Summer ASL Class

Hello! Welcome to Alison Howard's Summer ASL (American Sign Language) Class web site. This class is a six-week, two class per week course that is meant to teach some basics in ASL at a level children can understand.

I am a 17 year old (18 in July!) senior. I am graduating from High School in June, and I am teaching this class during the summer before college. . I took 3 years of sign in high school (and aced them all!), and this year I am the Teacher's assistant for my sign language teacher (so I am able to keep up on my signing).

Now is a great time for your kids to learn the basics of sign, just because kids pick up language so quickly. This short summer course will be taught at a level that they can easily handle, while it will still challenge them. With the class they will receive a vocabulary cd with all the words I teach them, so that they will be able to practice at home. During classes I will teach vocab and basic grammer (yes, sign language does have its own grammar) and will play learning games with the kids so that they will be able to have first-hand experience with signing. The basic vocabulary will include the Alphabet, Family terms, Animals, basic verbs, and much more.

I am going to be using the book Signing for Kids by Mickey Flodin in conjunction with my class. I would suggest that you buy a copy (I got it for $11 at Borders, but I saw it for $4.84 online, used, at amazon.com), but I am not requiring that you do so. I am currently seeking permission to copy some of the activities for use in class, which I will hopefully obtain.

As far as pricing goes, I looked at some community center classes and figured out that many are about $12 per class. I decided to charge $8.33 per class, translating to $100 total. The good news is, if you are planning on enrolling more than one child from your family, only the first is $100. The second and any additional children will be $50 each for the whole 12-session set. You aren't able to pay per visit or anything, because it really is essential that your child attend all or as close to all of the classes as possible. If you can't avoid missing a week, I will offer personal makeup classes. You will have one free makeup session (two free if you sign up and pay for the class by June 1!), but I will have to charge $5 for any additional makeup classes (hopefully you won't need more than that, but the good news on this one is that I can come to you!). I really won't be able to catch your child up during the next normal lesson because I will have to focus on teaching the other children. I have decided to also include a referral system. This will be that if you refer the class to someone (not someone who received a flier from the homeschool meeting May 15, 2003) and they sign up, then you will get $10 back from what you paid for the class. If they sign up a second child you will get $5 for that child. This offer is valid up to your full price you paid, but I am obviously not going to start paying you to take the class :). So if you know a lot of people you can refer, then you may end up getting a free class! If you want to take the class but there is absoloutely no way that you can afford it, feel free to email me and I am willing to discuss options with you. If you are ready to register, click here and you will be taken to the registration page.

If you still have questions after looking at this site, please feel free to contact me at half_full@sbcglobal.net

If this schedule seems weird to you, it's because I had to plan it around my schedule that I already had for this summer.