American Sign Language
is designed to introduce a visual-gestural language used by the Deaf
Community in Canada and the United States. Students will focus on the
basic conversational skills, emphasizing receptive and expressive abilities.
The courses stress a functional/notional approach, and give practice
for visual/gestural communication followed by comprehension skills and
grammatical structures. Communicative competence in ASL ultimately depends
on one's capabilities to satisfactorily progress through structured activities
in a series of ASL courses. The content for the courses in ASL is broken
into introduction, sign production, extended comprehension, interaction,
and breakaways, which include team-building, facial expression, visualization,
command, and finger spelling. Also, it includes cumulative reviews in
which students learn how to make appropriate introductions, how to get
someone's attention and how to negotiate the environment of signed conversations.
Exposure to the Deaf Community improves abilities as mentioned earlier.