The service learning component of the Interpreter Education program provides students with an opportunity to apply classroom knowledge, explore careers or majors, improve citizenship, understand and appreciate cultural traditions and values, and to develop civic, corporate, and social responsibility.
Service learning enhances the students’ personal growth and self-image and enriches the lives of persons within the community. This is accomplished, not through providing interpreting services, but by actively contributing to organizations interested in uniting and promoting persons who are Deaf, hard of hearing, or DeafBlind.
Some local organizations and agencies contributing to service learning are: Arkansas Rehabilitation Services, Arkansas School for the Deaf, Little Rock Black Deaf Advocates, Arkansas Association of the Deaf, Arkansas Deaf-Blind Community, and Little Rock Association of the Deaf. The Louisiana Career Development Center and the Oklahoma Sighted Hearing Enrichment Program (SHEP) provides additional opportunities for students enrolled in the “Interpreting for Persons who are DeafBlind” course.
Service learning establishes collaborative, reciprocal partnerships between UA Little Rock and the Deaf community, providing students with experience-based language learning. At this time, four courses incorporate a Service learning component to course requirements.
- INTR 2260 Service Learning: ASL Community
- INTR 3350 Artistic Interpreting in Educational Settings
- INTR 3358 Interpreting for Persons who are Deaf-Blind
- INTR 3320 American Sign Language V
