The first thing we did was to review the finger-spelling signs. Then the deaf members introduced themselves. And then one of them lectured for a while. After that, we played some games. The first was Bingo. A learner would act out one of the words and then we could circle it on our Bingo card. Our cards were blank and we had to fill in the words ourselves. So everybody had the same words but in different places. I put all the Katakana words at the bottom and I almost got Bingo.
The next game played was with writing in the air. About 10 people were lined up and starting from the back passed on the message by writing the word in the air. That game was done twice and I was in the second group. I got to be the last in the line and luckily it was easier than the word the first group did. They had めがね (glasses) and we had くるま (car).
The final game was similar using charades instead of writing in the air. The last two groups lined up and passed the message on one by one. Then there was time for one more round, so all the men were selected for it. This time I was second to last. The person before me didn't know it was "skydiving" so I only understood "parachuting" from him. So that's the message I passed on.
That about sums up what we did today. We didn't learn any new signs or practice any sign language. So all together from the whole course (all 3 classes), we learned greetings, how to tell your name (self introduction), and finger-spelling the syllables and the numbers.
The Beginners' course or Elementary course starts next week. It will go until next March. I guess I will join it although I'll be doing all my learning outside of the class. The class is going to proceed too slowly. But I haven't established a person to learn from yet, so I still need to make some contacts. I can attend next week, but the following two weeks I can't because of work.
In other JSL news, I bought a DVD book yesterday from the bookstore. It is supposed to cover the Basic JSL signs. It was only 1500 yen + tax (1575 total).