ASL Club Members Enjoyed Treats As They Carried Out Their Regular Agenda…With A Haunted Twist
By: J. Hemsley
ASL Club members played Halloween-based games, displayed their artistic abilities, and strengthened their signing skills while dressed as Nascar drivers, Anime characters, and Doctors.
“For the most part, regular club meetings are a little low attendance,” said Ethan Valentin. “But any time there’s food and drinks involved, we get a lot of attendance.”
The club’s first ever holiday party on October 30th, celebrating Halloween, was curated by Vice President Sophia Artz and Treasurer Ethan Valentin. The cabinet provided pizza, chips, cookies, sodas, Munchkins, and other treats., as their budget increased this Fall semester. Their intent to draw in unfamiliar faces, creating a larger group of ASL learners at CSI, was met.
Attendees played “Scary Stories”, “Monster Mash”, and “Spooky Pictionary”: Three games where students use fingerspelling and descriptive signs to create Halloween stories, describe popular figures associated with Halloween (such as Frankenstein), and identify images drawn by other club members. While attendees ate, laughed, and told jokes, they realized they were gaining significant knowledge regarding the language.
“We have students on different levels of ASL we help practice,” said Artz. “When we have beginners, it’s nice to teach them, as well as go over new signs that they didn’t learn in the classroom.”
Frank Lam, the club’s former president who now attends meetings as a regular spectator, is still an avid participant in their activities and events. Lam signed and acted out “digging a grave” to portray famous serial killer Ed Gein during their game of “Monster Mash”. While other members took a few seconds to catch on, they became intrigued by his accuracy and ability to describe the killer through ASL.
Lam credits the use and practice of ASL in a variety of games the club plays to his success in classes as an ASL minor, who intends to become an interpreter as a future career.
“I did learn many new signs from this club and my fingerspelling has improved too,” said Lam. “I really wasn’t that good, but coming here every other week, my skills have really improved”
During their game of “Scary Stories” participants used their imaginations to add details to a story, starting with Valentin’s word “ghosts”. Members went around in a circle, similarly to the game telephone, and signed sentences like “ghosts killed the cops”, “then they died on the operating table”, others piggy backed off each other’s ideas. Everyone laughed when one member signed “kissing” instead of “together”, they were corrected by other members as both signs appear similar.
While having fun, the group worked together throughout these games teaching each other new signs, studying and applying class material, constructing proper sentences using ASL, and correcting each other’s signing and fingerspelling.
While playing “Spooky Pictionary” members picked a piece of paper out of a jar, stating a word the club previously practiced signing. The members drew pictures of the word and others guessed what they drew by signing the term back. Valentin drew a frog which others said looked a bit strange, but were able to identify the animal.
In the end, everyone deaf clapped (waved their hands front and back) when each person finished their drawing and others guessed the correct sign.
Most ASL club participants join as a requirement from their professors, either for extra credit or made mandatory on their syllabus, some sit out during the club’s activities. Valentin and Artz describe attendance most days to be fairly low, after taking attendance to report to professors. However, they are planning another party using their budget before the end of semester in celebration of the winter holidays, bringing attention to the club for other CSI students who may be interested in joining.
“It’s engaging. We’re all learning new signs. Some days we’ll have maybe six people, some days we have 12 people,” said Lam. “It really does vary. We’re trying to get the word out for this club and let it be known.”
