“Directness”The use of immediacy in conversations means extremely different things between deaf culture and hearing culture. While the former relies on it for effective communication, the latter tends to avoid it for fear of interrupting the conversation. During this semester, I was able to further familiarize myself with the inner workings of Deaf culture by again attending Northeastern University's "Deaf, Deaf World" event, watching See What I Mean: Differences between Deaf and Hearing Cultures, video calling my professor to discuss what I learned from the aforementioned DVD, as well as participate in two other events within the deaf community. Based on all of the above experiences, I was able to not only gain more confidence in my abilities as an ASL learner, but also learn more about the very different expectations in conversation within deaf and hearing cultures. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Having already participated in "Deaf, Deaf World" once, I must admit that I was less anxious this time, but still desperately wanted to do well on my own. This was especially true considering last semester's poor performance, having only visited 3 tables at the event. Even though I was still nervous about unintentionally offending the deaf and deafblind people in attendance, I knew that the only way I could learn from my previous mistakes was to take action and commit to the tasks at hand. Luckily, I was able to have an incredibly fulfilling experience by successfully visiting each table and communicating effectively with the people there. It was also during this event that I was first introduced to the concept of candor within the deaf and deafblind communities. After visiting Elaine Ducharme's table, which was an electronics supply store, I was immediately taken aback as I had never interacted with a deafblind person. individual first. Even though the conversation only required me to finger write my name and sign what product I wanted to buy, it still took a few tries before I figured out how to put Elaine's hand on mine so she could understand what I was writing and what I was telling her. signing. Once our conversation was over, Elaine immediately signaled to me that I needed more practice, which I wholeheartedly agreed with, even though it made me feel a little awkward at the time. This immediate and direct feedback I received served as a great introduction to how deaf and deafblind individuals perceive immediacy differently than hearing individuals. To Elaine, this probably seemed completely natural and must be helpful for an ASL learner like me. For me, however, this made me worry about my mistakes and the possibility that I had ruined Elaine's first impression of me. The above situation is consistent with the section on criticism and feedback in See What I Mean, where a deaf employee was left confused after their hearing colleague gave them feedback using the "sandwich approach" (see what I mean), opening with a positive introductory sentence to soften the blow, then sliding into criticism, before closing with another positive comment. I had never considered before that this approach could confuse people; it just seemed like the best way to deal with things without hurting the other person's feelings. Likewise, the use of pagers in the DVD scenario made me reevaluate the,.