I have always done speed dating in the ASL classroom for getting to know you, introductions, describing yourself, and telling about your vacations. But as I was working in my classroom a while back a thought occurred to me…Why am I not speed dating with famous Deaf people? So I set out to make this activity incredibly fun because I think it is important for students to know about Deaf people, who they are, and the contributions that have made to society.
First things first
The first thing I did was make a list of some Famous Deaf people that I knew would be easy to find information about online. My goal of this was to give my ASL 2 students a brief introduction to some Deaf people in the community, past, and present, then have them talk about them as if they were them. I used this activity during my personality traits unit. It pairs well with Signing Naturally Unit 10.
Students were randomly assigned to a person. Gender, age, or race did not play a factor in the selection. I gave students a worksheet and had them research some things about the Deaf person to share during the speed dating activity. We took about 15 minutes in class for this and the rest became homework. This is not an in-depth research project. This activity is just presenting some fun facts to practice the vocabulary we were working on. Students prepared to talk about their famous Deaf person mostly at home. The following day students came to class, got a name tag, a worksheet, a clipboard, and instructions of how the mingle would go.
You can get the entire Famous Deaf Speed Dating materials already made for you here.
I set a timer for 3 minutes for each pair to talk, then they would move to the next person and have 3 minutes to talk with them. We realized they needed a little more time so I gave them 4 minutes and that seemed to work great. I have a 70 minute class period and the mingle and instructions took the entire class period. I used 12 different Famous Deaf people but had 25 students in the classroom. So I doubled up on the Deaf people (some students had the same person). Depending on your class size you could do this, or split the class into two groups.
For homework, the students took their worksheet home and debated who was their best match and why. They had to come up with a reason why they selected that person based on personality, interests, and facts they learned during the mingle. Again age, gender, race, etc. are not a factor in this. They also had to come up with the reason why they DID NOT pick the other people. They had to tell the person why they did not pick them if they were selected. Here students are working on their presentational skills.
Fun Facts and Tips
I created this speed dating activity to be more engaging than my other speed dating activities because I wanted it to be more meaningful. Students got name tags of their person to make the process feel more authentic.
Later I copied the name tags in color and laminated them so I didn’t have to copy them every year. Plus, they look better in color than in black and white.
If the students matched, I gave them a heart. Meaning, If one student came to the front and said “I pick CJ Jones because…” and “CJ Jones” picked that person too, they were matched for a second date. Yay! They got a heart.
If “CJ Jones” did not select the person, the person was given a broken heart. The hearts are not required but it added some fun to the activity and the students liked the idea of seeing if they would get a heart for a match or a broken heart.
Wrapping it up
The whole activity was a lot of fun. It was time-consuming to make all of the worksheets and name tags and did take some time out of class instruction, but I think the students learned a lot from participating in this activity. They got a brief introduction to some famous Deaf people, they were able to practice interpretive and interpersonal communication skills, and they were able to use terminology they were learning in a conversation. I give this a 2 thumbs up!
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