Certification Readiness Assessment
Are you planning to take an interview or performance test in the near future but not sure whether you are quite ready? Signs of Development provides Readiness Assessments (RA) that will provide you with support to help you determine your degree of test readiness. Signs' trained mentor will provide you with:
- A basic assessment of your skills in one or all of the following categories:
- Interpreting
- Transliterating
- CDI Performance
- Interview (Ethical Decision Making)
- Written Test (Interpreting Knowledge - NIC, State, or CDI)
- Determination of test readiness
- Ideas for skill development work
If you are interested in this, please download the registration form and indicate which RA you would like to have completed. Upon registration, you will be provided with information on the specific way in which you will provide your sample(s), the process, and timelines. Your time and investment are valuable to you and to us, and we want to help you make sure that you are ready!
Portfolio Segments Needed:
A Readiness Assessment is an assessment of test readiness at the current time. From the assessment, you will receive:
- A 3/3 list of effective skill and those that are more challenging
- An idea of the priority of these achieve "readiness" for testing
- Some ideas for skill development activities
You need to develop a video (*see note on format of video samples). Portfolio segments should be developed for each of the skills you want assessed - if you are working on only transliterating, you'll need to develop samples from only transliterating work, if you are working on interpreting then interpreting samples, and if you are working on both skills for your Performance Study Group work, then you'll need to develop and send two sets of samples. The follow is a guide for development of portfolio segments:
For transliterating assessment ~
- Spoken English story (not interpreted - this is used as a baseline)
- Signed English story (not interpreted and not the same story as the one you told in English - again used as a baseline reference)
- Sample of your work into English (from signed English to spoken English)
- Sample of your work into Signed English or CASE (transliterate a sample from English into sign)
- Sample of an interactive piece (where there is a Deaf and hearing person having a conversation and you are transliterating for them)
For interpreting assessment ~
- Spoken English story (not interpreted)
- Signed English story (not interpreted and not the same story as the one you told in English)
- Sample of your work into English (from ASL to spoken English)
- Sample of your work into ASL (so need you to interpret a sample from English into ASL)
- Sample of an interactive piece (where there is a Deaf and hearing person having a conversation and you are interpreting for them)
A few guidelines for the samples:
- Segments do not need to be longer than 5 minutes each.
- Please maintain a copy of the video prior to sending - you MUST have a copy to review and begin skill development work.
- Spoken English (your interpretation into English and English stories) need to be transcribed for future skill development work.
- The fist 2 segments are language samples and should not be interpreted. They should be different stories - just tell stories (of a vacation, of a funny moment, about your family, etc.) so we can get an idea of a language base.
- It is best to use videotapes as your stimulus material if possible since the tests are all on videotape. Try to use videotaped stimuli that you have never seen. There are a number of suggestions for ASL videos online - do a web search for ASL Vlogs
- Make sure you don't rehearse any of this work or this will give a skewed sample and not render the results that you are wanting - to know if you are currently ready to take a test where you will be presented with new material and unable to practice/rehearse.
- Authentic samples are the best for any assessment. Authentic are not staged and it is live work which most closely mirrors your actual work. In some cases, authentic samples in a live environment are not possible; if not, unrehearsed staged samples can be used.
- Make sure that you have clear audio and video - The mentor needs to be able to see the Deaf person signing and hear the voicing. Tape the screen so that the Deaf person signing can be seen while simultaneously being able to hear the voiced interpretation.
- Make sure on the work into Sign that you can be seen and the hearing person speaking (the source text) can be heard. The mentor does not need to see the hearing person talk if the video camera cannot be set up that way. It is more important to see the product (your signed interpretation) and hear the source (the hearing person speaking).
- If you are submitting samples for interpreting AND transliterating, do not use the same stories or materials for more than one sample. If you tell the same story for your spoken English sample and then use it for your signed ASL (language) sample, then it would be an interpretation so it's important to use two different stories for any segments developed.
- You are responsible for any authorizations if you are videotaping children or have included people in your sample so that they understand that you will be working with a mentor and that someone else will be seeing the contents of their communication.
- Please send CD/DVD of your sample, or a VHS tape if this is not a possibility.
- Please do NOT send original copies of your samples - you MUST keep a copy since the PO has, on occasion, lost or mangled materials. If you have sent the original and have not retained a copy, this would require your developing an entire set of segments again.
- You'll need to develop written transcripts of the spoken English work so retaining the original and sending me the copy allows you to get your segments in the mail and then beginning work on the transcribing to expedite the process of our work together.
- Email the transcriptions to me once you have completed transcribing the spoken English segments of your work: your spoken English story and your interpreting and/or transliterating work into spoken English (there is no need unless you just want to for your own benefit) to transcribe all of the spoken English source material or to translate the signed work.
This seems like a lot of information so feel free to email for clarification (wwworkshops@signs-of-development.org). When you are ready to mail your video samples, let us know and we'll be prepared to work on it.
Mail registration and video samples
to:
Signs of Development
1952 Falcon Road
East Bend, NC 27018