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Teaching ASL:

Hello ASL Heroes!!!
     As a teacher of ASL if you aren't also teaching fingerspelling, numbers, non-manual markers, various inflections, ASL grammar, cultural tidbits, and so forth, you can teach about 20 signs per hour. If you ARE teaching all of the goodies, having regular review quizzes, incorporating 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. For more on my philosophy regarding curriculum development and ASL instruction (pedagogy) click here
     Below I'll put some links to various advice and tips for teachers of ASL. As time goes on (between teaching my own classes) I'll post more ideas and refine the list.
Take care and best wishes for a successful semester.
          Cordially,  - Dr. Bill

 

* The worth of a sign
* General guidelines
* Bilingual-Bicultural
* Qualifications: Are you qualified to teach? (01)
* How accurate should your 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
* Cheating: Dealing with cheating in the ASL classroom

 

 

Before you teach: 


Before you teach:
* Qualifications: Are you qualified to teach? (01)
* 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
 

Activities to review previous vocabulary: 


* Fingerspelling Race (1)

 

Classroom: 


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

 

Instructional technology: 


* Getting a PC Laptop to work with a Projector
* Should you get a laptop or a netbook?
* Creating videos

 

Fingerspelling: 


* The quick brown fox
* Who is your neighbor?
* You're a liar!

* Boggle
* Helen Keller Speller

 

Testing and Grading: 


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

* Score Converter

 

Numbers: 


Number games:
* general
* math game
* Bingo

 

Various: 


* Ask for a challenger (116)
* Classifier Charades
 

 

Politics: 


* How should I handle it when the ASL 2 teacher criticizes the sign variations of students who took my ASL 1 class?
* Handling criticism
 

 

 

 
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)

 

 

 












 

 

 

The information below consists of notes and "under construction" items for expansion and inclusion in the teaching resources list. When I get some time, (ha!), I will be explaining these and linking to them.

 

 

 


Available Workshop topics:
-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.

 


Dr. Bill's Notes:  (Will expand on these later 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
"Who's the leader" is a great game.
Everybody stands in a circle.
One person is chosen to be "it" and stands in the middle (eyes temporarily closed).
One person is chosen to be the "leader."
The "it" opens his/her eyes and tries to figure out who the leader is.
The leader makes a variety of movements and everyone in the circle must copy "exactly" what the leader is doing.  Make sure the first few leaders are "show offs" who will get the group doing all kinds of movements: head patting, turning around, leg shaking, clapping, mild dance moves, silly faces, etc.
● ___Who has the sign?
everyone sits in a circle
The teacher assigns one sign to each person
one person goes in the center of the circle - closes eyes.
one person volunteers to start and 'have the sign' (Person A).
Center person opens eyes.
(Person A) signs someone else's sign (Person B) without center person knowing it. once person B signs his own sign - he then 'has the sign' and signs someone else's sign.
center person tries to figure out who 'has the sign' by asking 'do you have the sign'? respondents must answer truthfully.

● ___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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