ASL - American Sign Language

Teaching ASL:

If you aren't teaching fingerspelling, numbers, non-manual markers, various inflections, ASL grammar, and so forth, you can teach about 20 signs per hour. If you ARE teaching all of the goodies, having regular review quizzes, incorporating bits of history and culture, modeling variations of signs, providing guided practice opportunities, giving students small group interaction time, and letting them ask whatever questions they have, ("What's a VRS?") then you are going to get through maybe 10 signs per hour (in a beginning level course). And that's okay! That's the way it should be! Thoroughly covering 300 signs and related skills during a course is much better than doing a slipshod job of covering 600 signs. - Dr. Bill

* The worth of a sign
* General guidelines
* Bilingual-Bicultural
* Qualifications: Am I qualified to teach? (01)
* How accurate should my students' signing be?
* Ideas for when you have a substitute instructor
* Lifeprint Teaching Method
* Perfectionism?
* Leniency Requests
* Shy students
* Student Ages
* (98) deaf / hard of hearing education credential
* (99) Taxes
* (101) Time Capsule
* (110) Setting Your Fee: How much to charge
* (111) Activity: Who are you?
* (112) Game: "Givers and Keepers"
* (113) Help! My class is Dead.
* (114) Student Satisfaction form
* (115) Sample Student Bio video assignment
* Sample ASL Instructor job announcement / qualifications
* (120) General Tips
* The "Tell 'em" Curriculum
* The "Find out" Curriculum
* Research papers that students are excited to do

Before you teach:

Before you teach:
* Qualifications: Are you qualified to teach? (02)
* The importance of a syllabus
* Designing your syllabus
* Feedback on a typical syllabus
* Syllabus samples: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
* Permission to use this material

* Understand Copyright

Get their attention:

* Use fingerspelling and number drills to focus attention

* Use variation and reward to keep your students' attention.

* Immunity Idol

* Multi-sided dice

Topic:

Games / Activities to review
* Go Fish
* Jeopardy (1)
* Speed Signing
* Frankenstein's Questions
* Exit Activity

Activities to introduce new vocabulary:

* Fingerspelling Race (1)
* Name Tea Party
* Team Bingo

Classroom:

Modality: Voice or No-voice
* Voicing in Class?
* propaganda

Technology:
* Getting a PC Laptop to work with a Projector
* Creating videos

Fingerspelling::

* The quick brown fox
* Who is your neighbor?

Topic:

Grading:
* Extra Credit: Should you give extra credit?
* Testing: Students who argue over answers (01)
* No name on paper?
* Testing: Proficiency
* Testing and feedback checklist
* The "67 Subject" Multiple Choice Test

Topic:

Number games:
* general
* math game
* Bingo:

Topic:

Various ideas:
* Ask for a challenger (116)

Topic:

x

For MORE ideas on teaching ASL, order Dr. Bill's e-report "How to make a decent living teaching sign language." (Click here for details)

Workshop: Introduction to the Lifeprint

Getting Started With the Lifeprint Curriculum

Overview

Development notes: 2-hour workshop

Premises:

001.
002.
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011. * Use fingerspelling and number drills to focus attention
012. * Use variation and reward to keep your students' attention.
013. * Immunity Idol
014. * Multi-sided dice
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030.

Alternate teaching methods for Low Technology Environments:

If you are NOT teaching fingerspelling, numbers, non-manual markers, various inflections, ASL grammar, and so forth, you can teach about 20 signs per hour.

If you ARE teaching all of the goodies, having regular review quizzes, incorporating bits of history and culture, modeling variations of signs, providing guided practice opportunities, giving students small group interaction time, and letting them ask whatever questions they have, ("What's a VRS?") then you are going to get through maybe 10 signs per hour (in a beginning level course).

Thoroughly covering 300 signs and related skills during a course is much better than doing a shotgun job of “teaching” 600 signs.

The lists below are for expansion and inclusion in the teaching resources list.
When I get some time, (ha!), I will be explaining these and linking to them:

Dr. Bill's Notes: (Will expand on these during Fall of 2009 and create page links)

___Took them two years to figure out I wasn't MR
___So-So-Suck-My-Toe
___Pledge Of Allegiance
___Bill is "Bald"
___Inflamed Throat
___Merlin The Magician
___Making Out in the hall
___Grandpa's Aid
___Three Deaf Guys
___"What time/kind is it?"
___Lena and Ollie UR going to die
___Does your wife sign? checks
___Belinda and I are compatible: HA675
___Honeymoon
___Wife fell out of car
___Deaf couple adopt hearing
___So if a deaf kid swears do you tell him to wash his hands?
___graduate student screw in a light bulb
___How many Deaf to screw in a light bulb?
___What is the difference between a pizza and an asl instructor?
___That's a deaf hunter's dodo
___Deaf Kong
___Safari
___Deaf Tree

General ASL concepts:

___sign language continuum: gesture, mime, ASL, PSE, SE, cued speech, Rochester method, etc.
___space-present referent
___space-absent referent
___headshake for negation
___head nod for affirmation
___"y/n" Question expression
___"wh" Question expression
___agent affix
___plurality: horizontal / vertical sweep, number, reduplication, Quantifier, etc.
___incorporation of number: pronoun
___incorporation of number: time
___sign parameters: handshape, location, movement, and orientation
___directionality
___classifiers
___compound signs, (e.g.): brother, wife, daughter, etc.
___name signs
___initialized signs
___Register: * intimate: extreme ellipsis, private language; * casual: ellipsis (eyebrows up, "Take off?" = Are you ready to leave now?); * consultative: some ellipsis, colloquial language (He went, but his wife didn't. ___[Drops "go"]); * formal: impart information; * frozen: formulaic (religious, courtroom)

