Students Speak a New Language at Springville Junior High

Submitted by tiffanie.miley on Mon, 11/08/2010 - 16:15

Students have all heard about Springville Junior High’s new Quest Time program. Some students may have attended many different enrichment activities with many different teachers. One of these activities is sign language. The sign language enrichment class is held by Ms. Diane Hamilton, pre-algebra and algebra 1A teacher at SJHS, and takes place in room 74 every Tuesday. Ms. Hamilton teaches this enrichment class because she thinks it is important for students to know another language, and she thinks it should be a regular class.

So far students have learned family words, school words, questions, sentences, and much more. According to Ashley Cutler, Genna Murry, and Jackie Gutierrez, eighth graders at SJHS, they have learned a lot of sign language. According to Ms. Hamilton, there are many reasons to learn sign language. For example, she said that knowing sign language comes in handy because there are a lot more deaf people than you think. It’s also good to know when you are in quiet places, and it’s just plain fun.

Students are learning sign language in this enrichment class. On the other hand, Ms. Hamilton learned sign language in college. She learned it because she was very interested, and she wanted to learn a new language. She received a sign language minor in college, and can interpret sign language for people. Ms. Hamilton went to college at BYU here in Utah. “I would love to teach it,” says Ms. Hamilton. “We have a lot of fun.”

Attributions
Taylor Bennett, SJHS Staff Writer