The ASL University curriculum at Lifeprint.com was scientifically developed using a combination of word frequency research and classroom experience.? "Concordance software" was used to develop the lesson plans based on which words are occur most frequently for everyday communication.?The most frequently used words are introduced earlier in the curriculum.

The ASLU approach is bilingual-bicultural and is intended to function as a bridge from the students first language to his second language.

A significant number of American Sign Language (ASL) signs can be interpreted into multiple English words.

For example a sign that is often glossed as "NEED" can be interpreted as "must, have to, should, ought to, etc."

An ASL sign holds one or more conceptual meanings. The conceptual meaning of the sign glossed as "NEED" is "necessity/obligation." The English words associated with the sign "NEED" are synonyms of one another.
they share a core meaning, they differ in strength and tone:

Mandatory: Very strong obligation. An action that is strictly dictated by a command, law, or regulation.

Must / Have to: Strong obligation. Must usually comes from internal authority (e.g., "I must rest"), while have to comes from external rules (e.g., "I have to pay taxes").

Need: Conditional-strong obligation: Expresses a necessity based on a specific requirement or goal (e.g., "I need a passport to travel").

Ought to: Medium-strong obligation. Implies an objective or external obligation. It is often linked to moral duties, laws, social regulations, or an established right way of doing things.

Supposed to: Medium obligation: Indicates an action dictated by a rule, plan, or social expectation that may or may not be followed.

Should: Medium-weak obligation. Advice, recommendations rather than strict requirements (e.g., "You should eat more veggies").

Marking of signs:
Marking an ASL sign means adding information to a sign by changing how we produce that sign.
The basic (unmarked) sign "NEED" can be changed (marked) in various ways to more closely correspond to the various English synonyms.

Much stronger: Adding more fingers: If you sign NEED by crooking four digits instead of just the index finger.
Stronger: Single movement: Using only one downward movement.
Stronger: Intense facial expression: The eyebrows are pulled down and together, vertical wrinkles between the eyes, and the lower eyelids are sharpened and raised slightly. The lips are narrowed, flattened, and pressed firmly together into a hard line; the muscles in the cheeks are pushed upward, and the jaw is clenched.
Stronger: Forcefulness: Doing the sign with more force and strength.
Stronger: Speed: Doing the sign faster.
Stronger: Hold: Extending the length of time of a segment of the sign
Stronger: Distance: Starting the sign higher, moving the sign further, and ending lower.
Weaker: Double movement: Repeating the movement instead of just doing it once.
Much weaker: Using a crooked pinky finger instead of the index finger.

Additionally, some English synonyms examples of NEED are typically expressed via other ASL signs that have become more closely associated with the specific meanings of the synonym. For example: "required to" often uses the sign REQUIRE, "obligated" often uses the sign RESPONSIBLE, "incumbent upon" can be shown via a sign that metaphorically depicts holding a weight and placing it on one's shoulder, and "compelled" often uses the sign FORCE.

While it isn't difficult to list English synonyms for signs a question I have is "What is the optimal approach to glossing and/or vocabulary listing for a curriculum that wants to bring students to ASL fluency in the most efficient and effective way possible?"

Frequency of use:
I specifically prefer that the Lifeprint / ASL University curriculum be a curriculum that teaches the most frequently used signs first and works outward from there.

It is a goal that that Lifeprint curriculum introduces signed vocabulary concepts starting from the concepts most frequently used (in everyday communication by skilled, native, Deaf , signers of ASL) and working toward the lesser used. Additionally, English synonyms that may be associated with those signed concepts should be introduced based on frequency of use. Synonyms that are less frequently used in English can and should be introduced later in higher level lessons and not take up space or instructional time in earlier lessons

The selection and introduction of high frequency vocabulary concepts needs to be balanced with the creation of opportunities for meaningful information exchange. It is okay to use a sign that occurs later in the sign frequency list if doing so allows us to construct practice sentences that facilitate meaningful use of the language. Even so any time a vocabulary concept is needed to be introduced earlier (than its order in a frequency of use list) (for the purpose of building engaging practice sentences) we should select the highest ranked vocabulary item that will do the job.

