American Sign Language Level 2

The content of this course includes using ASL to:

• Discuss family, including extended family members
• Explain each family member’s rank including age, birth order, interests and employment or study
• Continue development of basic questions about family and background
• Apply basic ASL numbering systems for time (seconds, minutes and hours) and date (days, weeks, months and years)
• Express types of activities – i.e., weekend activities (indoor or outdoor)
• Develop appropriate role-shifting, placement and use of 3-D space while narrating a story
• Understand the Deaf community as a linguistic and cultural minority, and not as disabled
• Develop culturally appropriate norms of social interaction – behaviours such as how to get a Deaf person’s visual attention, etc.

The following global ideas guide the design and delivery of this course:
1. The Deaf community comprises a vibrant linguistic and cultural minority whose members are connected to each other through shared values, norms, art, traditions and especially the primacy of using a signed language.
2. The creativity and strength of the Deaf community contributes positively to society; Deaf lives exemplify unique and enriching ways of seeing and being in the world.
3. American Sign Language (ASL), la Langue des Signes Québécoises (LSQ) and Indigenous Sign Languages (ISL) are rich, visual-gestural languages used by Deaf people in Canada. Signed languages are distinctly different from spoken languages; they have their own syntax, vocabulary, grammatical structures, pragmatic norms and literary forms.
4. Studying ASL can be an exciting challenge for the majority of people who have only used language(s) that are spoken and auditory. Because ASL is a visual-gestural language, it requires the learner to use their eyes to take in linguistic information and to use their hands, face and body to convey linguistic information. Even though spoken languages incorporate some form of gestural communication, the use of 3-dimensional space is an integral feature of the structure of ASL.