ASL for a foreign language credit?

[Kendall]

My daughter will be in 9th grade next year.   I've just realized that maybe I could increase what we are doing in American Sign Language and give her a high school credit.  We will also be doing Latin, but not all 4 years.  Maybe just 2 more years of Latin and then 2 of ASL.  (Though they will probably be concurrent).

 

Have any of you used ASL as a foreign language credit?  

 

Thanks in advance,

Kendall 

[Lori D.]

Have any of you used ASL as a foreign language credit?  

 

Yes, DS#2 took 2 semesters of ASL as dual enrollment at the local community college (CC) for foreign language requirement. This gave him both high school AND college credit. After graduation, he went on to take another 2 semesters of ASL, which should fulfill the foreign language requirement for most college degrees. :)

 

Note: most, but not all, colleges accept ASL as a foreign language. Same with Latin -- most, but not all. Those that do not accept Latin want a modern foreign language.

 

 

 

I've just realized that maybe I could increase what we are doing in American Sign Language and give her a high school credit.

 

JMO: Foreign language at a genuine high school credit level is one of the toughest things to accomplish in the homeschool setting, unless someone in the family is already conversationally and grammatically fluent in the language. Self-study can only take you so far -- usually vocabulary and basic phrases. It really takes weekly time with a trained instructor (either a classroom setting, or a tutor) to teach the grammar, correct pronunciation, and provide conversation practice.

 

ASL has a complete unique grammatical structure from English, which is introduced in the 2nd and 3rd semesters of a college (or second and third years of high school). While I am usually pretty good at self-study and picking up subjects fairly easily, after seeing what DS was learning in the CC classes, I realized the ASL grammar and conversation would NOT have been something I could have "gotten" through self-study...

 

If you do decide to do-it-yourself, be sure you are including vocabulary, grammar, and conversation elements, and are spending at least 150 hours in instruction and practice to make a legitimate high school credit. Esp. for a second year of study, you might want to start finding some materials to help study Deaf culture and include a bit of that into the credit.

 

Just our experience: DS#1 did Spanish through dual enrollment at the CC for his foreign language, and while I had enough Spanish back in high school that we probably could have done it at home, DS got SO much more out of the language by learning from a knowledgeable instructor… ;)

 

 

BEST of luck in finding what language, and what resources, best help you accomplish the foreign language credits! Warmest regards, Lori D.

[Rosie_0801]

Colleges *ought* to accept Latin as a foreign language. It's a lot more foreign than ASL!

Colleges *ought* to accept Latin as a foreign language. It's a lot more foreign than ASL!

 

Last time we discussed this  we did a bit of research, and in the United States, only five colleges were found that did not accept Latin to satisfy entrance requirements for foreign language.  I don't know the numbers on ASL, but it seems that while acceptance of ASL to satisfy entrance requirements is growing, it is still not universal.

[Kendall]

Lori, thanks for sharing.    We have taken four 10 week ASL classes with a deaf woman who was raised in Deaf culture.  They are free, informal, but after reading your post I think they are very good classes. We have learned grammar, classifiers and Deaf culture from the beginning (as well as finger spelling and vocab).  If we try to do this for a high school credit I will find more deaf/Deaf interaction.  We went to a Deafexpo this weekend and we both were able to have conversations with people in ASL (slowly and having to ask them to repeat and occasionally finger spell).  

[flyingiguana]

My daughter had both Spanish and ASL in high school, so I assume one of them fulfilled the foreign language credit for college admission.

 

She took the ASL dual enrollment, so that satisfied the college gen ed requirement as well.

 

This can really vary by college.  If the student took ASL as a college class that can be transferred, it will likely count at many colleges (perhaps not all -- you'd have to check the specific college).  However, if she did it as a high school course only, it will only count for admission if the college doesn't teach ASL itself.  The reason is that they can't assess her and put her into the appropriate class, so it won't do her any good for fulfilling the gen ed requirements.

 

However, I've known people who grew up signing (mother was an ASL interpreter) who couldn't pass out of the first ASL class based on an assessment (at a college that did teach ASL).  Having one member of the family speak/sign a language doesn't necessarily make one a native speaker.  Sometimes those assessment tests can be hard -- or cover things the student doesn't happen to know.

[Sebastian (a lady)]

I have an acquaintance who has a degree in ASL/deaf interpretation from Rochester Institute of Technology. One of her in demand skills is transliteration. This is a phoneme based system of describing what a speaker is saying.

 

She works at a local university as a translator for classes. Because she is using a sound based system she doesn't have to know the ASL signs for every subjec specific word. Even accents of foreign instructors comes through.

