Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, April 15, 1991 TAG: 9104150182
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MONICA DAVEY/ STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BEDFORD LENGTH: Medium
They're silent.
Silent but for an occasional gasp of laughter. Whatever stories they're sharing must be funny.
These students are communicating with each other in sign language.
It's part of teacher Ed Powell's yearlong signing class - the first of its kind in the Bedford County public school system and perhaps, Powell said, in the state.
Part of what makes it rare is that these students can hear and speak.
Given that, ask them why they choose to learn sign language, and they answer with carefully chosen waves of the hands and curls of the fingers.
One student wants to become a lawyer, and believes that hearing-impaired clients could use her special ability.
Another sees a market for flight attendants able to sign for travelers who cannot hear.
A third hopes to learn to communicate with her deaf uncle.
Powell said he thinks his students may have picked up more than the 1,000-word sign language vocabulary he's taught them.
"I think what they've learned has been about handicapped people in general," Powell said. "They're not handicapped or non-normal; they're just different."
Among other events, the students spent a day communicating - only in sign language - with deaf people in the community and among themselves. The students played games and signed with hearing-impaired people from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on so-called "Silent Saturday."
Unlike some foreign language pupils, Powell said, the students will find uses for sign language all around them. "As far as using what they've learned, there are deaf people everywhere," he said.
Powell, a Liberty chemistry teacher most of the time, happened upon a class for sign language a few years ago while he was teaching a different course at Central Virginia Community College. He ended up taking the course and has been learning to sign ever since.
Powell has taught his class one form of signing - known as pidgin-signed English - in which articles, tenses and endings are left out.
Learning it hasn't been easy.
Making precise and rapid hand movements is a lot different than using the vocal cords, for one thing, students said. They quickly learned that they'd need different physical abilities for this type of communication.
The sophomores, juniors and seniors also found that pidgin-signed English left a lot of ambiguity.
Signs for "church," "computer" and "chocolate" are nearly identical, they say. With little in the way of syntax, meanings of sentences are often clarified by context.
And "finger spellings" - signs for letters in the alphabet used especially to spell out proper names - are tough to read, the students said.
It's uncertain whether Powell's class will be continued for a second year next year. School officials will make that decision after seeing how many students sign up for it and how their budget ends up.
But Superintendent John Kent is optimistic.
"I feel like the hearing world needs to be cognizant of the fact that there's a good portion of the world that's non-hearing," Kent said.
Within Bedford County's system alone, some 30 hearing-impaired students attend schools every day, Kent said.
"It's the sensitivity issue. That's why the class is so worthwhile."
by CNB