American Sign Language

Learn foundational skills in American Sign Language (ASL) to become a more effective and expressive ASL communicator with Purdue’s online ASL Certificate courses. These courses are a basic introduction to American Sign Language (ASL) for students with no previous knowledge. The courses introduce students to tools for mastering the grammar of ASL to both express and understand the language. Introduction to cultural and historical aspects of ASL and the Deaf Community is also included. Students can expect to acquire basic ASL skills to be able to engage in everyday conversations in ASL when interacting with the Deaf Community.

The courses use interactive activities that will put students in situations that allow them to concentrate on the purpose rather than the mechanics of a conversation. Students will also learn to tell stories, use the language in a variety of settings and study ASL grammar with attention to nonmanual features such as facial expressions, head positions, and body positions.

After completing the courses students will be able to:

• Use nonverbal and/or visual gestural communication that allows for expansion of functional communication in ASL.
• Demonstrate a basic level of conversational and narrative skills, which involves using appropriate ASL vocabulary, fingerspelling, and number signs as taught in the course.
• Incorporate appropriate ASL grammatical rules, non-manual signals and features in sentences, dialogues and storytelling.
• Appreciate and respect the cultural and historical aspects of the Deaf Community and ASL, including respect for the importance of ASL and Deaf Culture as the center of the Deaf Community.
• Express, understand, and manage more complex interactions involving expanded ASL lexical signs, grammatical rules, and sentence structure (syntax).
• Demonstrate an expanded conversational and narrative skill in ASL using both concrete and abstract concepts.
• Exhibit the ability to use appropriate ASL grammatical features and functions of the language used in dialogues and storytelling that includes nonmanual grammatical signals, intensity, and characterizations.
• Demonstrate an understanding of and respect for deaf people and ASL by engaging appropriate conversation strategies used in the Deaf Community and applying their ASL skills.

Register Now for Two Course Certificate

Courses

Course Delivery

ASL 1, ASL 2 and American Deaf Community are taught asynchronously, meaning students can access the course whenever best fits with their schedules. Students have access to each course for six months.

For more information and to register click the button below.

Register Now for Full Certificate

Meet the Instructor

Mr. John Borkowski holds a Master's Degree in Deaf Secondary Education from the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) in Rochester, NY. He is originally from Buffalo, NY, where he attended the Deaf school - St. Mary’s School for the Deaf. Upon high school graduation, he attended Gallaudet University and obtained his Bachelor’s of Arts (BA) majoring in prelaw. He worked as a computer specialist for the U.S. Government before returning to the teaching field. John started as a professional K-12 educator in the year 2000. His experience as a secondary social studies teacher spanned over five different deaf schools in New York, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and now in DC at Model Secondary School for the Deaf (MSSD). John’s first experience in teaching ASL was as a tutor in the Interpreting program at RIT when he was a graduate student. After graduation, he started teaching introductory ASL in the deaf community and local colleges in Indiana such as Ball State University and Indiana University - Purdue University at Indianapolis (IUPUI). He then taught a variety of intermediate ASL level courses, including the linguistics, culture, and historical aspects of the Deaf Community. As an ASL instructor for Purdue Online, John Borkowski aims to connect people who are interested in learning about the Deaf World, community, and culture.