Sign language is such a pretty language – even as beautiful as it is, it still can be quite a challenge to learn it and communicate well with it. To that end, this past week HLAA-KC provided an exploratory workshop on ASL or “American Sign Language” to gauge the level of interest in providing sign language classes. The outcome was that a large number of people reserved a seat and showed up on a Thursday evening at the Overland Park Central Library, from 6:30pm to 8:30pm.

There were about 22 people who attended the class – not bad! Sarah Mosher and Alex Vetor from HLAA started off by giving an introduction to what ASL is, and then proceeded to teach the ABCs then some basic signs like “who,” “what,” “when,” “where,” “why,” and “how.” Every 20 or so minutes, the class would practice communicating to each other while Sarah and Alex observed, assisted with corrections, or answered questions about proper usage. After the class had a good grasp of the signs, then more were added. The class culminated in a game of “phone tree” where groups of 5 were split up and had to sign a message from the instructor in a line from beginning to end. The person at the end had to sign the message correctly or answer the question in the message.

In all, it was a fun night and it sounded like a lot of people enjoyed the class. HLAAKC will evaluate if we will have future sign language classes and let the community know. Thank you all for coming!