Our commitment to American Sign Language

The Department of Modern Languages and Cultural Studies has been proudly offering courses in American Sign Language for almost 20 years. On average, we offer 10 introductory (100-level) courses and 2 intermediate (200-level) courses per year. In the 2019–2020 academic year, we opened additional introductory sections in order to train new instructors. Given the demands of the provincial budget and following careful enrolment analysis, the 2020–2021 academic year sees a return to our normal offering of 10 courses at the 100-level, which will provide seats for 250 students. Unfortunately, a sudden unanticipated retirement of the intermediate-level instructor has meant that we cannot offer 200-level courses in the upcoming academic year. For equity purposes, we hire only born Deaf instructors and therefore plan to conduct a national search for a replacement so that those courses can be offered again starting the 2021–2022 academic year.

We are committed to ASL teaching at the University of Alberta and to the enrichment of the Faculty of Arts through the Deaf culture, language, and community.