In this course, students build on the foundational skills they learned in American Sign Language 1 to develop greater fluency, breadth, and flexibility in American Sign Language (ASL). Students significantly expand their working vocabularies to allow for conversations on a wider range of subject matters. Additionally, they increase their understanding of ASL sentence structure, facial grammar, and conversational protocols. An expanded focus on the context of Deaf Culture prepares students for more varied interactions in ASL. Students develop increased expressive and receptive fingerspelling skills. Topics covered include descriptions of people, possessive pronouns, giving directions, cardinal and ordinal numbers, advanced money concepts, patterns and designs, role shifting, and rankings by age.
Completion of this course requires regular access to a laptop or desktop computer with working microphone and webcam, as well as a reliable internet connection.
This Fixed-Paced course incorporates a blend of synchronous and asynchronous elements. Students and teacher meet live via zoom on a regular weekly schedule. In addition, students complete coursework including guided readings, interactive videos, text and video-based discussion threads, problem sets, individual and collaborative projects, and so on. While these activities are time-flexible, teachers sequence them with weekly deadlines to help students keep on track and encourage and support the development of productive time management skills.