An American Sign Language (ASL) course was offered as an elective for the first time this semester. The decision to add the course was a direct response to student feedback and vocal interest in an ASL course. As the spring semester comes to an end, students provide their personal feedback on course content and learning experience.
The course, numbered EDU 3399, is led by adjunct professor Corey Gember. The course taught students about basic ASL signs, proper ASL grammar and sentence structure, and also provided students with lessons informing them about Deaf culture. Additionally, the course was taught entirely through signing; spoken dialogue was not allowed. Senior Mary Norton said that though solely having to communicate through signing in the class seemed intimidating at first, it was helpful in terms of hands-on learning.
“It was hard at first, but it was good practice,” Norton said. “Immersion helps you learn language better because you’re thinking more about what you’re saying or you’re trying to learn more words to speak with your professor, and then you have more practice.”
The course was taught through a hybrid teaching style, meeting in-person only on Mondays and continuing the curriculum for the week asynchronously.
Students had mixed feelings about this curriculum style. Sophomore and student athlete Myla Castillo expressed appreciation for the course, but mentions that the class’s in-person meeting time served as a scheduling dilemma because it landed on student holidays and other events.
“(That) definitely made it hard ever since spring break because it was only a Monday course,” Castillo said. “And we had the solar eclipse and we had Easter and those all fell on a Monday, so there was probably a month period where I didn’t have the class in-person.”
Other students, such as senior Alexis Sullivan, explained how they enjoyed the hybrid approach because it allowed students to work more at their own pace.
“One day, we meet in class and we go over the lesson, and then the rest is online,” Sullivan said. “So you do that for one day and it’s kind of self paced, and I thought that was really nice.”
Additionally, the course also taught students how to sign terms and phrases that would be useful in academic and professional settings.
“We spent a lot of the beginning of the semester talking about school-related vocabulary,” Norton said. “But as we started to move on, we learned more broad everyday things like vocabulary that applies to jobs, life experiences, and things like that.”
Castillo, Norton and Sullivan all expressed that their interest in taking the course stemmed from wanting to gain a deeper knowledge of or to learn ASL because of its crucial use in a diverse setting like Austin and how it gives them a useful life skill.
“The Deaf community is really big in Austin, like having the School for the Deaf,” Castillo said. “Especially being in a city, I think there’s a great opportunity for students to learn.”
Student feedback on the ASL course is a direct cause for the success and continuation of the course. Professor Kris Sloan expressed that student interest made the course possible, and it’s student interest that will keep it going.
“It was pretty popular and I asked the Dean if I could offer it again,” Sloan said. “The academic advisors in the AACE (Advising and Academic Counseling & Exploration) office emailed me early in the semester and asked me if it would be offered again, so they must be hearing about a lot of interest from students.”
