American Sign Language (ASL) Program
The mission of the American Sign Language (ASL) Program is to provide ASL and Deaf cultural learning opportunities to members of the Penn community. Penn’s ASL program is the largest and most comprehensive of all the schools in the Consortium for Language Teaching and Learning. We currently offer six courses in our program: Beginner ASL, parts I and II, Intermediate ASL, parts I and II, Medical ASL (a parallel course to Intermediate ASL, part II), Advanced ASL, part I—a course that focuses on the history of the Deaf in America, and a Topics in Deaf Culture course—an advanced content course in which students discuss issues related to deafness and Deaf culture in the target language—ASL. Throughout the six-course sequence, Deaf cultural topics are integrated into the curriculum via assigned readings and subsequent on-line and in-class discussions, attendance at our guest lecture series and Deaf community events in Philadelphia, as well as through other media and technology resources. This summer, we hope to expand the program of study in ASL and offer an intensive ASL III/IV course which will allow students to be immersed in ASL all day for six weeks, thus increasing their fluency and skill levels.
The Program has a strong commitment to the quality of its courses and instructors. Before completing each course, all students participate in a competency interview with their respective instructor that assesses their cumulative ASL production and skill levels. Students are given very specific feedback that identifies their strengths and weaknesses in ASL production, thus helping them target areas for improvement in preparation for that course’s final exam and for entry into the next level of ASL.
Each semester, students complete a cumulative written self-assessment of ASL production that draws from instructor and peer feedback as well as personal assessment on video self-recordings and class presentations. Students are required to maintain an ASL portfolio that shows actual video footage as well as written reflection of ASL production from their first semester throughout the four-course sequence. By the end of the fourth course, students are able to track their performance growth through the semesters.
Our program runs 12 sections of ASL per semester and employs 6 instructors (1 full-time Lecturer and Coordinator, 5 adjunct instructors). All of our instructors are required to obtain and maintain certification from the American Sign Language Teachers’ Association (ASLTA), a national organization that is committed to the pedagogical growth and professional education of American Sign Language instructors. The ASLTA has an established relationship with ACTFL and promotes the integration of ACTFL’s 5Cs (National Standards for Foreign Language Learning and Teaching) into ASL curricula and pedagogy.
Many of the students enrolled in the Program take the courses to satisfy the Language Requirement. Our program attracts and retains students from throughout the College and professional schools. There is a large cohort of Nursing and other professional students who take ASL to benefit them in their careers. We offer a Medical ASL option in the fourth semester of the sequence to meet the specific professional needs of these students.
For students who wish to take ASL beyond the four-course requirement, we offer two elective courses—Advanced ASL I and Topics in Deaf Culture. Students take ASL for various personal and professional reasons, but regardless of their motivation for taking ASL their satisfaction rate from course to course and with the program itself runs very high. This is evidenced by the consistently high course reviews and evaluations each semester as well as a groundswell of support for the development of an ASL minor in the near future.
One goal is to continue to meet the specific needs of the various Schools at Penn. We hope to be able to offer a Medical ASL course for Continuing Medical Education credits for currently-practicing physicians and nurses.
Part of our programmatic mission is to incorporate cultural activities and Deaf cultural awareness into our courses. One way we do this is by inviting a distinguished speaker from the Deaf community to address the ASL and greater Penn communities on his or her specific background and experience or professional expertise. Our lectures are always informative and expose students to topics critical to understanding how complex, diverse, and accomplished members of the Deaf community can be. In addition to learning about the specific talents and backgrounds of the individual speakers, through these lectures, the audience has the opportunity to observe and interact with native ASL speakers and to understand further the complexity and beauty of ASL as demonstrated by those who are fluent in the language.
The ASL Program also aims to collaborate with other universities to maximize ASL learning opportunities for our students. We are developing ways to collaborate with Consortium schools with ASL programs—Brown and Columbia. In addition, we are establishing a relationship with The Siena School in Italy, thereby giving ASL students at Penn two study abroad program options related to international Deaf culture, other signed languages, and world-wide Deaf cultural exploration.
Each regular semester has, on average, 125-140 students enrolled.
Summer I: ASL I
Summer II: ASL II, III/IV intensive