ASL& 121 American Sign Language I (5 credits)
Distribution Area Fulfilled Humanities; General Transfer Elective
Formerly SIGN 101 - CCN
Course Description
A beginning course in American Sign Language using conversational methods. This includes vocabulary related to exchanging personal information, day-to-day common activities, describing family relationships, and providing basic directions. Basic grammar, finger-spelling, numbers 1–100, the fundamentals of spatial agreement, and an introduction to the deaf culture and its history are also introduced.
Course Content
Core vocabulary including units 1–3 topics/functional components: greetings/farewells, giving information about oneself, talking about leisure activities, identifying and describing people, telling where one lives and discussing one's residence, talking about roommates and pets, and talking about immediate family
Cardinal numbers: (1–100 including rules for 'rocking' with numbers such as 67 and 76), and ages
Pronouns: personal and possessive
Sign-specific vocabulary: Sign parameters, dominant/non-dominant hand use, Non-manual Grammatical Markers (NMGM) and Non-Manual Signals (NMS)
Finger-spelling rules
Spatial agreement: eye-gaze, distance markers with arms/mouth, signer's perspective, contrastive structure, and real-world orientation
Spatial referencing for people and places
Sentence types: statements, WH-questions, Yes/No questions, negations, topicalization, and basic commands involving moving an object from one location to another location
ASL GLOSS (written transliteration) and a brief introduction of William Stokoe
Deaf culture topics: Identify the critical elements of the history of ASL including the origins of ASL, such as Thomas Gallaudet, Laurent Clerc, and Martha's Vineyard. Plus, other aspects of deaf culture such as Deaf President Now, educational philosophies, Gallaudet University, residential schools, and Relay Service/Video Phone.
Deaf Culture strategies: Negotiating a signing environment, asking 'what is the sign', and getting others' attention
Classifiers: body classifiers (BCL), instrument classifiers, (ICL), descriptive classifiers (DCL), and perimeter classifier
Student Outcomes
- Exchange information about basic and personal facts, simple preferences, and opinions.
- Give and follow simple directions, commands and requests.
- Recognize commonly fingerspelled words.
- Apply basic ASL syntax.
- Respond to main ideas in ASL conversations and narratives.
- Negotiate signing environment and apply Deaf Culture strategies.
- Identify and describe the parameters of ASL (e.g., handshape, location, movement, palm orientation and non-manual signals).
- Retell simple stories on given topics.
- Identify key topics in Deaf Culture past and present to determine how culture influences language.
Degree Outcomes
Humanities: Graduates acquire critical skills to interpret, analyze, and evaluate forms of human expression, which can include creation and performance as an expression of human experience.
Effective Communication: Graduates will be able to craft and exchange ideas and information in a variety of situations, in response to audience, context, purpose, and motivation.
Intercultural Engagement: Graduates demonstrate self-efficacy in intercultural engagement to advance equity, diversity, and inclusion through reflections and expressions of cultural humility, empathy, and social and civic engagement and action. Further, graduates examine how identities/positionalities such as races, social classes, genders, sexual orientations, disabilities, and cultures impact perceptions, actions, and the distribution of power and privilege in communities, systems, and institutions.
Lecture Contact Hours 50
Lab Contact Hours 0
Clinical Contact Hours 0
Total Contact Hours 50
Potential Methods
Group activities and participation
Instructor observation
Deaf culture readings, viewing of videos, and discussions
Signed conversations such as create and memorize a 1 - 2-minute conversation with a partner and present it to the class
Various signing activities such as a copy-sign (Timber or Riddle) and a 'Contrastive Structure' story to compare and contrast two different people using simple spatial location techniques
Quizzes on vocabulary, fingerspelling, numbers, and units
Practice log
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