Certificate
North

The certificate in American Sign Language (ASL) provides language training and cultural enrichment for people who wish to learn ASL and the uniqueness of deaf culture. This program will not prepare students to become interpreters but is designed to introduce students to the language and culture. This program is particularly useful for parents of deaf children and students pursuing careers such as allied health, nursing, early childhood education and teaching, where clients may be deaf. The program is designed to allow students to complement their degrees with an ASL certificate offered as a part-time program. This certificate also serves as the language foundation and pre-requisite for the Associate’s degree American Sign Language/English Interpreter Training Program.

Upon successful completion of the program, the graduate will:

1. Apply basic language skills to produce ASL in a variety of ways in order to communicate effectively with Deaf adults and children who depend on visual representations of English for communication.
2. Pass the American Sign Language Proficiency Interview (ASLPI) which is based on the following linguistic areas: pronunciation, grammatical accuracy, vocabulary, fluency and comprehension.
3. Use classifiers through directionality, word signs, noun placements and non-manual signals.
4. Produce intermediate receptive comprehension and expressive information.
5. Recognize the diversity of the deaf culture through theory discussion, guest speakers and local events.