American Sign Language Pedagogy at Kent State

REMINDER REMINDER REMINDER!!

MODERN AND CLASSICAL LANGUAGE STUDIES (MCLS - the department that houses ASL) has a MANDATORY ADVISING REQUIREMENT.  That means you need to "touch base" with your advisor (that would be me, smile) AT LEAST ONCE PER SEMESTER. 

Even if MCLS didn't mandate this....I'd still want to hear from you all -  I love to hear how you're doing! 

(click on the hyperlink in each topic to find out more information)

-Information about accepting/evaluating transfer credit (i.e. ASL courses taken outside of KSU), click here: TRANSFER CREDITS

-Obtaining a letter of recommendation, click here: http://www.freewebs.com/thorykksu/recommendationletters.htm

-ASL LAB HOURS  (main campus and regionals),

- A link to the ASL MAJOR sequence   http://www.freewebs.com/thorykksu/aslmajorsequence.htm  (please remember that not all courses are offered all semesters.  Check the course schedule at KSU's main site to see what courses will be offered during the semester you wish to register, http://www.registrars.kent.edu/ScheduleOfClasses/ ).

- A link to the ASL MINOR sequence: http://www.freewebs.com/thorykksu/aslminorsequence.htm (please remember that not all courses are offered all semesters.  Check the course schedule at KSU's main site to see what courses will be offered during the semester you wish to register, http://www.registrars.kent.edu/ScheduleOfClasses/ ).

- Information regarding CBE and PLACEMENT TESTING for students wishing to determine if they can register for a class other than ASL I.

- Information regarding PLANNING FOR ADVISOR MEETS and making ADVISING APPOINTMENTS.  ASL MAJORS AND MINORS ARE REQUIRED TO MEET WITH THEIR ADVISORS AT LEAST ONCE A SEMESTER.  If you decide not to meet with your advisor in person for some reason, no responsibility is taken for items missed in the sequence. (please also remember that not all courses are offered all semesters.  Check the course schedule at KSU's main site to see what courses will be offered during the semester you wish to register, http://www.registrars.kent.edu/ScheduleOfClasses/ )

- An explanation and some suggestions regarding the ASL IV PORTFOLIO PRESENTATIONS which students are required to schedule prior to moving from ASL IV to ASL V.

- Information related to making good quality RECORDING FOR ASL, for your class assignments and evaluations.

- Information to help you make the most of your RESIDENTIAL SCHOOL PRACTICUM placement or to plan a different type of practicum involving a topic of individual interest and/or research.

-Information about opportunities for Individual Investigations, special projects, study abroad (RESIDENTIAL SCHOOL PRACTICUM - see the section on alternatives to the one week residential placement)

- Suggestions and information on how to prepare for the SIGN PROFICIENCY EVALUATIONS (SLPI/SCPI).

- A comment on acceptable resources, and a link to a list of some of the materials available through the KSU library system related to ASL and the Deaf community (ON VLOGS, BLOGS, AND RESOURCES....),

- Information about DEAF COMMUNITY SOCIAL INTERACTIONS.  This includes guidelines for choosing acceptable sites for your interactions within the Deaf community, including your community service projects.

-  Answers to A FREQUENT  QUESTION....  One question relates to finding out why ASL instructors often are not posted in the course selection catalog, indicating which courses they'll teach during the next semester, and describing the general qualifications of our instructors.  Another question in this section relates to finding out if being "visual learner" would make ASL an "easier" language for a person to learn.

- An explanation as to why we don't participate in an ASL HONOR SOCIETY?, and, instead, participate in a LANGUAGE HONOR SOCIETY.

KENT MAIN CAMPUS:

Located 3rd floor Satterfield Hall ROOM 317.  

(Main campus lab is closed the first week of each semester and closed during finals)::

MENTORS are available to work on modules, provide help with presentations, or to give other help in the ASL lab Monday through Thursday  1:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m OR BY PREVIOUS ARRANGEMENT (ASL 49096 Design students will also be available at times)

ASC TUTORS are available in the ASL lab for "drop in" tutoring with ASL I, II, III on the following schedule:

Mondays 1:00-4:30 Stefanie

Tuesdays 2:30-4:30 Melissa (Bethany will be in the ASC lab for scheduled appointments from 5:00-7:00)

Wednesdays 4:00-7:00 Jessica (Bethany will be in the ASC lab for scheduled appointments from 5:00-7:00)

Thursdays 2:00-5:30 Bethany

(To see if you can schedule an appointment in ASC, or to find out about the other services that the Academic Success Center offers, please see their website at http://www.kent.edu/asc/ )

KSU-ASHTABULA:

Located in the Library.

FALL SEMESTER AND SPRING SEMESTER HOURS:

Brenda B. will be available on the Ashtabula campus Wednesdays from 6 pm to 8 pm.  She'll be available to Ashtabula students via VP to the main campus number (see above) on Mondays, from 1 pm to 2 pm.

