Beginner Cued American English Classes

Free adult Cued Speech classes are held at Canterbury Woods Elementary in Annandale, VA on Wednesday evenings at 6:30 p.m.  For more information or to register, contact Beth.Blair@fcps.edu .

ASL interpreters are available upon request.

Smarter Than a 5th Grader?!?

What I really love about September is that none of the erasers have been chewed off the pencils.  Yet.

The last blog that I wrote has a comment from Esther asking if I have cued in all of the grades yet.  That’s funny because my colleagues joke that we should, by now, be smarter than 5th graders because we transliterate in Elementary school year after year.  It is random information:  the water cycle, regions of Virginia, tectonic plates, decimeters, and the lyrics to every Tom Chapin song.  As this new school year gets underway, I still love going to First grade to cue “Water travels in a cycle, yes it does… Water travels in a cycle yes it does… It forms clouds as condensation, comes down as precipitation, and goes up as evaporation… yes it does…” 

Hopefully my job won’t get “old” until I get old.  By then I hope to actually BE smarter than a 5th grader.  Or at least to have won the million dollars.

The Middle Man

It’s a cool job.  I go places.  I learn things.  I sing and crack jokes.  Sometimes I flirt or tell a lie.  I’ve gone down a zip wire and had to kiss a fish.  I am a professional communication facilitator, aka, Cued Language Transliterator. The clients’ lives are private, so the window that I have to peer into their world is only open for a flash and then closes at the end of my shift.  But I am forever affected by the places I’ve gone and the things that I’ve learned. I take my job seriously and am passionate about raising the professional bar.  Doing a good job as a CLT means that a deaf person can go places.  And learn things.  And sing and crack jokes.  Or even flirt or tell a lie.  I am proud to be invited along.  And don’t worry – what happens at (school, camp, party, Uncle Fred’s wedding) stays a secret.  That’s my job as the middle man.  And it’s cool.