The sign language club began its fifth year this year. They meet every Thursday, from 3:30-4:30. Sign language is something a lot of people are interested in, and many are disappointed that it is not offered as a class.
“It is a fantastic language to learn and if there was interest in a course being built, I would love to teach it,” said faculty adviser Mrs. Stacie Vanderheyden.
Sign language is a hard language to become fluent in, like any, but Mrs. Vanderhayden is a great teacher and head of the club.
“I started the Guilford sign language club five years ago through the 21st Century Tutoring program in the spring of 2019,” said Mrs. Vanderheyden. “I am fluent in ASL and Signed English, can use Signed Exact English II, Pidgeon Sign Language, Conceptually Accurate Sign Language, Visual Phonics and Total Communication. I am familiar with some parts of Cuing, some words in Brazilian Sign Language, British Sign Language and Mexican Sign Language.”
Anyone at any stage in the sign language game can join, and they can start at any time. It is only hosted in the second semester, so it’s not a year-long commitment.
Whether or not you know absolutely no sign language, or you are close to fluent, you can join the club. There are many aspects of sign language that you can’t learn from YouTube that you will learn from joining.
“The reason I joined the club was because I wanted to learn something new and get a new way to communicate with others,” said Briley Harmson, a sophomore who joined the club last year.
For example, many people might not know all the different sign languages. There is French sign language, German sign language, Spanish sign language, Mexican sign language, and many more. Interestingly, American sign language is different from English sign language, as English sign language is more in tone with our sentence structure and how we speak, whereas American sign language uses different sentence structure.
For example, saying “What color?” in ESL would be putting the words in that order: “what”, and then “color”. In ASL, you would sign “Color, what?”.
“I haven’t joined the club, but I’ve always been kind of interested in sign language,” said Alicia Burmont, freshman. “I would definitely take it if it were a class, because I feel like sign language is something everyone should have the chance to learn, because it’s so different.”
Another interesting thing about ASL is signing your name. You are not born with a name in sign language, and even if someone with the same name as you has a name sign, yours will not be the same. Your name sign must be given to you by a deaf person. They learn a little bit about you and then give you a sign name based on your personality.
Those interesting facts give only a glimpse at all you can learn from joining the ASL club.
“Sign language is more than just moving your hands. It involves a lot more than that. It’s something that is worth understanding and learning,” said Harmson.