ASL Scholars Program for homeschool, public or private high school students – on ZOOM

For individuals to register: You may register for any Level 1 course that we offer, whether in person or on Zoom. Send an email to indicate you are joining the Scholar’s program. Assessments and grading will be arranged separately at the end of each course.

After completing a Level 1 course, you may go on to a Level 2 and then Level 3 course to complete the ASL Scholar’s Program. At the completion of Level 3, students will be tested and receive their final grade.

The cost of the Scholar’s Program on Zoom – $175.00 per Level plus $25.00 for testing and grading. or $525.00 plus $75.00 for all 3 Levels.
In person, the cost is $195.00 per level plus $25.00 for testing and grading or $585.00 plus $75.00 for all 3 levels.
All materials are provided. There are no other costs. There are no refunds issued after attending the first class of each level.


Course Content for levels 1 – 3:

Level 1     
18 hours of learning which will include:

* The manual alphabet – fingerspelling
* Numbers 1 – 99
* Colors
* Animals
* Food and Drink
* Family
* Verbs
* Feelings
* Professions
* Spatial referencing
* Other key vocabulary
* Two Portraits in Print – biographies of two individuals who had important contributions to the development of American Sign Language and the Deaf educational system in America.

Level 2

18 hours of learning to include:

* A review of Level 1 vocabulary
* The pronoun system
* Time and tense markers
* Countries
* Negation
* Five sentence structures in ASL
* How to ask Yes/No questions
* How to ask Wh questions
* Two Portraits in Print

Level 3     
20 hours of learning to include:

* Question asking with a focus on accurate facial expression
* Contrastive Structure – a foundation of the ASL pronoun system
* Expanded vocabulary
* More Spatial Referencing – part of the ASL pronoun system
* Two Portraits in Print
* Final exam

What the ASL Scholars Institute will do:

Students will gain a solid foundation in the skills they will need to go on to mastery in the language.  They will be taught the approximately 55 handshapes (chiremes) that make up all signs in the language.  They will be taught the four parameters that make up any sign in ASL.  They will be taught the three types of signs that are used.  They will learn five of the eight primary sentence structures of the language. They will learn the role of facial expressions that convey primary linguistic information. 

Learning a new language, especially one outside the language group of the native language of the students, is a complex task.  It takes many hundreds of classroom hours to accomplish, along with practice in real-world settings with fluent users of that language.  This fifty-six hour Institute will give students clear guidance and a strong foundation that will prepare them to continue progressing if they decide to continue.

Students will be graded using the assessments listed in the course description above along with a final grade.

What the ASL Scholars Institute will not do:

We are not authorized to issue credits.  Your high school may offer you credits for the Institute if they deem it appropriate in fulfilling their requirements.

This will not guarantee any particular placement in a college language program.  Colleges have their own intake evaluations to determine which level of their courses you are eligible to take.  We are confident that if you do well in the Institute, you will be placed as a second semester student or higher in a college program.

Who is eligible for the ASL Scholars Institute?

Any high school student.

Registration:  Is open anytime through our website.  Go to www.aslacademy.org.  Use the dropdown window and enter your payment and you will be registered.  You will receive a confirmation of your payment and registration.

For high school students considering the ASL Scholars Institute:

You are in for an exciting and rich learning experience!  The teacher is myself, Manuel Martin.  I designed the ASL program that is now a minor at a local university.  I have taught many workshops and Institutes in a number of states and countries and an American Indian reservation.  The ASL Academy draws students from all over the U.S. (a total of 22 states so far), and Canada.

The classroom learning is done at your pace.  You will quickly gain confidence in your knowledge and after the first of the three levels is complete, you will be able to have a conversation of 15 or 20 minutes, talking about family, travel, food, animals, where you live, many of your likes and dislikes and much more!  Our language teaching approach is unique and has a proven record of success.  We have taught many beginners who continued with our program until they became fluent.  A number of those former students are now interpreters, teachers of the deaf, or working in a field with Deaf consumers.

Learning a new language is challenging.  Our curriculum was created by me, and is specifically designed for second language learners who are new to learning a visual, spatial, three-dimensional moving language.

Manuel D. Martin,
program director

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