________________________

KSU-STARK:

Stark ASL Lab is located in the Fine Arts Building Room 34D.
 
FALL SEMESTER AND SPRING SEMESTER HOURS:

??  No news from this campus.

All are subject to change depending on extenuating circumstances.

__________________________

KSU-TRUMBULL:

Monday through Thursday  1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. with an additional peer tutor available Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.

To see the sequence of classes for ASL majors,

click here: http://www.freewebs.com/thorykksu/proposedaslmajor.htm

To see the sequence of classes for ASL minors,

click here: http://thorykksu.webs.com/aslminorsequence.htm

When planning projects, individual investigations, and presentations for your ASL courses, it is NOT appropriate to use predominantly on-line resources, especially vlogs and blogs, unless you are only gathering language samples, or only looking for topics for informal discussions.  Vlogs and blogs are personal opinion - they are editorial. You have no way of knowing if the views and information presented on vlogs are representative of a large segment of the Deaf community....or representative of a specialized few.  You also have no way to account for bias, or to check for accuracy and validity of information reported. 

Starting in 2008, Kent State Library has begun to purchase and build their ASL materials.  Click here for a listing of SOME of the materials you can find thru the KSU library system:  http://www.freewebs.com/thorykksu/ksulibrarymaterials.htm

THANK YOU DR. VOELKER AND DR. SPOHN!!

Usually students who come to KSU with either no formal training in ASL, or one year of ASL (either through high school courses or community college courses) register for ASL I.  However, at times a student may wish to see if their skills would enable them to succeed at a higher level class, due to having taken multiple semesters of ASL in high school or at another post-secondary institution, or due to life experience.  When this occurs, the student needs to make arrangements to take a placement exam - an exam to see what level ASL skills they have, so that they can be appropriately "placed" or matched with an ASL class.

ASL placement exams are given in groups of six and cover not only whether or not you can sign at a certain level, but also if you have mastered the related concepts for a level.  For example, being able to inflect verbs is good, but you also need to know what you are doing when you inflect verbs - you need to be aware of distribution and other aspects. Questions related to culture and history are also a part of this test.

CBE (Credit By Examination) testing is similar, but is taken by students who wish to test for credit for their ASL skills.  If the CBE results indicate ASL skills at a particular level, then the student may pay for equivalent credit through KSU.

Placement exams and CBE are NOT the same as Sign Communication Proficiency Interviews, Sign Language Proficiency Interviews, or American Sign Language Proficiency Interviews.  The SCPI, SLPI or ASLPI are intended to be evaluations of your final ASL skills, after completion of most of your coursework, to document your ASL levels for future employment needs.  Many careers and employers provide salary bonuses or incentives to applicants who can document skills in a second language, including ASL.  The SCPI/SLPI/ASLPI provides that documentation.  Information regarding these end-stage evaluations are found elsewhere on this page.

Students planning on taking placement or CBE exams should make arrangements to take the exam during the semester prior to their attempting to register for ASL classes.  This allows time to schedule you into a testing group, and time to process the results, prior to actually having to register for class.  It also ensures that information is current (placement exam results that are older than one year would not, for example, provide adequate information about current levels to place you appropriately). SEE THE SCHEDULE OF TESTING BELOW.  To schedule an exam, you need to contact Mr. Steve Vickery (svickery@kent.edu) or Mr. Fred Palchick (fpalchick@stark.kent.edu).  Students may take the exam at either site.

ASL Placement Test Schedule Given by S. Vickery, MAIN KENT CAMPUS: 

Third Saturday in January

First Saturday in April

Last Saturday in August

Third Saturday in September

Second Saturday in November

ASL Placement Test Schedule Given by F. Palchick, KSU-STARK CAMPUS

For directions to Kent Main or Kent Stark Campuses, click here: http://kentstate.kent.edu/directions/

ANY STUDENT WHO IS ENTERING ASL COURSES AT KSU FOR THE FIRST TIME, AND WISHING TO TRY TO REGISTER FOR ANY COURSE ABOVE ASL 19201, NEEDS TO TAKE A PLACEMENT TEST.  (i.e. if you are a new student to KSU, if you are transfering into KSU, if you have taken courses outside of KSU, ETC. and wish to try to register for any course above ASL 19201, you MUST take the appropriate placement test as described on this page.)

IF YOU ARE HOPING TO REGISTER FOR ASL 19202, 29201, OR 29202, YOU WILL NEED TO PICK ONE OF THE DATES AND SITES LISTED ABOVE AND CONTACT EITHER MR. VICKERY OR MR. PALCHICK AS APPROPRIATE FOR THE SITE/DATE THAT YOU CHOOSE.  YOUR SCORE ON THE PLACEMENT TEST WILL INDICATE THE COURSE YOU WILL BE ALLOWED TO REGISTER.

