ASL at App
BOONE, N.C.– Three times a week Alanna Davis, a junior majoring in Communication Sciences and Disorders at Appalachian State University, attends a completely silent class for her minor, American Sign Language. In this class, students learn the language and the importance of deaf culture.
“It’s honestly my favorite class of the week,” Davis said. “I look forward to seeing my classmates and teacher and just being able to immerse myself as much as possible and learn as much as I can from every class.”
Previously an elective, American Sign Language became an official minor of the Communication Sciences and Disorders department in the fall of 2020. Now, the minor fulfills the foreign language requirement for some bachelor’s degrees as well as the minor requirement for others.
Gail S. Donaldson, chair of the Department of Communication and Sciences and Disorders at Appalachian State University, said the American Sign Language minor was proposed during the 2019-2020 school year and was approved in January 2020. The minor was carried out after the small number of students enrolled in the spring 2019 sections of American Sign Language III and IV, students in the higher level American Sign Language courses requested it.
“In our original proposal, we anticipated that there would be 30-40 students pursuing the American Sign Language minor at any given time (across freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors) once the program was established,” Donaldson said. “Now, the program is at its capacity with just under 100 students with a declared American Sign Language minor.”
The Appalachian State University 2020-2021 undergraduate bulletin lists that the American Sign Language minor consists of three hours of an elective course and 12 hours of required courses.
Among those elective courses is Understanding Culture, which explores the diversity and unity of human experience through the lens of cultural anthropology. Introduction to Nonverbal Communication introduces nonverbal behavior as a form of communication, with emphasis on nonverbal communication in the classroom. Communication disorders surveys speech, language, and hearing disorders in children and adults. Say What? Language in Mind and Society explores the fundamental principles of modern linguistics, including the nature of human language and its relationship with thought, culture, and identity.
Due to the variety of different classes, American Sign Language students get an opportunity to fulfill other class requirements they may have for their majors along with the American Sign Language minor.
“My favorite part about American Sign Language is probably the challenge of it,” Davis said. “It’s very different from English. The order is more like Spanish, so it is quite challenging to learn.”
According to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, American Sign Language is a “language completely separate and distinct from English.” It contains all the fundamental features of language like gestures and sounds, but with its own rules for pronunciation, word formation, and word order.
Specifically, American Sign Language uses five parameters including handshape, palm orientation, movement, location, and non-manual signals. Handshape consists of the manual alphabet and other variations of handshapes. Palm orientation refers to which direction a signer’s palm is facing for a particular sign. Movement refers to how a signer moves their hands for a specific sign, movements can include tapping, wiggling, moving in a circle, up and down, etc. Location is the physical space where a sign happens in relation to a signer’s body within their signing space. Some common locations are the chin, shoulder, front of the body, and forehead. Non-manual signals include facial expressions and body movements used to convey additional meaning with a sign. Some examples are eyebrows, head nod, lips, and eyes.
Along with this, fingerspelling is also used along with the language and is used to spell out specific words, predominantly proper names, or to indicate the English word for something.
American Sign Language is best learned if practiced every day and with others who are also in the process of learning. There are several different ways to learn American Sign Language, both online and in person. The National Association of the Deaf (NAD), offers resources to learn American Sign Language including The ASL App, ASL Connect, and ASL Deafined - a resource the American Sign Language classes at Appalachian State University utilize.
The ASL App is an app designed by deaf people that teaches conversational American Sign Language and is downloadable through the app store. ASL Connect is a curriculum designed by Gallaudet University that offers American Sign Language courses online. ASL Deafined offers many features including themed lessons and a dictionary and is designed to teach American Sign Language at the user’s own pace.
“American Sign Language is not easy to learn,” Alanna Davis said. “It requires an insane amount of practice, you really have to practice every single day to really know the language. And this isn’t a class you can just overlook, you will not be able to successfully make it to American Sign Language III or IV if you don’t practice a whole lot in American Sign Language I and II.”
The American Sign Language classes at Appalachian State University combine group work, one-on-one signing, and watching videos for full immersion. The group work consists of signed conversations and discussions of the language and deaf culture. The videos watched in classes are often all signed with no captions for a real-life experience. Many times, one-on-one signing involves conversing in American Sign Language with the teacher. The mixture of these concepts supports both receptive and expressive learning of the language.
“I am really glad Appalachian State chose to make American Sign Language a minor,” said Davis. “It fits in well with anyone who majors in communication sciences and disorders and it’s an interesting life skill not many people know. It’s been quite a journey going through the process and I know it will help me in the future.”
