Learning Sign Language Online Free: ASL 3 – Unit 9 Sample

July 17, 2023
by Start ASL

In this unit sample as you learning sign language online free, you will be learning how to tell a story.

Storytelling

Storytelling is very prominent with languages that do not have a written form and storytelling is the most popular form of entertainment in the Deaf community. Because ASL is a visual language, storytelling in ASL can be fun, exciting, beautiful, and extremely artistic.

To tell a story in ASL, you need to:

Place the characters in your signing area
Develop the characters using facial expressions and by modifying your production of signs (like using different voices when telling a story in English)
Show the movements of the characters and the objects in the story
Use time signs and other transitions to keep the flow of the story

This storytelling technique can be used to tell anything from fairy tales to what happened when you walked to work the other day.

Expressive Storytelling Practice

First, watch the signed story “One Fine Day” below:

Next, read the story outline:

A thirsty fox drinks the milk from a woman’s pail and the woman, in anger, cuts off the fox’s tail. The fox pleads with the woman to return his tail, but she demands her milk back. The fox has to ask for favors from various characters in order to get his tail back:

Requests	Conditions
Fox sees cow, asks for milk	First get grass for cow, then will give milk
Fox goes to field, asks for grass	First get water for the field, then will give some grass
Fox goes to stream, asks for water	First get jug for the stream, then will give water
Fox sees young woman, asks for jug	First get blue bead for young woman, then will give jug
Fox sees peddler, asks for blue bead	First get an egg for the peddler, then will give blue bead
Fox sees hen, asks for egg	First get some grain for the hen, then will give egg

Finally, the fox goes to the miller who feels sorry for the fox and gives him some grain. The fox then gives the grain to the hen, who in turn gives an egg to the fox. Then the fox gives the egg to the peddler, who gives the fox the blue bead he requested. The fox sees the young woman and gives her the blue bead (and so on backwards through the list above until the woman return’s the fox’s tail).

Then, practice signing “One Fine Day” on your own, following the outline and the video above.

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