good day and thank you for coming today
my name is Carlos and I’m a teacher or
as we say in Japanese watashi no namae
wa Carlos Suez watashi wa sensei dis now
you may not know this but I’m actually
using a combination of both American
Sign Language or ASL and Japanese sign
language or JSL to prove a point
and that first point I want to make is
that not all sign languages are
universal and hopefully as my
presentation continues you’ll be able to
see the differences between the two
however the two main points I want to
make today in my presentation have to do
with body language and also with
admitting or not admitting whether you
understand something or not the I in my
title refers to the body language and
the understand refers to understanding
or not understanding something my
motivation for using sign language as
the conduit for my presentation is
because a sign languages do an amazing
job of incorporating and infusing body
language and nonverbal communication
with the language now just to give you
an example we know that in ASL we can
change the meaning of a sign just by
changing something as simple as the
shape of our eyebrows so for example in
ASL if I scratch my eyebrows down i
generate wh-words
words like who what when where and why
but by moving my eyebrows up like this i
generate yes/no type questions questions
like do you want this or is this yours
let me show you what I mean what do you
now what do you think I’m saying yeah I
think you’re able to understand the
meaning of both situations and all I did
was change the shape of my eyebrows I
didn’t use language and yes I used a
little bit of body language but just by
the shape of my eyebrows you understood
what was going on if I had not done
anything with my eyebrows you would have
had a more difficult time understanding
my meaning and here’s what I mean which
kind of brings me to my point here and
dealing with comprehension now let me
preface this by saying that before I
moved to Japan I was a teacher to deaf
students back in the United States it
was a great job and one of the
advantages of teaching deaf students was
the fact that they were so easy to read
facially I mean if the students could
understand or not understand something
it was very hard for them to hide their
reactions based on their facial feedback
I could immediately tell if they were
understanding and whether I should move
forward with a lesson or if they didn’t
understand and I had to reteach
something as I said deaf students were
very very very easy to read now fast
forward a few years and Here I am in
Japan and let me just say this
I love teaching in Japan and I love
teaching where I teach I feel I have the
most motivated highly intelligent very
focused students however one of the
greatest challenges I face when it comes
to teaching them is that they are very
very hard to read and facially now I
obviously when I’m teaching I ask
questions like do you understand are
there any questions and quite often my
students just give me a
face this blank face or what I call
visual facial silence is very difficult
to read for me when I see that I don’t
know if I should move forward on the
lesson or if I need to go back and
reteach something most of the time
because my students are so intelligent
and so focused I just assumed they’ll
know and I move forward with the lesson
but what happens at the end of class I
get a line of students asking me the
same questions again and again or I can
see in their homework or their test
scores they didn’t understand what was
expected of them so the point I’m trying
to make here is if and when a teacher
asks you do you understand a simple yes
a simple no or something even simpler as
an eyebrow going up or down will give
the teacher enough information to know
whether or not to move forward with a
lesson now let’s be honest this idea of
saying I understand or don’t understand
or facial expressions having meaning
this isn’t earth-shattering this isn’t
groundbreaking information but the idea
that nonverbal communication has a lot
of meaning and a lot of power is kind of
what I want to prove next and to do that
I’m going to do this next section in
total silence you’re going to have to
depend completely on your eyes to figure
out what it is that I’m trying to say
and just to make it a little more
interesting I’m not going to use
American Sign Language I’m going to use
the Japanese sign language but to make
it a little bit more interesting let me
teach you a few signs so that you can
you know kind of follow along a little
to teach to understand student easy okay
let’s just review quickly one more time
America Japan to teach to understand
student easy okay are you ready no I’m
the whole the next part is going to be
in total silence so just use your eyes
and as we say in English good luck has
now thank you before I conclude my
presentation let me just ask you a
couple of questions what percentage of
that presentation could you understand
five percent ten percent fifty percent
all of it I’m hoping you could
understand some of it yes I I did use a
few Japanese signs but I also used a lot
of body language facial expressions and
gestures to get my point across now
here’s something to think about if you
were able to understand anything I want
you to know that I used a language that
until recently you didn’t even know
existed so just think about that for a
second No
before I finish let me just say that
while I was doing that presentation I
was looking around looking at your faces
I could see people smiling people giving
me thumbs up and thank you for that I
might look very calm and demure but
trust me I am sweating bullets up here
I’m so nervous so your facial feedback
was very very helpful thank you so as I
conclude my presentation I hope that
number one you could see that not all
silent witches are the same number two
that something as simple as moving your
eyebrows up and down can have valuable
feedback it can provide you know
valuable information to your teachers
but number three if and when a teacher
says do you understand these simple yes
or no will do
or something as simple as moving your
eyebrows up and down will give enough
information to your teacher so he or she
knows whether to move forward or not
this helps the teacher but ultimately
helps you thank you very much arigato gozaimasu
