ASL - American Sign Language

John Lydiate

Hello, my name is John Lydiate and I was born totally deaf, in New Zealand. I have a brother who has one deaf ear as well as one good hearing ear. Just before I was born, sign language in New Zealand was forbidden in schools even school for the Deaf but luckily just in time, law passed to allow sign language in use at schools by the time I was a baby.

An American man taught my parents Australian sign language and they in turn taught me. My very first sign was “car” because I loved playing with car toys all the time, especially overtaking cars! I used to have hearing aides( large ones ) and I hated it because I felt like I was a machine but by five years old, I did not need them anymore because doctors just discovered that I could hear nothing at all, even my mother tried to tell them in the first place!

In New Zealand, I studied mathematics as my major ( people think I am crazy!) at University of Otago and graduated in 2001. I was one of very few Deaf students in New Zealand to have attended a university. While I was growing up, I spent lots of time exploring different peoples’ facial expressions and body languages, so I always stood in the front of mirrors, practicing to perfect my facial expression and body language – I can do character impersonations too.

By the year 2001, I went to America for church missionary service and there I studied ASL at a Missionary Training Center in Utah for two months. (My wife, Delight was in the same class!) After this, I went to Arizona to start my service among many Deaf people there and during my service, I continued to immerse myself in ASL study with 7 different companions. Also I have taught ASL classes in Phoenix as part of my service.

When my service ended after two years, I went back home to New Zealand. I started to learn another newly developed sign language called New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) since early 1990’s ( I lived in a city where there were very few Deaf people, so did not get the chance to learn NZSL immersion) but I was a very fast learner. I just loved to learn sign language because of the influence from ASL. Delight and I kept in contact with each other through email and msn chat – she was from Idaho. After about a year, while living in New Zealand’s biggest city – Auckland, I was asked by a Deaf NZSL teacher from Auckland University of Technology to teach NZSL Level 2 as a substitute teacher for the second half year and it was an rewarding experience for me. I really enjoy tutoring or teaching others both sign language and mathematics. ( My goal is to become Mathematics teacher of the Deaf here.)

I have a strong emphasis on use of facial expressions and body languages as being crucial part of our sign language. Also I have participated in several workshops for NZSL tutors and sign language linguistics( being done by professors from Australia.) Honestly, I like ASL the best since it become my “first nature” sign language replacing my boring Australian signed English and I was happy to have discovered my true language, even though NZSL is my second sign language as I learned that after ASL!

At the end of the year 2004, Delight flew down from USA to visit me for three weeks and I had the opportunity to show her around New Zealand, before I proposed her and we got engaged just after Christmas day. Last year, Delight and I got married in Idaho. We live in Sacramento as Delight continues her schooling at California State University. Since I came to USA again, I studied ASL intensely again and went through all several ASL books. I always enjoy keeping on learning and developing my ASL skills as well as sharing with others.