IF YOU ARE HOPING TO REGISTER FOR ASL 39201 OR 39202, YOU WILL NEED TO PICK ONE OF THE DATES AND SITES LISTED ABOVE AND CONTACT EITHER MR. VICKERY OR MR. PALCHICK AS APPROPRIATE AND CONTACT R. THORYK (rthoryk@kent.edu) TO ARRANGE A PRESENTATION.  YOUR SCORE ON THE PLACEMENT TEST, COUPLED WITH A SCORE OF 8 OR ABOVE ON THE PRESENTATION, WILL INDICATE THE COURSE YOU WILL BE ALLOWED TO REGISTER.

FOR INFORMATION ON HOW TO PREPARE FOR THE PLACEMENT TEST/CBE, PLEASE CLICK HERE:

http://www.freewebs.com/thorykksu/placementtestprep.htm

Please remember that not all courses are offered all semesters.  Check the course schedule at KSU's main site to see what courses will be offered during the semester you wish to register, http://www.registrars.kent.edu/ScheduleOfClasses/ 

ASL programs, courses, and instructor qualifications vary WIDELY, and many do not include evaluation against an outside standard.  In order to document equivilency to a KSU ASL course, students requesting acceptance of transfer credits for ASL 19201, 19202, 29201 or 29202 need to take the KSU ASL placement test.  Placement on the test will document credit accepted (if you place at ASL 19202, for example, acceptance for transferring credit for ASL 19201 would be given).  Information about taking the KSU ASL placement test can be found by clicking here: CBE and PLACEMENT TESTING  Placement tests are FREE.

Acceptance of credit for any other ASL course above placement into ASL 29202 needs to be discussed with the ASL program coordinator.

EVERY semester you should meet with your advisor to check where you are in your ASL sequence and to plan your next semester and beyond.

You should also regulary check your KAPS, which can be done through the Flashline site.

One year before your expected graduation, you should make an appointment with your college for your graduation audit (the College of Arts and Sciences, in Bowman Bldg. if you are an ASL major, or the College of Education, in White Hall, if you are an interpreting student or Deaf Ed. major).

In between, you can access these two sites to start planning your courses for future semesters:

IF YOU ARE AN ASL STUDENT BEFORE FALL 2009, CLICK HERE FOR YOUR ASL TRACK AND NOTES:  http://www.freewebs.com/thorykksu/aslpriortofall2009.htm

IF YOU ARE AN ASL STUDENT IN FALL 2009 OR AFTER, CLICK HERE FOR YOUR GRADUATION MAP:http://www.freewebs.com/thorykksu/aslsequencefall2009.htm

ALL STUDENTS SHOULD MAKE SURE YOU HAVE YOUR ASL IV PORTFOLIO PRESENTATION DONE AND ON-FILE IN THE MCLS OFFICE. 

MAKE SURE YOU HAVE YOUR SCPI DONE AND ON-FILE IN THE MCLS OFFICE.  ASL MAJORS NEED TO HAVE A SCPI  LEVEL OF INTERMEDIATE PLUS IN ORDER TO REGISTER FOR SOME OF THE REQUIRED UPPER DIVISION ASL COURSES; ASL MAJORS WITH ED. MINORS MUST HAVE A SCPI LEVEL OF ADVANCED OR ABOVE IN ORDER TO STUDENT TEACH. 

ADDITIONALLY, ASL WITH ED MINORS NEED TO REMEMBER:

"that it is your responsibility to obtain and have on file your OPI or SCPI (documenting proficiency in your target language at the advanced level or above), as well as verification of your mastery of linguistics, culture, and texts related to your target language (as evidenced by standard level achievement of C or better on items such as tests, videos, essays, and/or presentations). Ed. minors are required to meet with their advisors every semester."

For more information about the ed minor (to obtain licensure for teaching ASL K-12 in the schools) see: http://www.freewebs.com/thorykksu/edlicensureinasl.htm

BEFORE YOU COME TO SCHEDULE CLASSES:

1. If you are in ASL 29202, you need to SCHEDULE YOUR PORTFOLIO PRESENTATION.  There is information about this on this page of this website.

2.  If you are in ASL 39202, you need to BRING WITH YOU YOUR SCPI REPORT OR HAVE IT ON FILE ALREADY IN THE MCLS OFFICE.. If you are planning on registering for ADVANCED PROFICIENCY or DESIGN, you will need to HAVE A COPY OF YOUR SCPI REPORT SHOWING A LEVEL OF INTERMEDIATE PLUS OR ABOVE.

 It seems like it is always advising time again!  To avoid having all of my email addresses filled with back-and-forth emails regarding setting up advising sessions, if you want to meet with me about scheduling or anything else...or just to chat, smile....there is a sign-up sheet on my door in Satterfield.  Pick out the time that best suits you and put your name there to reserve it.  Thank you!  Robbie T.

When you record for your ASL class, it's very important that you produce not only good signing, but LEGIBLE signing.  That means that you need to make sure that your instructor can accurately "read" all the details in your video clip, in order to grade you and give you feedback.

