First Phrases

One of the Primary girls brought a friend with her to church. She didn’t know ASL, but that wasn’t a problem most of the time. In class, her friend interpreted for her. In Sharing Time, the teacher spoke and signed (“simcom” if you want a little vocabulary word. It’s for “simultaneous communication”) In Singing Time, I do a lot of talking anyway, because, hey, we’re learning songs in English and ASL. You sorta have to talk to teach an English song. So she just went with the flow.

I did throw her into the deep end in Singing time. It was our second week working on a song, so we’d gone over all the signs the week before, and we were just trying to memorize it this week. She followed along pretty well, and didn’t seem to be scowling when I had a chance to look at her. (Which, admittedly, isn’t very much, because she wasn’t prone to wandering around the room. Go figure, she was 10.)

So, she came to church, hung out with her friend, and learned some sign language, in the form of a song. And now she can tell everyone, “I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” in ASL. Yup, that's the song we were learning :)