Challenging, yet rewarding, the new American Sign Language class has taken an immediate rise to the top among the world languages.

The 2023-2024 school year is the first year the ASL class has been offered. Courtesy of Mr. Jados, students saw this class pop up while scheduling classes for this year. ASL is off to a strong start, giving other language classes a run for their money. With five class sections, ASL has already become more popular than the other introductory world language courses. Spanish 1 only has four classes, German 1 has two classes, and French 1 has two classes.

One of the challenges of this class is that the physical teacher is not inside the classroom with the students. Instead, they are supervised by classroom monitor Ms. Miller, and the ASL Instructors Mrs. Sukosd, Ms. Winter, and Ms. Harker teach via Zoom.

Students find the teacher’s technological presence odd and awkward. Junior Meah Potts said, “Not having an in-person teacher reminds me of Covid.”

Junior Lainey Soule said, “It’s kind of awkward that the teacher is on video every day, and when we have technical issues, class is just canceled for that day.”

Another challenge students have faced is the silence. Learning a new language is difficult no matter what language you are learning, but the art of talking makes everything a little easier. Students in ASL are being taught to communicate through only hand signs.

Junior Lily Collins said, “It’s super quiet in the classroom, making it awkward and nerve-wracking to ask questions.”

Potts agreed, “The hardest part is not being able to ask questions out loud.”

Another obstacle that Soule has come upon is understanding the sentence structure. Soule explained, “Sentence structure is different in ASL. You don’t use ‘glue’ words. For example, you wouldn’t say ‘how are you,’ you would say ‘how you.’”

The ASL class may hand the students many challenges, but there are also many positives that this class offers. The obvious one is that you will be able to communicate with someone who is hard of hearing. Most students’ purpose in taking the class is for this exact reason.

Soule said, “I believe ASL is becoming a forgotten language and so I would like to be able to at least have a minor conversation with a deaf person.”

Clearly, students believe that those who are hard of hearing deserve to be just as heard as everyone else.