Before you record, go on-line and access http://classes.jmc.kent.edu/videobasics/lectures.htm .  Watch the general information about filming. 

Prepare your script, and practice, if you know ahead of time what your recording will be.  If your assignment requires spontaneous signing (i.e. you don't know the script until you arrive at the camera), practice your vocabulary and review how your instructor signed different types of dialogue/sentences in class.

When you go to record, don’t stand with your side directly to the camera because then we can’t see your face.  Turn so that you are at a 45 degree angle.  Make sure there is no BACKLIGHTING (i.e. lighting coming from behind you - it puts a shadow on your face in the film).  Wear high contrast clothes (that means that if you are light-skinned, wear something dark.  If your skin coloring is darker, wear something light.  DON'T wear patterns and plaids).  When the recording is done, MAKE SURE YOU CHECK YOUR WORK.  You are responsible for making sure that your instructor can see everything he or she needs to see when watching your tape or DVD. 

IF WE CAN’T SEE THE NEEDED DETAILS, WE CANNOT GRADE YOUR RECORDING, and it will be returned to you as no credit.  We need to see MORE than just the signs on your hands.  We need to see your eyebrows, mouth, eye gaze, fingers, hands, tilt of the body, tilt of the head, and use of space.  The video needs to be well-lit and distinct/clear.  If we can't see all that, it is the same as handing in an English paper that is handwritten and smudged.  We can GUESS at what you meant to communicate, but we can't see for sure that you actually succeeded at communicating correctly.  And your grade and feedback needs to be based on what we can see you do, not on what we can guess.

If you have problems or questions, your instructor or a lab mentor or a worker in Student Media will be happy to give you more filming information and answer your questions.

Students in ASL IV hoping to register for any upper level courses within the ASL program,  will need to make an appointment to present their portfolio and demonstrate their progress in ASL and Deaf culture/history to a panel of instructors, prior to the end of their semester of ASL IV.  The purpose of the presentation is to:

1. Demonstrate your ASL skills at that point.

2. Provide you with an opportunity for self-evaluation, and an opportunity for collective feedback, prior to committing to additional ASL coursework.

3. Provide an experience in conversing in ASL which would be similar to what you might encounter in some employment interviews.  Because of this, appropriate attire, similar to a job interview, should be worn.

4. Give you an opportunity to discuss your plans for your community service project(s) in ASL V and ASL VI if you have a particular interest.

5. Provide an outcome measurement between year two and three, as a gateway to upper division study.

Your portfolio should contain your work up to that point.  Starting in Fall 2007, you will also keep a DVD of your signing progress in your portfolio. 

During your portfolio presentation, you'll want to review where you started when you began to study ASL, and how you feel you have progressed - what areas do you feel are your strengths and where do you feel you need to focus more energy and work?  You can also highlight specific information you have learned, for example through your community service project in ASL IV, or through research and presentations you may have done during your classes. 

While presenting, use and show your strengths.  Your ability to use  different kinds of classifiers, directional verbs, varied sentence types, and varied vocabulary are all great things to demonstrate to the panel.  So is fingerspelling, use of loan signs/lexicalized signs, and idioms.

You'll also want to be able to explain your general plan/goal/ideas for completing your community service hours during ASL V and ASL VI.  This may be a discussion of your interests, it may be a project you have begun to design, or it may be an explanation of the organizations you hope to work with during events/projects that the organization has initiated.  It might also just be several loosely related ideas, which you might need some help organizing into a really cohesive plan. 

During and after your presentation, expect to be asked to answer questions from the panel.  Have your portfolio with you, in an organized manner, to be used to help illustrate your presentation.  We want to mainly see how you've progressed since starting your post-secondary ASL classes, so don't worry about trying to incorporate multimedia presentations or Power Point - we're not looking for a big production, only a review of your progress and an illustration of your present level of skills.  

Presentations will be in ASL.  Doing an ASL presentation while in ASL IV can be stressful, because you may not be feeling very confident yet in your ASL, especially for longer, sustained presentations. That's ok - the panel will know that you are still working to build your skills, smile.  Use the resources available to you to help you feel more comfortable. Use your visual information from your portfolio to help demonstrate and explain points and to supplement the explanations you can give in ASL.  Point to items and/or show things from your portfolio, in order to supplement your ASL explanations.  Practice your presentation prior to your scheduled date.  Ask for help, feedback, and suggestions from the ASL lab mentors and/or specific instructors while you are rehearsing, and there are 004 students also willing to help you practice (you can get their emails from Robbie when you set up your presentation appointment).  Make sure you get adequate rest the night before and arrive early for your presentation so that you don't feel rushed. 

ASL IV students should contact Robbie Thoryk (rthoryk@kent.edu) to arrange for their portfolio presentations.  Presentations need to be scheduled prior to ASL IV midterm and completed prior to the end of the semester.  THE PRESENTATIONS ARE ONLY SCHEDULED IN MARCH AND APRIL FOR SPRING SEMESTER; AUGUST FOR SUMMER SESSION.  If you miss a deadline, you will need to wait until the next round of presentations.