ANECDOTES & STORIES
___Roz "He's handicapped"
___"No, I want to fly"
___Hands on the wheel
___Monestary
___Bullhorn
___Fire Alarm
___Merlin The Magician
___Making Out
___Football Huddle
___Inflamed Throat
___Hallway Scenes

JOKES
___Deaf Kong
___Deaf people have AIDS
___Deaf screw in a light bulb?
___Deaf Tree
___Does your wife sign? checks
___Grandpa's Aid
___Honeymoon
___In this very room (1.7)
___Pledge Of Allegiance
___Safari
___So-So-Suck-My-Toe
___That's a deaf hunter's dodo
___Three Deaf Guys
___"What time/kind is it?"
___Why do farts smell?
___Wife fell out of car
___Working with Elders (1.7)

Dr. Bill's Notes: (Will expand on these during Fall of 2009 and create page links)
___Deaf German
___He fell in love with her
___ASL Continuum
___Videos available
___Sign dictionaries
___Tutoring available
___3-D computer language
___Prescription for arthritis
___Albert Mehrabian: 55% body, 38% para 7% verb
___Signing monkeys pass sign to their babies
___Used with disabled
___Schizophrenics
___New laws passed

● ___Understanding what it is like to be deaf slash hoh
● ___"Gestures" mime activity ___Charades/Pictionary
● ___Recognizable signing ___Deaf couple adopt hearing ___Crick Or Creek ___Woof, Meow, Boom.
● ___Understanding Dr. Bill's "RPM" teaching method
● ___Buzz
● ___Who's The Leader
● ___Deciphering written descriptions
● ___Describe sign to partner
● ___Elephant trainer
● ___Bingo
● ___Hangman
● ___Circle of sign (first letters) ___Circle of sign (handshapes)
● ___Numbers: Math drills ___"magic calculator" ___(buzz)
● ___Tic-tac-toe: regular ___with letters ___with numbers ___with vocabulary
● ___Pass It On (coin behind the back)
● ___Speed Dating: New signs between switches
● ___Helen Keller Speller
● ___Family Feud
● ___Deer Hunter
● ___Sign relays (rows)
● ___Concentration
● ___Spelling Quiz using vocabulary
● ___Go Fish
● ___Battleship
● ___Hot & Cold (getting warmer)
● ___My boss is ... ______Describe a person in the room
● ___Jeopardy
● ___Food: Make a Menu (order a hamburger)
● ___Multi-sided dice
● ___Classifiers: Descriptive: size, shape, and space specifiers refer to the physical characteristics of an object. ___Semantic: indicate objects belonging to certain groups of nouns (e.g., "3" = vehicles). ___Body: represent parts of the body in action or function as a reference. ___Instrument: show how a referent (object) is manipulated. ___Primitive: show groupings, clusters, categories, and areas.
● ___64 Question survey ("Find out" curriculum)
● ___Tell a story, add a sign
● ___Syllabi that Succeed
● ___Logistics: pairing and grouping of students.
● ___Circle of sign using named categories: colors, fruit, animals
● ___Introduction methods: Look up the words in book ___
● ___Review methods: ___Same or Different: Y/N vs WH modeling ___Memory game: show 10, how many can they remember? ___Touch the color within 10 seconds ___
● ___Human interest stories: ___Deaf girl to mother: "He's handicapped" ___"No, I want to fly" ___Gallaudet tidbits: DPN-Bullhorn, Fire Alarm, Football Huddle ___Hands on the wheel
● ___Joking Around: Using jokes in the classroom.
● ___Fingerspelling Review: relays ___spelling speed drills ___bingo ___phonetics ___advanced handshapes ___The Quick Brown Fox... ______Phonetic spelling sheets ___Spelling quiz using vocabulary ___Lexicalized Spelling
● ___penny pass behind back while standing in circle, elephant hunter, deer hunter,
● ___Attention getters: rubber pencil, frog, disappearing Quarter, lift a finger, cat/cow, broken finger, stick behind back, student's own tricks, two people tied with string, human knot, toe-to-toe balance competition, Simon says ___Geometric Shapes
● ___Warming up: Using "warmup exercises" to focus attention: ___Finger exercises ___Change five things ___Frog ___Sculpture ___Pick A Finger ___Pencil Between Thumbs ___Pull a face relay ___Piano fingers ___Simon Says ___Stick behind back ___This finger weighs ___Where's the quarter? ___Human knot ___Picture It ___Circle sit down (stand behind each other, sit on lap).
● ___My Life Right Now: What important things are going on in your life right now? How do we sign those things?
● ___Namesigns
● ___Practice Card Usage
● ___Certification to teach Sign Langauge
● ___Politics and Public Relations
● ___ABC races using asl.ms
● ___Who am I?
● ___Through Deaf Eyes
● ___State Adoptions (Califorina / CSD) (ASL interpretations of Children's stories.)
● ___Technology-related signs
● ___

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