July is almost ending and I officially have less than a month to prepare for the final evaluations of the Filipino Sign Language (FSL) Level 2 class I enrolled to and, frankly my vocabulary is still poor at best. Last week we had a simple exercise reading fingerspelling and my score was, well, not ideal. I mean, this is the next level up, I expect myself to have nailed fingerspelling by now but everything just seemed to slip my mind that morning.
Naturally I tried to pin it on the fact that I hadn't had breakfast yet, or that I was tired that morning, or because I was seated at an angle to the interpreter, but in the end I think it still boils down to my lack of practice. I have to be honest, exercises like these provide a good gauge at how fluent we must be at that point, and I am totally questioning if I can see this through to the end. Moments like these I wish I could peak into the future and see if any bit of the effort I put into this is going to be worth it.
Here is a 3-minute video I did as homework for the class. The instructor, CJ Patriarca, said we can talk about anything so I talked mostly about my dog Mappy and Lilo (whom I am fostering for a year). I noticed that my signing is still a little over-the-place, and the pace is quite slower than I'd like it to be, but I figured I can use it as reference if I'm making any progress in the future.
As far as I know, we will be evaluated three times. First is by the FSL instructor, which will be comprised of five categories: (1) reading fingerspelling, (2) spelling a word, (3) signing a word , (4) signing a sentence, (5) signing a short paragraph. The next set of evaluations will be done by members of the board (who are also interpreters), which will test our ASL/SEE fluency with more technical vocabulary, including signing a short news clip. Then we are to sign also 4 articles which we will provide ourselves, namely snippets of (1) a legal document, (2) a medical document, (3) a prayer/religious article, (4) an educational article. Lastly, we are again to interpret a song of our choosing. Also, a group performance for the culmination program. It's actually overwhelming to think about all of it. Hopefully I find inspiration to prepare myself soon.
[UPDATE] I feel so thankful that the Lvl 2 class is being taught this year by Ms. Sonia, a nice lady who works as a full time interpreter at a local elementary school. She reminds me of my mother, somehow, with her stories and mannerisms, and her overall warm aura. She's not a regular teacher, so to speak like most of the interpreters at PAIDE, but a simple housewife who happened to learn sign language along the way. Now that the final evaluations are drawing near, Ms Sonia helps us prepare by giving more time for review than she's supposed to, and I feel grateful for that truly.
Today was the final day of evaluations at the Philippine Association for Interpreters for Deaf Empowerment (PAIDE), which we all dread and await for at the same time. I've officially pushed back all my other usual routines to prepare for the evaluations because we were close to clueless as to what the mechanics actually are, other than the fact that PAIDE's CEO Mr. Jun Celada will be one of the evaluators. Last week we were tested by our only deaf teacher at this level, CJ wholly on our receptive skills on FSL. It went well, I think, even for someone as whose receptive skills are still exceptionally terrible at the moment. The last part of her test was to write down the message from a video in which a woman was signing an article entitled "Farm to Table".
Meanwhile, at the eleventh hour, we learned that it will be composed of both receptive and expressive tests. After some last minute cramming of ill-forgotten vocabularies, we were called in one-by-one. Despite my nerves, Sir Jun was considerate of our current proficiency level so he was particularly lenient on grading all of us. Thankfully, I remembered the signs of the words he asked me to sign, with the exception of "wheel" (circulating a W at the side of the face) and "search" (waving a C in front of the face"). The receptive exercise afterwards was the most difficult for me. No surprise there. At that point, I'm just thankful my paper was not a total blank. I guess I was too preoccupied to learn my article—a medical article about tea tree oil as treatment for acne—that I did no preparations to practice my receptive skills. The final leg of the evaluations was the song interpretation. This is the second year we have been required to interpret a song for a panel of three. The last time, I did Bob Dylan's Blowin in the Wind because I wanted to share with everyone the song's profound meaning and appreciate the classic that it is. This time around I decided to take the opposite of that and interpret a song people haven't probably heard of Denmark's Anak ni Luningning which I first heard of probably when I was just in high school. If there was one thing I learned from performing Bob Dylan in front of the deaf was that they could not care less about the philosophical conundrums of during the 60s, instead I learned from several sources that the deaf want songs with loud bass and an easy message. Anak ni Luningning is just that. This time I aimed to entertain. Plus, it's got a catchy hook (from Leo Sayer's You Make Me Feel Like Dancing) for the hearing in the audience. And lots of dancing for me, which is always good for everyone. (Re: dry humor)
In any case, scores for the song interpretations came in immediately and it was announced that my performance ranked second (out of 5) so I was asked to perform again next week at the culmination program. Though the panel enjoyed my interpretation, their comments mainly suggested for me to be less shy since it's a fun song, after all, and that my signs need to be "bigger".
For our group performance, it was decided that we are going to interpret "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" from the new Lion King film, sung by the cast, and I'm to sign the part of Simba.
[UPDATE] Today (culmination program) was an exceptionally good day. A day filled with recognition, friendship, advocacy, and goodness among old and friends. I want to have more days as inspiring as this. As my guest (and photographer), Wilford attended the ceremony and he got to meet the PAIDE community. He told me later than it was refreshing to be in the company of people who are just as passionate for their advocacy other than animal welfare. Unlike my first culmination program with PAIDE as a Level 1 student, this time we were not the first ones to perform: something our nerves are thankful for. Watching this semester's Level 1 song interpretations gave me an idea of how much progress we have made in such short time. That sounded like bragging but it's honestly just an appreciation of our development in learning the deaf culture—what they want and what we could still do to bridge the barriers of communication. The three performers for our level were Melle, a nurse performed Glee's rendition of Avril Lavigne's Keep Holding On, me and my Luningning song, and Juancho the youngest student at the moment, who passionately interpreted the Rise song from League of Legends.
Man, it is such a rush performing in front of people, deaf or hearing knowing they appreciate the efforts it took to be fluent enough to perform song interpretations. I find it actually funny that the audience (or maybe just the deaf ones) have a habit of cheering and clapping in between breaks of the song. A TedTalk of a deaf speaker recently said that "movement is the equivalent of sound", which I really took to heart in this performance. I wanted to them to feel the vibrations and enjoy feel of the song through me. Though as expected, my nerves got a hold of me during the first part of the song (they did too during the evaluations last week), making me forget the signs for a couple of beats. Thankfully, towards the end of the song, the crowd has fed me enough energy to actually enjoy the performance myself.
For our class performance, we interpreted Can You Feel the Love Tonight, which the crowd really enjoyed, in my opinion, mainly because I think everyone in the class by this point have become very good song signers, especially nailing down the expressions of the face, an integral part of signed performance. I remember our teacher Ms Sonia mentioning that Sir Mike (from our Level 1) describe us as "matatalino at mababait", which really warms my heart. Such a complement is magnified when it comes from someone as cool as Sir Mike. Makes me really proud to be part of this batch of students. I realized Ms Sonia also felt sad that the semester was ending when Melle mentioned that she saw her tear up a little during our final hug.
Now that the semester's over, it's time to start deciding if I'll pursue Level 3 next semester, since the JLPT is looming nearer and nearer and I am yet to brush up my N5 knowledge and gain the necessary N4 grammars, vocabularies, and kanji. Then again, if I don't practice my sign language, I might lose the skill I gained at PAIDE so far if I don't practice.
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