When you schedule your appointment, additional information will be given to you.

The evaluations used to assess signing skills go by a number of different names - the Sign Communication Proficiency Interview (SCPI), the Sign Language Proficiency Interview (SLPI), and the American Sign Language Proficiency Interview (ASLPI).  All are pretty much the same in theory.  You'll go in, and the evaluator will begin an interview with you, which will gradually increase or decrease in complexity and difficulty.  The interview is only moderately structured - it can range over a number of topics in order to reproduce the flow of a conversation. 

There really isn't any particular way to quickly prepare for the evaluation interview.  It's not something for which you can "cram" or prepare in a short amount of time.  You need to be out in the community, using your sign skills, on a regular basis, over the span of your coursework in ASL.  You need to be used to different signing styles, and you need to be accustomed to conversational signing speed.

The topics and questions in the SLPI can vary, although they usually touch on such conversational standards as asking you to tell a bit about yourself.  To have a positive experience with the interview process, you need three things: 

1.  An ability to control any anxiety/nervousness so that you can calmly think and respond to spontaneous conversation.

2.  An ability to bring up information and topics to discuss, even when under stress, so that you aren't just contributing single word answers to questions, but rather giving full, expanded information that "shows off" what you can do in sign.  Remember  -they can only score you based on the language sample that you produce.  If you produce little expressive output, your score will reflect that.

3.  ASL receptive and expressive skills.  This DEFINITELY includes ASL grammar and nonmanual markers!

Some students pass the evaluation at an acceptable level (for most students that would be at the Intermediate Plus  Level) on their first try; others need to schedule a second attempt.   Some students need to retake the evaluation because they need to improve their sign skills; other students need to retake the evaluation because they go blank and have difficulty thinking of adequate responses to spontaneous conversational questions.  To prepare, you'll want to become as comfortable as possible with the interview format, which is a spontaneous conversation. 

To help you with this, ASL V, ASL VI, Linguistics, and Deaf Culture and Community have been designed to give you opportunities to practice unrehearsed conversations, and longer presentations.  It will also be to your benefit to spend time conversing in sign outside of class, within the Deaf community.  Go out of your way to start conversations - inquire about other people, and tell them about yourself, your interests, your background, your future.  Keep the conversation going and flowing; smile, look comfortable, and be able to "fix" mistakes smoothly, without becoming more anxious or having to stop (DON'T "erase the board" by waving your hands in the air, smile). Work in a joke, or an idiom, or a piece of cultural or historical information. 

The ASL program instructors, and the ASL lab mentors, will also generally be happy to engage in casual, friendly conversations if you approach politely and make sure you're not picking a time when they are busy or a time when you are interrupting something.  But be careful about this - you want to be able to converse with people across a variety of signing styles - so it is not in your best interest to practice by going to only one or two people with whom you feel most comfortable and most easily understood.  Your evaluator will likely sign things a bit differently from how your favorite Kent instructor might sign, with a different rhythm, slightly altered handshape, or an unexpected/different sign,  and you need to be able to adjust to that.

Another beneficial exercise to prepare for a structured interview is to practice free associations and cognitive fluency.  Start on one topic and sign what you can about it, then see if you can segue to another, related topic, practicing smooth, logical transitions and polishing your ability to sign at length, incorporating multiple ideas and concepts.  Have a partner give you random topics about which to sign.

Although you want to be "on target" with your answers to SLPI interview questions, you also might practice the "Beauty Pageant" technique - practice signing in depth about three or four topics until you are very comfortable with that information and can sign it almost automatically.  Then have a friend ask you spontaneous questions and see if you can bring the conversation around from each question to one of the topics which you've rehearsed and about which you feel comfortable signing.  For example, you might practice signing at length about your family/education and residential history/career plans, plus a particular area of interest such as a hobby or an academic area, and one area of Deaf history, such as DPN.  When the evaluator then would ask you about yourself, you'd have already practiced giving a great deal of information related to that topic, and you'd be able to start the conversation off on a positive, strong, introduction.  However, if the evaluator later asked you an unexpected question, such as do you think videogames affect children's learning ability, you could take that question for which you are unprepared, and bring it around to talking about the importance of education teaching children pride and identity, as was demonstrated during DPN....which would then enable you to launch into your prepared information related to DPN.

For more information about the SLPI, including the SLPI rating scale, see: http://www.rit.edu/~wjnncd/scpi/main.html

To help you prepare more for your SLPI, read the material at http://www.ntid.rit.edu/slpi/documents/Model%20for%20Majors%205-2-08.pdf  and follow its suggestions.

To arrange for your evaluation, you can contact

1. The Western Pennsylvania School for the Deaf, at:

crhoten@wpsd.org

2. The Ohio School for the Deaf at:

http://www.ohioschoolforthedeaf.org/SLPI.aspx

As of 2009, OSD is offering the SCPI/SLPI via VP as well as on-campus in Columbus.  Be careful - it might sound tempting to do your SCPI via VP and save yourself the drive time but....make SURE you are comfortable interacting in two dimensions on the VP.  That can be VERY different than interacting in person, in three dimensions.  Don't risk reducing your rating just to save some time on the interstate.

