The American Sign Language club is a new club at Centreville High School. The club usually meets every other week for less than an hour after school, so that members will still have time for sports. At the first couple of meetings, they mostly learn basic sign language like the alphabet and some words. The ASL club is sponsored by Mrs. Scales, here at Centreville High School in MOD 5.

Mrs. Scales says, “I was interested in sponsoring the ASL club because I wanted to support students who are passionate about learning about ASL and other forms of communication.”

Madi Brodie is the creator of the club, and she loves ASL and really enjoys teaching it. “I’m going into college as an American Sign Language interpreter, and our school no longer offers it, so I decided to make it. Our school used to offer this class a long time ago,” she says.

Anyone is welcome to join even if they don’t have any experience. There are many people in this club who are inexperienced and are learning sign language for the first time. Students with more experience help teach other students who are there learning sign language for the first time. If you want to join the club, all you have to do is email the sponsors or the president of the club.

The ASL club is a fun and friendly environment. It is a great place to make new friends that share the same interests. Nicholas Nagle, a member of the club, says, “I love learning different languages.” He also says that his favorite part about being in the ASL club is, “being with friends and learning something new together.”

The ASL club has upcoming trips planned to do meetups with the deaf, people who are hard of hearing, people that are able to hear and are experienced in sign language, and people are newly learning sign language. They have plans to meet deaf people in Fairfax County, so that the ASL club students can interact with them using sign language.

They also have plans to go to Gallaudet University, where the majority of the students there are deaf. The main reason they plan to go is because of the plays at the school, which are all in sign language.

The ASL club helps students gain more knowledge about how to use sign language, and helps students understand how people with hearing disabilities use it.