ASL presentation for High School students

[colleencondon]

I have been asked by my local High School to present about ASL next week as part of Foreign Language week. I will be doing two one hour sessions, each with anywhere from 25-60 students. The point of the presentation is to get students interested in learning new languages. Other presenters are from the local community and speak a variety of languages from Italian to Spanish to Russian, so ASL is really going to stand out.

I have information from my college level ASL classes, but I am wondering if anyone has any fun ideas to do with the students that will not be so lecture-like? I was thinking of showing part of one ST DVD also.... any suggestions people have that would hold a High School students interest?

Thanks!
Colleen

[dmmetler]

What about signing and teaching them to sign part of a contemporary (or older but still interesting) song (probably something of the pop ballad genre, simply to make it slow enough that they could follow your signs)? You'd have to check with a teen to get some song recommendations, and make sure any lyrics etc are appropriate for school. Also, while I love Signing Time!, I'm not sure that it would be appropriate for high school students unless you're dealing with a group of teen parents. In a group, teens are pretty image conscious, and if they feel they're being talked down to, they'll rule the thing out for fear of looking less sophisticated or uncool. If you could get a clip from the National Theatre of the Deaf or a similar group, that would be a better choice. I don't know where you'd find it, but years back, there was an episode of the TV series "A Different World" which included, among other things, a Deaf rapper from the theatre of the deaf, and something like that would appeal to teens.

[sherry3995]

used a portion of the ST videos when she did her report. She did an ASL informational presentation and signed Colors of the Rainbow as a visual. The kids were well responsive and even one of the "cool" kids told her after class that it was cool that she did it. My daughter is 15 and a sophmore in High School. This was for her English Class.

[sherry3995]

used portions of the ST videos for Adult Girl Scout Training.

[colleencondon]

Thanks for the ideas! I am going to enlist the help of 2 neighborhood teens to run my program by this weekend and see what they think. (I am going to use Colors of Rainbow and try to get a video of teh Deaf Rapper someone mentioned)

[c01dunlap]

Don't forget to tell us how it goes this week!

[c01dunlap]

Colleen,

How did it go? I'm dying to hear! As I probably mentioned elsewhere, I'd toyed around with presenting ST or ASL to some of the kids in the church. Some are teenagers.

[jenny01]

if you can either show or do te a is for alex and alligator when i did it for my ASL final last semester all the students were like woah!! thats awesome i wish i could do that so maybe that will work