You may also wish to try contacting other area sites:

Kentucky School for the Deaf

http://www.ksd.k12.ky.us/Intrepreters%20Sign%20Lang/sign_communication_proficiency_i.htm

Michigan School for the Deaf

http://www.cenmi.org/msdb-LIO/scpi.asp

Rochester School for the Deaf

http://www.rsdeaf.org/enhancement_asl.asp

A fee is associated with each evaluation, and it is not cheap.  So PREPARE PREPARE PREPARE!  Get out and away from other students and sign with the Deaf community so that you get used to native users and you generalize your skills for different individual styles.  Videorecord yourself and critique your signing, watching ESPECIALLY for English intrusions. The more you sign with good signers, the more you'll start thinking spontaneously in ASL, which is what you will need to do well in a spontaneous conversation.

ASL VI students need to aim for Intermediate Plus before the end of March; ASL majors planning on student teaching need to achieve Advanced level prior to their student teaching semester.

Best wishes and good luck!!

CHOOSING A SITE FOR DEAF COMMUNITY STUDENT INTERACTIONS/COMMUNITY SERVICE PROJECTS

We all know it can be difficult to go into a group of people you don’t know, ESPECIALLY if they are all using a language with which you are not yet fully confident.  HOWEVER, interacting in spontaneous social settings, with MULTIPLE adult models of quality and varying ASL styles, over MULTIPLE times, IS a necessary step in your acquisition of ASL skills and Deaf cultural knowledge.  These social experiences help you to become accustomed to the individual style variations you will encounter in the community, gives you somewhat more accurate feedback on your mastery, and helps you begin to feel more at ease with fluent ASL users.  It also helps the community begin to know you – it develops contacts that you might find useful, and fun, later in your studies and career.  Those are some of the main reasons for requiring social interactions and community service projects while you are studying a language.

To help you judge acceptable interactions vs. non-acceptable interactions, here is a non-inclusive list of examples:

The interactions, especially for community service projects in ASL IV, V, and VI,  are not so much about YOU helping "THEM."  The interactions and projects are of more benefit to you, because you are using the interaction obtained to improve YOUR skills, something that would not be possible without signers who are willing to give you some of their time and attention. So pick settings, sites, activities that provide you with the best models and the most interaction.

INTERACTING WITH STAFF OR FACULTY  RELATED TO KSU IS NOT ACCEPTABLE AS A DEAF COMMUNITY INTERACTION.  And interacting with other ASL students is DEFINITELY not an interaction within the Deaf community.  You need to be networking within the Deaf community, you need to be exposed to members of the culture, and you need to be interacting with competent adult models of the language.

If you ask BEFORE you go to a social interaction, your instructor can help you with deciding if you've picked an appropriate interaction or not .  You should also check out another page on this website which addresses "Student Project Contacts."  There are some ideas listed there for places to try, for interactions.  The page titled "events" also has additional options. IF YOU HAVE A PARTICULAR AREA OF INTEREST AND YOU BEGIN EARLY ENOUGH (generally the end of the semester prior to your required community service, or at least within the first two weeks of the semester when your community service project is due), then you can contact the ASL program coordinator, and efforts will be made to work with you to design a program focused on your area of interest, especially for community service projects.  For example, students have shadowed Deaf rehabilitation workers; they've volunteered within CCD's (you should know what those are), helping in mental health offices; they've interviewed Deaf community members regarding law enforcement techniques which OAD (you should know what that is also) was helping to develop.

IF YOU ARE LOOKING FOR INFORMATION PERTAINING TO COMMUNITY SERVICE PROJECTS IN ASL 29202, 39201, or 39202 YOU SHOULD CLICK HERE: http://www.freewebs.com/thorykksu/studentprojectcontacts.htm ).  Student community service projects are to build your portfolio for your future career interviews by adding QUALITY experiences.  Community service projects also provide you with an opportunity to build your network of ties within the Deaf community, and to begin to develop a reputation for yourself within the Deaf community.  Finally, community service projects also allows you to explore different fields and careers within the Deaf community.  ALL OF THIS CAN HAPPEN IF YOU START PLANNING EARLY ENOUGH. 

Disclaimer: 

Kent State University does not recommend any particular site or activity, and expects the student to investigate activities and use good judgement.  Kent State university does not guarantee personal health or safety at any point during off-campus activities, nor does it protect against risk of loss of my personal property.  Students should be covered by appropriate insurance.   Students assume all risks incurred by participation in off-campus activities and release Kent State University and employees from any and all claims.

