ASL Foundations Digital Badge

Contact Information

The ASL Foundations digital badge is a competency-based microcredential offered through the Department of Modern Languages. Earning this badge demonstrates foundational competency in American Sign Language (ASL), a comprehensive understanding of Deaf culture, effective interpersonal communication with the Deaf and hard-of-hearing community, and a deeper understanding of the linguistic landscape in the United States. While this microcredential does not prepare students adequately to become ASL interpreters, it is an important first step for students on this journey. Competencies for this microcredential are aligned with American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) standards for proficiency in the areas of interpersonal, presentational, and interpretive communication.

Earning Criteria

Participants earning this badge are required to develop and demonstrate their signing skills in several ASL courses, expand their vocabulary of signs, narrate a story using signs, and an in-depth project exploring Deaf culture. 

Compentencies Demonstrated

1. Focus on practicing detailed language features such as various number types, expanded fingerspelling practice, space and semantic use of agreement or spatial verbs and use of negation signs.
2. Give clear instructions or explanation using classifiers and conditional sentences, rhetorical questions and relative clauses along with “rule” related vocabulary.
3. Demonstrate respect for ASL by following cultural norms and using the appropriate ASL structure while conversing in ASL.
4. Engage in conversations and correspondence in American Sign Language to provide and obtain information, express feelings and emotions, and exchange opinions.
5. Use role shifts to show the character’s interaction with the environment and/or with fellow characters in the story.
6. Establish and maintain spatial agreement among characters and/or things in the environment.
7. Understand how “key elements” are used in ASL storytelling and become familiar with strategies used to adapt written stories into ASL.