  For example, the sign for “same” is, well, the same.  The sign for fish is also the same in ASL and USL.  I wondered about the reasons for the similarities.  Did similar signs develop naturally, or were they influenced by the importation of ASL signs from the U.S.?   I asked Helen about this, and she is fairly certain that the similarities between USL and ASL developed naturally and independently of each other, especially as there haven't been many, if at all, American educators of the deaf visiting Ukraine.