Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

 This is an accelerated course which meets for 5 hours instead of the usual 3 hours.  This course utilizes the Functional/Notional, dialogues and drills approach in learning grammar and vocabulary in the context of communicative activities.  It is designed to help the students build their receptive skills, learn vocabulary through context, and develop strategies for figuring out meaning and to build upon that foundation. Cultural information is shared through readings and classroom discussions. Textbook Used: "Vista:  Signing Naturally" Level 2, Units 16-17 and American Sign Language (Baker-Shenk & Cokely) (green book) Student Text, Units 10-18, and Student Text, units 19-22.

Upon completion of this course, students will be
able to:
• Narrate and describe events in all major time frames (past, present, future) in paragraph form, using connected ASL discourse.
• Apply expressive language-learning skill and be able to converse with ease and confidence when dealing with most routine tasks and social
situations
• Follow ASL linguistic and grammar features, and apply them semantically, e.g., use of cohesive devices, use of restructuring spaces, classifiers.
• Discuss and explore the linguistic and cultural diversity within the Deaf World; e.g., various clubs and organizations (local to national level),
various social services and programs (both national and international), accessibility issues and the controversial issues related to Deaf
educational approaches
• Meet the skills required for Intermediate High (ACTFL Guideline)
 

Uses activities and materials from "Vista:  Signing Naturally" Level 2, Units 16-17 and American Sign Language (Baker-Shenk & Cokely) (green book) Student Text, Units 10-18, and Student Text, units 19-22.

 Assessment strategies include observation of students' in-class receptive and expressive use of ASL, written quizzes on cultural knowledge and on receptive skills, and videotaping of students' expressive use of ASL.

Includes all or most of the following:

• Describing and identifying things
   
• Talking about the weekend
   
• Exchanging/giving information
   
• Giving advice and criticism
   
• Discussing leisure time
   
• Arguing/Debating
   
• Discussing renovations
   
• Recalling information
   
• Discussing various sing languages
   
• Discussing captioned T.V.
   
• Protesting discrimination
   
• Gallaudet University
   
• Discussing vacation plans
   
• Communication strategies
   
• Analyzes language usage
   

Themes, Concepts and Issues:
Vocabulary:

• Materials
   
• Food-related signs
   
• Opinions of food
   
• Meals
   
• Seasons
   
• Weekend activities
   
• Time signs
   
• Feelings about activities
   
• Opinions
   
• Disruptions & disasters
   
• Feelings about disrupted plans
   
• ASL expressions
   

ASL Grammar:

• Topic-comment structure
   
• Yes/no & wh questions
   
• Confirming questions
   
• Weak hand as reference point
   
• Descriptive and locative classifiers
   
• Instrument and element classifiers
   
• Non-manual markers
   
• Numbers: ordinal, clock, dates and addresses
   
• Time signs with durative aspect (transition markers)
   
• Temporal aspect/ sequencing
   
• Pluralization
   
• Contrastive structure
   
• Possessive forms
   
• Pronominalization
   
• Subjects and objects
   
• Distributional aspect
   
• Sentence types
   
• Locatives
   
• Non-manual markers: "oo,cha,mm"
   
• Money numbers
   

Cultural Information

• ASL Storytelling
   
• ASL Drama
   
• Accessibility
   
• National Symposium on Sign Language Research and Teaching
   
• Captioned Films
   
• Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf
   
• Oral Schools and Programs
   
• Deaf Clubs
   
• Hearing children of Deaf Parents
   
• National Sign Language and Guestuno
   
• Rainbow's End: ASL T.V program for children
   
• Deaf actors and actresses
   
• Gallaudet University
   
• World Federation of the Deaf
   
• Appliances for the Deaf: TTYs and alarm clocks
   
• National Fraternal Society for the Deaf
   

Process Skills:

• Participate actively through conversation, demonstration, modeling, visual readiness drills, hands-on and video-taping.
   
• Discover patterns and meaning in the language through role-play situations which predict everyday deaf-hearing encounters to contexualize and give meaning to the functions.
   
• Receive information and express as clearly in ASL.
   
• Work collaboratively with all students in the class
   
• Prepare expressive skills/situations that illustrate that communication goals have been reached.