American Sign Language 2 (ASL)

American Sign Language 2 builds upon skills developed in American Sign Language 1, extending students’ ability to understand and express themselves in American Sign Language and increasing their vocabulary and speed. Students learn how to engage in discourse for informative or social purposes and to comprehend the language when signed slowly. This course focuses on everyday communication in ASL by introducing students to the basic signs, techniques and culture. To help develop receptive skills without relying on lip movements of the signers, the signing videos will be all “voice off.” To develop expressive skills, students will continue to express their thoughts in signs within the given context in the lessons.
Through the introduction to some of the higher ASL techniques such as classifiers and indexing, this second-year course is designed to help students to develop an understanding that ASL is a visual language that delivers one’s ideas and thoughts using more than the individual signs. Students will use various media tools including online resources, online dictionaries, a web cam and the knowledge of VHS Learning video tool. This course targets Novice-High Level of World Language Standards and Benchmarks and will address the five goal areas targeted in the World-Readiness Standards for Learning Languages: communication, cultures, connections, comparisons, communities.

Students will be able to:

• Display appropriate greetings in ASL using everyday situations while demonstrating an understanding of how signs are modified with inflections.
• Initiate and maintain short ASL conversations with socially appropriate nonverbal behavior and mannerisms.
• Exchange information in conversations and correspondence with more detail in everyday situations using expression and emotion.
• Demonstrate awareness that the visual basis of ASL influences meaning, and identify and explain the current social issues, the roles and perspectives of Deaf family members and the roles of local organizations.
• Students demonstrate understanding of cultural nuances of meaning in expressive using visual presentation.