When a course in American Sign Language (ASL) begins tonight at FoxTale Book Shoppe in Woodstock, Ga., one of the participants will be co-owner Ellen Ward. "The bookstore has a role in the community to be a center for dissemination of all types of communication, and this is an important one," said Ward.
The classes are taught by Terri Jackson, a FoxTale customer and a certified ASL instructor who was born deaf. When Jackson came into the store one day, Ward--whose 21-year-old daughter is deaf--knew enough sign language to be able to communicate with her. They then devised the idea for the eight-week program, which the store has offered several times over the last year.
The program costs $250 and has attracted a range of participants. A family learned to sign to be able to communicate with their two-year-old boy, who had a permanent tracheotomy and couldn't speak. A woman who was losing her hearing wanted to learn to sign, while another was adopting a deaf child. In addition, some people have been interested in it as a language," said Ward. ASL will soon be taught as a second language at schools in the Woodstock area.
The current ASL program at FoxTale was initially scheduled as a beginner course, but not enough people signed up. "Normally the price doesn't seem to make any difference," Ward said. "Terri is a certified instructor and so it's a higher level than taking a signing class somewhere like a recreation center. Right now people don't want to spend $25 on a hardcover, let alone $250 on a new class." Instead the program has been filled with advanced students already invested in learning ASL and looking to further their skills.
Along with teaching ASL, Jackson offers insight into the culture of the deaf community, such as ways to keep the hearing impaired from feeling excluded in social settings. At the end of each session, she invites deaf people from the community to attend and sign with class members. "It's a beautiful language and one that has so much history and culture built into it," said Ward. "It opens up whole new worlds when you understand it."--Shannon McKenna Schmidt