ASL Language Courses Is Growing

Printed in the Olathe News on November 16, 2007

ASL Language Courses Is Growing.
By Leonard Hall

American Sign Language (ASL) is the third most common used language in America after English and Spanish. Many high schools offer ASL classes.

Hundreds of colleges and universities offer ASL, too. More than 70 universities and colleges accept ASL as a foreign language requirement.

Many foreign language departments resisted making ASL a foreign language course since the departments preferred focusing on literature. To these professors, foreign language is speaking and reading. That view has changed considerably during the past several years as the linguist academic community has recognized ASL as its own language.

A Kansas law designated ASL as a foreign language.

A recent press release indicated that enrollment for ASL in college and university has reached 5% of all language courses being offered in 2006. Approximately 79,000 students took ASL courses that represented a 30% increase since 2002.

52% of language courses are offered in Spanish, followed by French (13%) and German (6%).

I remembered that Emporia State University in the 1970s required at least two classes of foreign language for many majors. Fortunately, my Business degree did not require any foreign language.

In 1965, 16.5% of university/college students took a foreign language course. Due to many majors dropping foreign language course as a requirement, currently 8.6% of students now take a foreign language course.

While many students viewed ASL as being an easy or an interesting course, it is not easy to learn. ASL has its own grammar structure; most of the vocabulary is composed of words with meanings.

The students have to learn an entire new language from scratch. Students have to use ASL for several years before becoming fluent.

Sign Language is not the same throughout the world. ASL is much different than German Sign Language or Chinese Sign Language.

One surprising fact about ASL is that deaf people communicated faster through ASL than English speakers. When an interpreter is translating ASL between two deaf people, it is at twice the speed of a conversation between two hearing people.

While many deaf people communicate well in ASL, they can read and write well in English. English is a second language for many deaf people.

(Leonard Hall writes a weekly column on the deaf community and can be reached at Legalnetwk@aol.com.)