For years, ALHS has offered Spanish and French classes, but why not American Sign Language classes? ASL classes would be very beneficial for students to learn because it’s becoming more popular as the years go on. These classes would not only be appreciated by those who want to learn, but also by those who communicate through ASL and want others to have a way to communicate with them. 

I believe students would like to have an ASL class at school. The benefits of this class include enhancing students’ thought processes in a different way, becoming more skilled in their thinking, and even better academic achievements. Students would be able to become more knowledgeable of the ways others communicate and may even take an interest in it. 

However, here at ALHS, there is a high demand for many other classes which leads to teachers having to teach multiple subjects in one semester. For example, Journalism and Drama teachers have to teach English because of the high demand and an engineering teacher has to teach math.

The percentages of students taking ASL classes in the U.S. are around 1-2 percent, which shows how little the supply of these classes there is in the states. I believe that if we give the option of ASL classes to students, more people will contribute to the class and be willing to learn more about ASL given it’s becoming a very important way of communication with individuals that are hard of hearing and utilize American Sign Language as their main mode of communication. I believe this because some students are eager to learn more about ASL and want to better understand the communication choice. 

As mentioned, this would be appreciated by students as well as people who utilize ASL in their everyday life, and I believe that it should be taken into the process of officially bringing an ASL class to ALHS for the sake of the students who are open to learning this type of communication and improving their thought processes and learning a new way to communicate proficiently. 

If we are able to get more people involved in ASL, there will be more people to teach the class in the future and gain knowledge to be able to do so for others to also learn later in their lives. ASL is a great learning opportunity and should be placed in ALHS.