Lesson #4

This week, I learned how to Sign the the days of the week as well as other time references such as:
Today
Day
Now, currently
Morning
Noon
Afternoon
Night
Tomorrow
Yesterday
Hour
Minute, second

I'm finding myself experiencing and recognizing the two processes of "learning" and "remembering". It's difficult for me to recall information from long-term memory back into working memory (remembering) and vice versa.

It has been frustrating trying to recall the Signs I have tried to learn over the past few weeks and seeing that I have forgotten several of them even though I try to practice them often. ZPD (Zone of Proximal Development) model is definitely playing a factor here as my husband knows several of these basic Signs and is assisting and encouraging me. He only needs to give me small hints to help me remember a Sign. It really helps to have someone to practice with and it helps to actually see the Signs done by another person as opposed to only reading the book and looking at pictures.

Below are images of the sign "Morning" (first image) and "Night" (second image).

 
It's easy to see the relationship between the Signs and what they represent. For instance, the Sign for "Morning" reminded me of rising a sun. The Sign for "Night" reminded me of covering up something. After reading the chapters for this week, I really started to think about the ways that I am a novice in this learning experience. I am learning from experts (I assume since they wrote the books I am using as resources), but I do not yet have the extensive amount of knowledge on this topic as an expert does. However, though I will not become an expert at the end of these 8 weeks of learning, if I continue to learn how to Sign (which I believe I will), I hope to enhance my short-term memory by chunking information like an expert does.