The FACE to FACE English-ASL (American sign language)—French-LSF (French sign language) application is designed to help learners move between these four languages, improving their usage through immersion.. It is totally innovative by associating 2 languages with 2 sign languages. It has been elaborated by teams of hearing or deaf American and French professors, for whom those languages are their first language. The videos in LSF and ASL have been shot both in France and un the USA. Thus the authentic character of the languages is preserved.
Users enter a word in French or English to access a database of phrases or sentences including the word under study. Today there are about 1500 entries. The initial data, to be enriched gradually, include pairs of words with similar written forms in French and English, such as French paire and English pair. This makes it easier for the learner to remember them visually. Those words have been selected also by using a frequency dictionary listing the most frequently used words in the language. Video clips, in LSF and ASL show equivalents of all words, phrases and sentences in both sign languages. All are accompanied by activities to cement the learning. Solutions to activities for A, B, C and D exercises are provided in the Application itself ; for C and D exercises , that can be done separately, users can also find solutions on the Consortium platform together with a new exercise E, to be followed by some more later on.