 

Not ASL but I was so intrigued by it.

[Crimson Wife]

My oldest wants to study ASL as her foreign language because she's interested in becoming a speech & language pathologist and many SLP's use signing with kids who are non-verbal or minimally verbal. ASL counts as a foreign language for the graduation requirements of our charter and for satisfying the UC a-g requirements. We're planning on having her take it at CC since I can't teach it to her.

[Lori D.]

Lori, thanks for sharing.    We have taken four 10 week ASL classes with a deaf woman who was raised in Deaf culture.  They are free, informal, but after reading your post I think they are very good classes. We have learned grammar, classifiers and Deaf culture from the beginning (as well as finger spelling and vocab).  If we try to do this for a high school credit I will find more deaf/Deaf interaction.  We went to a Deafexpo this weekend and we both were able to have conversations with people in ASL (slowly and having to ask them to repeat and occasionally finger spell).  

 

 

Awesome, Kendall! You are well on-track for a VERY solid credit! You may want to add in some formalized instruction at some point; here are some ideas -- I know NOTHING about them, so you'll have to do some research to see which, if any, are solid and worthwhile:

 

Homeschool Works -- online 1-year ASL course ($400/year = $11/class)

CurrClick -- free ASL lessons

Start ASL -- free online program

ASLU -- list of linked free ASL resources

 

 

My first post was trying to gently tip-toe around what some people want to call a credit in ASL -- usually something like 12 one-hour classes at a co-op, or a summer program that taught a few dozen signs. ;) You are way NOT doing that! :)

[Lori D.]

Colleges *ought* to accept Latin as a foreign language. It's a lot more foreign than ASL!

 

Fortunately, most DO accept both Latin and ASL. :) And those that don't -- well, cross them off the list! ;)

[Rosie_0801]

Try and get a hold of a few linguistics papers to add to your credit building too. Here it is typical for an Auslan course at a tertiary level to include readings on other signed languages around the world. I wouldn't spend too much effort on it, but it provides a bit of context and gives some insight into what people do academically with signed languages.

[flyingiguana]

There's a lot of ASL on youtube as well, if you just want some practice with it.

 

I googled youtube ASL -- once I waded past the videos of "teach your baby to sign", I was finding some videos that might meet your needs.

 

Many had subtitles, but if you don't want those, you can usually just put a post it note over them.

 

There are also a large number of popular songs loosely translated into ASL:

 

Some of these are better than others.  Most of the ones I've seen have been done by people who only recently learned ASL, so there is a tendency towards clunky signing.  However, because they're following the song, they tend to be slower than normal, which might be a big help for a learner who's looking to build vocabulary.  I'm not sure how grammatically correct they are.

[Kendall]

Thank you for all for the great ideas.  I just learned that our teacher is having a baby in September and not going to do the class again until spring.  Before learning that I thought about doing this for my 11th grader as well.  He can't decide what language to do.  We did Latin 3 this year and decided not to go on in Latin(after MUCH debate in our own minds).  We both decided independently and feel like it is the best decision.

 

I am beginning to think that ASL would be a more practical language.  He knows a tiny bit already because he can't help it with all of us trying to sign.  But now without a teacher, I'm not sure.  But I think we could do a lot the first semester.  We do know an interpreter who we could ask questions of and could probably arrange a meeting with our teacher later in the fall.  I'm still thinking about it.  But kind of excited about the thought of all of us working on the same language.

 

Lori, the actilingue links seemed to be German

 

Thanks,

Kendall

 

[Rosie_0801]

One thing you can do without a teacher is play lots of charades. No signing, just mime.

[Lori D.]

Lori, the actilingue links seemed to be German

 

Oops! Thanks for that -- I removed it. That was all cut-and-paste from a previous post in response to someone looking for ASL and German courses. ;)

 

 

… my 11th grader … can't decide what language to do.  We did Latin 3 this year and decided not to go on in Latin...

 

If DS really didn't want to do any more foreign language, he'd likely meet the admission requirements for most colleges with 3 credits of Latin. :)

 

 

… But I think we could do a lot the first semester.  We do know an interpreter who we could ask questions of and could probably arrange a meeting with our teacher later in the fall.  I'm still thinking about it.  But kind of excited about the thought of all of us working on the same language.

 

With 3 of you, it might be cost-effective to hire an ASL instructor from your local university or CC (or an advanced-level student in the interpreter program) for a once-a-week group lesson. Or twice a week, if you can find a few other high school homeschoolers interested in ASL as a foreign language credit. :)

 

Good luck, and enjoy learning a language all together! :) Warmest regards, Lori D.