Don’t Forget About Comprehension
I love comprehension and receptive language practice for students. I always think ASL does not have enough viewing activities. So, ultimately, it is up to the ASL teacher to create their own interpretive practice tasks. Sometimes teachers are so eager to get our language students talking we forget to have them practice comprehension skills. Let’s change that up by not skimping on the comprehension practice and really give out students an opportunity to practice all areas of communication.
Using Images
One fun way to do this is to use various images that look similar but have very distinctive differences. It helps if you can do this with the theme of your unit. However, you can use these images as a chance to review and recycle older vocabulary too. Really you can do this with any vocabulary you want students practicing. What you really want is to make sure you are checking for understanding.
The idea is to place 3 – 5 images on a slide. Then prepare a brief description of one of the images. Your description can be simple to complex depending on where students are in the learning process. I try to choose descriptions that cover several of the images displayed so the answer is not obvious from the start. I want students to really process the language and think about what I am saying. Whatever you say, you want students to consider the entire description.
Change it Up
You can also have students create their own mystery picture and share with the class. Another idea is to make sure students get some number practice by changing how you number the images. You can count by 10s or number with higher numbers like 101, 102, 103 and so on. Then ask students which image they think it is and have them give you the number. Students can write the number on a whiteboard and make it a competition.
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