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It seems I get some questions fairly frequently, from students and from various faculty-types:

QUESTION:  This question has different forms to begin with  ("I have tried all of the foreign languages and have had trouble in each of them..." or " I get to the second semester and then do poorly in languages..." or "I am a visual learner...") but they all end the same: "... so I would do better in a sign class, right?"

ANSWER:  I"m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but the answer is no.   ASL is coded in the same language areas of the brain as aural/oral languages.  The code for ASL (handshapes, locations, orientations, movements,
nonmanuals, and use of space) are coded as symbols, not as pictures.  ASL has visual symbols just like spoken languages have visual symbols (letters).  Your brain treats the visual symbols of ASL the same as the visual symbols of the other languages - i.e. if Russian in written form, or Chinese in written form presents you with difficulties, ASL will too.  Lots of people think that because ASL signs LOOK like gestures, it is "visual" in the same sense as pictures.  Gestures that "look like" what they stand for or mean are called "iconic" - you can figure out what they refer to, just be looking at them.  A lot of people who don't know ASL think that ASL signs are iconic, and that's not true.  For the majority of ASL signs, you cannot tell
what they are from just looking at the sign, just like looking at a sequence of written letters together in Russian or English doesn't "look like" whatever concept they stand for. And to make it more complicated, much of the meaning and grammar of ASL isn't coded on the hands - i.e. it isn't the handshape that carries the meaning - it's the direction and the speed and the use of space.  ASL is symbolic and linguistic, and processed by your brain just as written Russian would be.  We have the same types of grammar rules as other languages and the same issues with modifying verbs to agree with subjects.  Actually, we have MORE rules about that than some aural/oral languages. ASL is a polymorphemic language, which means that in addition to having rules about how to build sentences, there are LOTS of rules about meanings that you ADD ON to a specific single sign, by manipulating space, speed, direction, etc.  It's been estimated that ASL is about the same difficulty to learn as Russian.  So....if you've had problems with other languages, it's probably a good bet that you'll have problems with ASL too....because it is a LANGUAGE.  It's not pictures.  It's not gestures.  It's not mime.  It's a symbolic system with rules and abstractions.

QUESTION:  Is there any reason why the instuctors' names have not been posted on the ASL list of classes for next semester? Do all of the instructors have a degree?

ANSWER:  Counting main campus and the regional campuses, one person in the KSU ASL faculty (in the department of Modern and Classical Languages) has a Ph.D.; two others are applying for doctoral study.  Eight instructors have advanced degrees (MA or MEd), and four more instructors are in the process of obtaining their MA's/MEd's.  This leaves just two instructors (both regional) with BA's and not yet pursuing a graduate degree, as of Fall 2008.  Four instructors also have Ohio Department of Education Foreign Language Licensure.

There are multiple reasons why instructors' names are not listed in the course catalog, but I'll list the top three: 

A.  The first reason has to do with scheduling instructors and their available times - with six instructors currently pursuing graduate study, seven different campuses to staff (an area covering multiple counties and a large geographical region), and nine instructors also holding positions elsewhere (several of our instructors also work with BVR, two work at area high schools, one is involved with theater and directing, three work as interpreters etc.), matching instructors' times to class times can be quite a challenge.  Changes often happen up until the last week before a new semester starts.  Complicating this further is time line. To be posted, courses and instructors are matched usually three semesters in advance (in the middle of Fall semester 2008, for example, we completed a rough outline for spring 2010).  Because of this, even when we do post tentative instructors, the instructors are always subject to change, since work schedules and class schedules can change a great deal over the span of more than a year. 

B.  ASL is also a living language and the field of ASL, along with the programming to teach ASL and the instructors for specific courses, continually evolves, which produces a second reason why ASL instructors are not always posted for ASL courses.  An on-going revision of the ASL program occurs, in order to;

 -Better prepare our students for their future careers and also for further advanced study, as the job market and field changes.  When the ASL program was first developed, there were fewer careers envisioned as being applicable to ASL.  It was thought that students would become interpreters, teachers, or residential advisors.  That's changed considerably.  From the class of 2008, we have students who are, indeed, working as interpreters and teachers, but we also have students in graduate school pursuing advanced degrees in counselling, psychology, and other areas.  We have students working in business, mental health, and community advocacy.   Some of our current students want to interpret, some want to learn to design and teach ASL courses...but some also are interested in sociology and the interaction of different ethnic groups within the Deaf community, some are interested in linguistics and in languages as they interact, some are interested in technology and how it applies to ASL and to information dispersion in the Deaf community, some are interested in the cultural and historic roots of the Deaf community.  Our program expands so that we can meet our students' growing interests, nurture their innate talents and skills, and provide them with a broad range of career alternatives and options for advanced study.

 -Better reflect a linguistic and cultural perspective of ASL as a language. When the ASL program was originally developed in response to the passage of HB 216, Kent State asked the special education department, within the College of Education, to write the curriculum, since no one employed by Kent at that time had much working knowedge of ASL.  Time has, however, happily changed.  We have, over the span of 2006 to 2008, been working on realigning the ASL program with American Council on Teaching Foreign Language Standards (ACTFL) so that we focus on a language, a community of people, a culture, and a history.  We have worked to detach ourselves from the medical model, and to broaden the career possibilities of our students.  As this process occurs, we design new courses and sequences (the first step will occur in Fall 2009, when the ASL major and minor course sequences change; the next step is hoped to occur sometime in 2010). 

