The main focus of this post is to help you encourage students to build their ASL vocabulary especially in the upper-level courses of ASL. However, many of the ideas I will share with you can cross over to lower levels of language learners.
I find that our textbooks are weak when it comes to ASL vocabulary development. That is why I steer away from the book and create lessons focusing on themes and terms students want to learn and need to know in the real-world. The reason I do this is to increase my student’s vocabulary, analytical thinking, and understanding of the language they are studying.
One way that I build ASL vocabulary is to have students think about ASL all day long in all of their classes. How do I do this you ask? I do an activity I simply call “Vocabulary Builder.” This activity requires students to come in each week with 10 new words they have heard used in another class but they don’t know how to communicate it. This can be a single term or a phrase. Their job is to understand the parameters of the sign and share with others. All students share a digital Google Doc with the word list and parameters on it. Students then link the word to an online video if possible (I have Chromebooks but this can be done on paper if you don’t have 1:1 devices). The student’s Doc would include the following:
– The word or phrase learned
– A definition
– An example sentence (preferably how it was used in class)
– A synonym (English word and ASL sign)
Building ASL Vocabulary
Student work is shared and discussed each week on Friday. Discussions include accuracy of the sign, regional differences (if I know them), appropriate use in context and an example of how the word is used. Many times these conversations lead to other discussions which are great because the entire process is in sign only. It is awesome practice for students.
Many people like to use these words and create a vocabulary test the following week. I don’t tend to do this because I don’t have time working on a trimester system. I also prefer the students to use the words in a more communicative fashion to show me what they can do with the language not that they have memorized a bunch of signs. To expand on 
this activity there are a number of exercises you can do.
- Choose 5 words – use all of them to tell one fact (or any number of signs you want).
- Choose 6 – 10 words and learn how to sign the synonym and homonym – Make sentences.
- Quiz your partner on X number of words.
- Teach your partner the synonyms/homonyms you have learned.
- Create a group of 3 and use 10 new words in a dialogue.
- Tell a story using 6 – 8 of the words you have learned.
Peer to peer interaction and teaching can be very powerful and often times more successful than you lecturing from the front of the classroom. Utilize that in the vocabulary building process.
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2 Responses
Can you share an example of the google soc that your students create with the word list and parameters? Do all of your students share their list with the entire class or a table group?
Thanks for the question, Erika. I don’t have a doc template that I use. Students create the word list how they want, writing the parameters so it makes sense to them. Here is an example of one student’s work. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vLVM3ynAvwBnDomfUtrG9_Ehkicti-J90YQBVysSWAo/edit?usp=sharing
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