Question:
A student writes:
Subject: How do I know my level of proficiency in ASL?
Good Afternoon Dr. Vicars,
My name is XXXXX and I live in XXXXX. Since 2020, I have been studying ASL with
LifePrint and other YouTube channels. I am so thankful to have found your
website and to be one of your online students!
So far, I am on level 3 from LifePrint, and I would like to know how to
determine my level of proficiency. I can understand videos like this one _____
or this ____ with no audio nor captions, but I have never practiced my ASL
skills with someone else due to the pandemic. I know that I am not good with my
fingerspelling reception, but I do know that thanks to your videos I have made
some progress. I also try to record myself and see how well I am doing.
Therefore, how can I know if I am at a beginner level or intermediate level?
Once again, thank you so much for your time and hard work. I wish you all the
best!
[Name removed to protect the student's privacy]
Response:
To know your level of proficiency you can get tested via Gallaudet University:
https://www.gallaudet.edu/the-american-sign-language-proficiency-interview/aslpi/
Or google: ASLPI Gallaudet University
Or google "ASL placement test" and look through the results to see if you might
be a good fit to take an ASL placement test offered by one of the colleges or
schools in the list.
If you are a Hearing person and can voice -- a free self-test approach is to
watch a Deaf news channel such as the Daily Moth (at normal speed, with no
audio, and with the captioning off) and record yourself voicing what you are
seeing being signed. Then transcribe what you voiced. Next, compare your
transcription with the captions. (Tip: You can often click on the three dots
expansion menu of a captioned YouTube video to access the captions in transcript
form.). If your transcript and the captions match closely -- you can generally
consider yourself fairly proficient in ASL. If your transcript and the captions
don't match very closely you can still compare and decide a percentage of
overlap. Repeat the above process from time to time using different videos. As
your percentage of accuracy goes up you can consider yourself as becoming closer
and closer to proficiency.
Warm regards,
Bill
________________________
William G. Vicars, Ed.D.
ASL University (Lifeprint.com)
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Notes:
Also see: ►
Proficient at ASL, how to
become
ASLU offers some basic proficiency testing for $495.
See
►
Proficiency Testing for ASL