my name is Carlos and I’m a teacher or
as we say in Japanese watashi no namae
wa Carlos Suez watashi wa sensei dis now
you may not know this but I’m actually
using a combination of both American
Sign Language or ASL and Japanese sign
language or JSL to prove a point
and that first point I want to make is
that not all sign languages are
universal and hopefully as my
presentation continues you’ll be able to
see the differences between the two
however the two main points I want to
make today in my presentation have to do
with body language and also with
admitting or not admitting whether you
understand something or not the I in my
title refers to the body language and
the understand refers to understanding
or not understanding something my
motivation for using sign language as
the conduit for my presentation is
because a sign languages do an amazing
job of incorporating and infusing body
language and nonverbal communication
with the language now just to give you
an example we know that in ASL we can
change the meaning of a sign just by
changing something as simple as the
shape of our eyebrows so for example in
ASL if I scratch my eyebrows down i
generate wh-words
words like who what when where and why
but by moving my eyebrows up like this i
generate yes/no type questions questions
like do you want this or is this yours
let me show you what I mean what do you
now what do you think I’m saying yeah I
think you’re able to understand the
meaning of both situations and all I did
was change the shape of my eyebrows I
didn’t use language and yes I used a
little bit of body language but just by
the shape of my eyebrows you understood
what was going on if I had not done
anything with my eyebrows you would have
had a more difficult time understanding
my meaning and here’s what I mean which
kind of brings me to my point here and
dealing with comprehension now let me
preface this by saying that before I
moved to Japan I was a teacher to deaf
students back in the United States it
was a great job and one of the
advantages of teaching deaf students was
the fact that they were so easy to read
facially I mean if the students could
understand or not understand something
it was very hard for them to hide their
reactions based on their facial feedback
I could immediately tell if they were
understanding and whether I should move
forward with a lesson or if they didn’t
understand and I had to reteach
something as I said deaf students were
very very very easy to read now fast
forward a few years and Here I am in
Japan and let me just say this
I love teaching in Japan and I love
teaching where I teach I feel I have the
most motivated highly intelligent very
focused students however one of the
greatest challenges I face when it comes
to teaching them is that they are very
very hard to read and facially now I
obviously when I’m teaching I ask
questions like do you understand are
there any questions and quite often my
students just give me a
face this blank face or what I call
visual facial silence is very difficult
to read for me when I see that I don’t
know if I should move forward on the
lesson or if I need to go back and
reteach something most of the time
because my students are so intelligent
and so focused I just assumed they’ll
know and I move forward with the lesson
but what happens at the end of class I
get a line of students asking me the
same questions again and again or I can
see in their homework or their test
scores they didn’t understand what was
expected of them so the point I’m trying
to make here is if and when a teacher
asks you do you understand a simple yes
a simple no or something even simpler as
an eyebrow going up or down will give
the teacher enough information to know
whether or not to move forward with a
lesson now let’s be honest this idea of
saying I understand or don’t understand
or facial expressions having meaning
this isn’t earth-shattering this isn’t
groundbreaking information but the idea
that nonverbal communication has a lot
of meaning and a lot of power is kind of
what I want to prove next and to do that
I’m going to do this next section in
total silence you’re going to have to
depend completely on your eyes to figure
out what it is that I’m trying to say
and just to make it a little more
interesting I’m not going to use
American Sign Language I’m going to use
the Japanese sign language but to make
it a little bit more interesting let me
teach you a few signs so that you can
you know kind of follow along a little
to teach to understand student easy okay
let’s just review quickly one more time
America Japan to teach to understand
student easy okay are you ready no I’m
the whole the next part is going to be
in total silence so just use your eyes
and as we say in English good luck has
now thank you before I conclude my
presentation let me just ask you a
couple of questions what percentage of
that presentation could you understand
five percent ten percent fifty percent
all of it I’m hoping you could
understand some of it yes I I did use a
few Japanese signs but I also used a lot
of body language facial expressions and
gestures to get my point across now
here’s something to think about if you
were able to understand anything I want
you to know that I used a language that
until recently you didn’t even know
existed so just think about that for a
second No
before I finish let me just say that
while I was doing that presentation I
was looking around looking at your faces
I could see people smiling people giving
me thumbs up and thank you for that I
might look very calm and demure but
trust me I am sweating bullets up here
I’m so nervous so your facial feedback
was very very helpful thank you so as I
conclude my presentation I hope that
number one you could see that not all
silent witches are the same number two
that something as simple as moving your
eyebrows up and down can have valuable
feedback it can provide you know
valuable information to your teachers
but number three if and when a teacher
says do you understand these simple yes
or no will do
or something as simple as moving your
eyebrows up and down will give enough
information to your teacher so he or she
knows whether to move forward or not
this helps the teacher but ultimately
helps you thank you very much arigato gozaimasu
Please follow and like us: