It was from Advocate Messenger last month.
 Roger Coyer, standing, instructs a beginner American Sign Language class recently at Kentucky School for the Deaf. (Stephanie Schell photo) |
 Eddie Johnson instructed an intermediate community sign language class recently at Kentucky School for the Deaf. (Stephanie Schell photo) |
 Daniel Bishop, left, practices signs he learned during a beginner community sign language class held at KSD. (Stephanie Schell photo) |
Monday November 10, 2008
Language art: Community ASL classes help close communication gap
By STEPHANIE SCHELL
sschell@amnews.comWhile holding a verbal conversation with Ina Faye Price, a staff interpreter and coordinator for community sign language classes with Kentucky School for the Deaf, it’s evident American Sign Language plays a huge role in her everyday communication. Price is a hearing person, and even when she’s talking with another hearing person, she allows her hands to also convey her message.
“It’s habit,” she said smiling. And for good reason. ASL has been a second language to her for 36 years, and it’s played an important role that all began with an attempt to solidify a new friendship.
As a newly-married young woman living in Louisville at the time, she and her husband lived in a neighborhood inhabited mostly by elderly people. They had no other young couples with whom they could be friends. To her surprise, though, a new young couple was moving in across the street.
“I was very excited about that,” she explained.
Price went out to get her mail one afternoon as her new neighbor did the same. Price introduced herself, but the young woman let Price know she couldn’t hear her because she was deaf.
“I knew not one sign,” Price said, adding she made a few crude “signs” signifying she would be right back with some paper and pen.
So the two women started writing notes back and forth.
“And we became very close friends,” Price said, and still are today.
Eventually the two couples started attending the same church in Louisville. Together they started a sign language class at the church to help others communicate with the deaf community. Price taught the class as her newly educated students taught her. Price continued to develop her signing skills with her friends’ help. Thirty-six years later, it’s the nucleus of her profession.
Eventually Price moved to Danville. Ironically, a few years later the couple that taught her sign language in Louisville ended up moving here as well.
Price has been with KSD since 1997. In 1999, she became the coordinator for community sign language classes held twice a year at the school. For her, the classes not only fill a need for the community, but fulfill a passion within her.
“It’s a wonderful opportunity that KSD is offering to the community,” Price said. “We (Danville) are a large deaf community. The more people we can get from the community (to learn ASL) the better it is for the deaf community.”
Price said personal experience has taught her that learning sign language can prove to be more than just an extra skill, it can be a necessity.
Necessary skill
For Debbie Taylor of Lancaster, it’s the latter.
“I’m actually losing my hearing, so it’s out of necessity,” she said. “I like (learning sign language), too, though.”
She said her hearing started to go around 2001, and no one knows if it will continue to degenerate.
“I’m learning to read lips,” Taylor said, then added that she has some new hearing aids on the way. “I will continue to learn sign language. I’ve really enjoyed this class.”
Twelve-year-old Elaina Plyman of Danville has a necessity for learning ASL, too, but for other reasons.
“I started because there is a person at school who is deaf and I wanted to be able to interact with him,” she said.
But she plans to take this skill beyond her classmates.
“The world is looking for interpreters,” she said. “That’s what I want to do.”
And others look at learning sign language as a beneficial skill that could prove helpful.
“It’s just something that we’ve been looking forward to learning,” Daniel Bishop, of Stanford, said about he and his wife, Julie’s interest in it.
Plus, Julie is a physical therapist and feels knowing this language could benefit her in the workplace.
Students of the classes – which are divided up into beginner, intermediate and advanced – vary in age, background and origins. Students travel from surrounding counties as well as other counties like Clay, Spencer, Bourbon, Nelson and Montgomery. In any given class one might find nurses, college students, bankers and business owners. The majority of classes are made up of parents, though.
“It’s such a variety,” Price said.
And that’s likely because there isn’t another class comparable to this one nearby, especially at $40 per nine-week session.
“A lot of people will say ‘Ina, I couldn’t sign with that person at the post office or the grocery store,’” Price said. “It says (the area) really needs it.”
The classes at KSD are taught every fall and spring and last for nine weeks. This session’s classes are nearly over, but it’s not too early to start signing up for next term’s sessions, which start Feb. 2. The classes are taught by deaf instructors, and Price hangs around in case she needs to fill in or interpret for a teacher, or if hearing students want to discuss deaf culture.
“I prefer that (the instructors are deaf),” Price said. “It’s their language, they need to teach it.”
Hearing people who learn ASL tend to have difficulty adjusting to the language, though.
“ASL is conceptual. It’s visual,” Price said. “The hardest thing for students to learn is it isn’t English. … KSD is offering a good opportunity and I hope it spreads that … awareness – just being aware.”
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So you know
People 16 years and older may pre-register for sign language classes offered at KSD by calling (859) 936-6768 or logging on to www.ksd.k12.ky.us. The next nine-week session begins Feb. 2.
Copyright:The Advocate-Messenger 2008
Filed under: News
