By Maddie Peloff ’16

This year, a new sign language class was introduced to the foreign language department. The class teaches students about American Sign Language (ASL), including how to sign and the language’s cultural history.

Amy Crumrine, the sign language teacher, is new to the Sherwood community. Being deaf herself, she understands the challenges deaf people face when attempting to communicate with others. For that reason, she believes the sign language class is a great opportunity for students to learn to communicate with the millions of deaf people in the country. She urges students to take sign language because she believes they, as well as other deaf individuals, will benefit by being able to communicate with an entirely new group of people that they may not have been able to communicate with before. Approximately “15 percent of the population experiences some trouble hearing,” explained Crumrine.

The curriculum for the new sign language class is based off the “Master ASL” book, which is the only sign language curriculum that meets the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Language’s standards of a foreign language class. The class’s content is based in two categories: language and culture. As for the language portion, students learn ASL vocabulary and grammar that enables them to properly communicate with deaf individuals. For the culture section, students learn all about deaf culture and history, giving them a unique appreciation for the deaf world. In order to teach this content to students, Crumrine uses many PowerPoint presentations interspersed with interactive activities to convey to students new vocabulary and help them better understand how to expressively and receptively sign.

Senior Alexis Romas decided to take the class after it was recommended to her by a friend in college who is studying sign language. Romas stated that she finds the class to be extremely enjoyable, and her favorite part is learning new vocabulary. “All the different hand gestures are really fascinating and some are kind of difficult,” she explained. “It kind of makes you think ‘this is someone’s language’ and it’s awesome how [someone] can just do a hand gesture and you know exactly what they mean.”

Crumrine encourages students to take her class because “ASL is a language of its own- just like Spanish or French,” and just like both of these classes, ASL gives students a unique opportunity to widen their cultural understandings and learn something new about a culture they may not have understood before.