Why Students Should Learn American Sign Language

[Music]

[Applause]

hello

my name is b r e e

s e i am learning sign language

i love it i want to keep learning

to become fluent in sign language

i decided to try and learn sign language

to better understand the people that use

asl

or american sign language as their main

way of communication

now not every person who is deaf is

going to use sign language

but according to michelle westfall a

professor of deaf studies

most people who are born deaf or been

deaf for most of their life

choose to speak sign language over other

forms of communication

because asl is not a class that is

taught in most schools like say

spanish or french i turned to the

internet to help me out

fortunately i discovered that thousands

of youtube videos

online classes tutors and even online

translations

to help me learn asl so i found some

highly reviewed youtube videos of simple

signing for beginners and started my

journey learning asl

i had no idea what i was getting myself

into and i quickly realized that sign

language is just as complex

and detailed as any other language that

doesn’t mean it wasn’t fun for me to

learn

i enjoyed sitting down on my computer

watching the same video 10 times

and practicing the same 15 signs over

and over again

i did this so that eventually i could

look away from the screen and sign the

words as the video was saying them

but as i was learning simple words and

phrases from these videos

i realized that if i ever wanted to be

able to talk with people in sign

language

who actually communicated with asl i

would need more than just little things

like

hello my name is and good morning

i want to one day be able to go out in

public and if i see a person signing

maybe i could talk with them and carry a

conversation in sign language

i felt stuck though because to be honest

i got scared that i didn’t have time for

this extra hobby

between school sports friends and family

the last thing i wanted was to have more

work

more hobbies more things to do i would

try to squeeze in time for learning new

signs but

it got to where even as i was trying to

learn something new i had already

forgotten the old signs from four days

ago

i would never be able to really learn

sign language if i didn’t have the time

to devote to it

i even started thinking to myself well

i’m not hearing impaired

so i don’t need sign language and i

doubted if i wanted to keep going

at this point i had to remember why i

wanted to learn asl in the first place

i thought back to when my aunt who was a

retired director for the north carolina

school for the deaf

told me about children who couldn’t make

friends very easily in their public

school because

they didn’t have a way to talk with the

other students so what happens when you

have a child who is born hard of hearing

or even completely deaf

what happens when your child doesn’t

want to leave the house because they

can’t talk with anyone in their classes

their teachers or people at the

playground what if that was you

what if you grew up feeling isolated and

alone just because you didn’t

communicate the same as the people

around you

i decided to keep pushing on because i

knew that i wanted to be able to reach

out

and share a conversation with people who

use asl so

what if more than just a few people here

and there started to learn sign language

that would mean that 466 million people

across the world

would have a much larger pool of people

to communicate with

and even just starting small will make a

large impact and as more dominoes fall

a child with deafness might not have to

be scared to go to school because

people will be able to sign to them and

understand them

one step that’s already been taken

towards this goal is through hearing

aids and cochlear implants

these implants are small electronic

devices that help a person

to be able to perceive sounds the

cochlear implant has one piece that sits

behind the ear

and a second piece that is surgically

placed in the ear

while this is a great advancement there

are still ways we can improve in this

area too

not every implant is successful and not

every person is able to learn english

easily if they’ve known sign language or

red lips for their whole lives

and in some situations people don’t

always think that they should get a

cochlear implant because

it can often be seen as going against

the deaf culture

but if we are able to promote asl more

through formal classes in school

people who are deaf may not have to

worry about getting hearing aids or

cochlear implants

because personally i want to continue to

learn sign language

and having a class to take at school

that actually counts towards my future

would make it very easy with

determination and hope we can help the

world become more accessible for deaf

people

thank you