Last Wednesday we had our third Auslan video assessment. Basically we sit with a teacher (in this case, Ros), and they video record a signed conversation with us.
I made one idiotic mistake, a sign I learned in my first week at class. “late”. I’ve used this sign every week, multiple times a week. There’s simply no way to explain how stupid I feel for getting it wrong.
Instead of moving my finger towards me when lifting away from where my watch would be (if I wore one), I moved my finger away. Luckily it was the only mistake in the entire conversation.
The Monday previous to our assessment the class had learned some new things about spatial awareness, and emergency situations that were thrown in to the assessment. If I had been in class that day, I probably would have learned them too.
I consider myself to be a fairly cautious kinda guy. Fairly aware of my surroundings, first to lift my drink as a running child approaches, so that there won’t be a spill.
When Ian and I sat down to go over the video, obviously he pointed out the mistake. During the conversation I finger-spelt “drunk”, because I didn’t know the sign for it, so he showed me the sign. Ian seemed happy when I reacted properly to the surprises thrown in to the assessment, so all up I have a good feeling about it.
The only thing left now is to mark it properly, and give individual grades to things like non manual features, finger-spelling, movement, things like that.
Fingers crossed. I’m hoping to see some fives (out of five). Last time I was assessed I scored all-fours, some bordering on fives. I would really like to see that I’ve improved.