Engagement can be encouraged by building questions out of the lesson vocabulary. A goal and major feature of the curriculum is that students rapidly transition from vocabulary learning to actual language use by employing that vocabulary to ask questions to their practice partners -- and receive answers. The answers generated by practice partners can also potentially become part of the curriculum. If such answers are frequently repeated that indicates the answers would likely make good vocabulary items to be listed as "expansion vocabulary" and linked to sign pages (instructional entries in the Lifeprint dictionary).

To better understand frequency-based language instruction perhaps it might be helpful to consider how it might apply to English language instruction. If a person were using frequency based instruction to teach English, a general goal would be to teach the most common (frequently used) vocabulary first. For example, in English the most frequently used words are generally "the, be, to, of, and, a, in, that, have." However teaching "the, be, to, of, and, a, in, that, have" as the first lesson would result in boredom. Thus it is best to choose frequently used vocabulary that can be arranged into meaningful / engaging sentences -- primarily questions. Additionally we need to teach enough "response vocabulary" (typical answers or responses to the questions) to enable students to answer those questions in a meaningful way."

Thus our curriculum construction principles include:

1. Frequent
2. Meaningful
3. Engaging

Those directives should also match the context appropriate sociolinguistic needs of the learners.

4. Context appropriate

That is a fancy way of saying that where you are, what you are doing, and who you are doing it with -- need to influence the content of language lessons.

For example, the first lesson in a language curriculum probably should include how to ask and answer the question: "What is your name?"

A glossing challenge we will need to solve is how to deal with the difference between:

Sentence 1: YOU NAME WHAT? (consisting of three signs)

-- and the more advanced yet more native-like:

Sentence 2: YOU NAME? (in which the sign for name is marked with furrowed eyebrows).

How should we gloss sentence two?
A. YOU NAME?
B. YOU what-NAME?
C. YOU NAME-what?
D. YOU NAME-(what)?
E. YOU NAME-[what]?
F. YOU (wh)-NAME?
G. YOU *NAME? (*WH- question expression.)

Or some other typographically more complex method?

Lifeprint has generally chosen: YOU what-NAME? as a way of indicating that YOU and NAME are signs and "what-" is expressed nonmanually.

Glossing nonmanual markers "conventionally" without using special typography and in a way that is intuitive to the students is an evolving situation.

Teaching such nonmanual markers is

Eventually Lifeprint will start listing nonmanual markers as actual vocabulary items and teach them explicitly rather than simply hoping students will notice and adopt them.
For example, these are / will be two different vocabulary items:
1. WHAT
2. what-

The nonmanual sign "what-" will have its own sign page (what-.htm) with examples, an explanation, and links to related concepts. (Yes, "what-" is a sign. Just because it can be used as a nonmanual marker doesn't mean that it doesn't qualify as a sign with its own parameters: Shape: "head", Location: above shoulders, Movement: head-tilt, scrunching of face, Orientation: Toward viewer / the orientation of the face changes angle during the head tilt).

"WH- question expression" will be an "Additional Information" item linked to its own page in the Lifeprint "topics" folder. That page will have a link to the "what.htm" page and the "what-.htm" page in "...pages-signs/w/". "-[what]" could be linked to wh-question-expression.htm

Glossing of "direction of movement as a morpheme"
Sometimes the direction a sign moves influences the meaning of the sign. In other words the direction itself has meaning. When a parameter of a sign has meaning it is a morpheme and is considered to be "morphemic." Think of "morphemic" as "has meaning." A way to gloss signs in which the "direction of movement" is morphemic is to indicate the direction in lower case.
Sample glosses:
TELL-me
TELL-them-singular-rt
TELL-them-sweep-lf
TELL-you

Glossing of "location as a morpheme"
Sometimes location is morphemic. In other words, sometimes "where" you do a sign has meaning. For example a signer may twist (or shift) a bit to the left and sign ADULT CLUSTER (to create the meaning of "adults as a general whole") then twist (or shift) a bit to the right and sign CHILDREN so that the signer can contrast, compare, index, or otherwise refer to those two groups.
Sample gloss: ADULT_CLUSTER-lf [shift] CHILDREN-rt