As the program is continually re-evaluated and revised in response to these two issues, new courses are designed.  We then try to fit an instructor's experiences, interests, and teaching style to each new course's content and level, thus again requiring some re-shuffling of faculty until we achieve a best fit.

C.  A third reason that we are reluctant to list instructors as teaching specific classes is because we do not want students scheduling classes to maintain the same teacher, or to avoid an instructor who perhaps spells faster or signs with more classifiers.  Most of our classes are taught as immersion classes, and all classes are taught at least partially in ASL using  bilingual-bicultural comparisons. A student who tries to schedule the same instructor repeatedly  DOES make it easier for that student to understand the instructor over time...but this doesn't allow the student's ASL skills to adequately grow and adjust to individual variation.  It's important, when learning a language, to be exposed to variety in language usage -in terms of gender, ethnicity, regional variations, socioeconomic status, and the manner in which the signer/instructor learned sign themselves. 

To learn more about the ASL faculty at KSU, see the page titled "Meet Our Instructors....."  (http://www.freewebs.com/thorykksu/meetourinstructors.htm

I received a question from a student which seemed to be a good topic to share:

"Hello, I was an ASL student for the last several semesters and I enjoyed the fine art of ASL very much....One thing that always bothered me was that it seemed as if every single major or minor available on campus that you could take had a national honor society that recognized hard work and effort put into the specific area....but ASL had only its club.  I had thought that there was no national honor society for ASL, and then I stumbled onto this website: http://www.aslhonorsociety.org/.  I was wondering why KSU hasn't started a chapter of ASLHS on campus."

There IS, and has been, an honor society - the Phi Sigma Iota Society.  It recognizes exempliary scholarship in language studies - ANY language, including ASL. 

When I helped to write the bill that recognized ASL in Ohio, and worked for voter rights, arranged rallies and demonstrations, and testified in the senate, our goal was to have ASL take its rightful place alongside Spanish, French, Japanese, Russian, Arabic, etc.  The bill passed and became law, the programs were established, but Ohio has progressed very slowly in establishing the mind-set within its own students and programs that ASL is an actual, scholarly language, not just an accommodation or a track to interpreting.  Being welcomed into Phi Sigma Iota was a major step - the foreign language field, which had, for so long, resisted the inclusion of ASL,  finally "accepted" us, smile.  That acceptance was not easily won....nor has it been fully extended.

Deaf protesters at the Capital 1989

  (You should know Gary Olsen - Executive Director of NAD in 1988 and 2007, co-founder of NAD's Youth Leadership Camps, and one of the people involved in DPN....?:

From DeafPresidentNow@Everything2.com:  "March 6, 1988 - The decision of Zinser's selection was announced via flyers handed out on campus 90 minutes before the Board was supposed to visit campus to announce the choice. Several hundred angry students blocked traffic in front of campus on Florida Avenue until Gary Olsen, president of the National Association of the Deaf, suggested they march to the Mayflower Hotel and demand an explanation of the board members. When they arrived, Spilman and Phil Bravin - a deaf member of the Board - were busy answering questions from reporters and chaos broke out as the students approached. In a meeting with representatives of the student body, Spilman supposedly said "deaf people are not able to function in a hearing world" though she has long denied making the statement. She agreed to come to campus the following afternoon to continue the discussion. By midnight, most students had left the hotel and gone to the White House to meet up with other students who had gone there instead. The group then walked to the U.S. Capitol before returning to Kendall Green.")

Being invited to be a member of Phi Sigma Iota announces to the ASL student, and to the world, that the ASL student has done outstanding work AT THE SAME LEVEL AS OUTSTANDING STUDENTS IN ANY LANGUAGE, and has done so by studying the same type of material.  It re-affirms that our ASL students can compete on-level with any other language, and it offers our ASL students membership into a society with a history, a substantial network of members, and a level of recognition by future employers and graduate programs.

The ASLTA honorary society doesn't do that, at least not yet.  It is relatively new, it belongs to an organization which hasn't really shown a great deal of significant growth in membership yet, and it emphasizes ASL as being seperate rather than being equal. 

Both honorary societies require dues.  Our choice right now is that our nominated ASL students can pay a fee to become members of a long-standing, known and valued honorary society (Phi Sigma Iota) which has a larger membership behind it and which symbolizes publicly the equality of ASL with other languages...or they can pay a fee to become a member of a new, unknown and unproven honorary society (ASLTA) which has a small membership behind it and which emphasizes the seperateness of ASL.  At this point in the program's development, I would prefer to work on the first option.  Hopefully, at some point in the future, BOTH memberships can be offered and valued.