Course Description
This intensive course is designed for advanced ASL students to continue increasing their ASL vocabulary and proficiency. Students will have many opportunities to practice using ASL and to continuously incorporate feedback from native ASL users, classmates and oneself. This course will also explore the difference in how English and ASL convey concepts in different settings (education, medical, community, etc). This course is required for students in the Sign Language Interpretation program.
Course Content
Sentence structures, vocabulary and narrative techniques:
- Non-manual markers made with the mouth
- Facial grammar and emotive affect, including humour
- Constructed dialogue and constructed action, and accompanying eye gaze
- Time/tense markers and use of timelines
Building ASL vocabulary in specific settings:
- Health/medical – talking about health and basic medical concerns/experiences
- Educational – talking about school and university/college
- Math – continuing to expand fluency in ASL number depictions
- Community – talking about current and local events, organizations, places and issues
Increasing adaptability to diverse ASL users:
- Language use across the ASL-Contact-English continuum
- Variations due to demographics (age, background, geographical area)
Making clear visual sense:
- Topicalization and contextualization
- Consistency in use of referential space
- Level of visual detail
- Discourse markers, cohesion, prosody
- Overall meaning and intent, including humour
Learning Activities
Class activities may include lecture and language lab, demonstration/modelling, dialogue and small group conversational practice, course readings and videos, among others.
Means of Assessment
This course will conform to the Douglas College Evaluation Policy regarding the number and weighting of evaluations. Typical means of evaluation may include a combination of:
- Quizzes to evaluate factual knowledge of ASL & Deaf culture
- Quizzes to evaluate receptive ASL skills
- Demonstration of expressive ASL skills
- Assigned dialogues and interaction
- Attendance and participation
Sample grade breakdown for this course might be as follows:
Video assignment 1: 20%
Video assignment 2: 20%
Mid-term exam 1: 20%
Mid-term exam 2: 20%
Final exam: 20%
Total: 100%
No single assignment will be worth more than 20%.
Learning Outcomes
Upon successful completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Demonstrate fluent, advanced ASL narration skills to do the following:
- Incorporate appropriate use of non-manual markers in signed utterances;
- Fluently use all 7 expansion/contextualization techniques;
- Construct cohesive narrative discourse with appropriate discourse markers;
- Make clear visual sense;
- Use a rich, diverse, setting-specific ASL vocabulary;
- Use a variety of classifiers and locatives;
- Use 3D referential space consistently and effectively and;
- Use appropriate number formats for particular contexts.
- Analyze and critique one’s own recorded ASL narratives.
- Appropriately engage in effective peer-to-peer feedback.
- Identify one’s own focus areas for development and intensified practice.
- Adapt ASL usage to communicate with a variety of signed language users.
Textbook Materials
The instructor might choose an ASL textbook such as:
Smith, Cheri. (2008). Signing Naturally 3. Student Workbook. San Diego, CA: DawnSignPress.