ASL Club

American Sign Language is the predominant language of Deaf and hard-of-hearing communities in the United States and parts of Canada, serving as many people’s main form of communication, but many people know little about it. Johnston High School formed the ASL (American Sign Language) Club in 2016 with the purpose of bringing awareness of the Deaf culture to students while teaching ASL.

“Our goal is to provide students with ASL skills and knowledge of the Deaf and hard-of-hearing communities in order to apply ASL within their own lives,” said Lisa Noe, the sponsor of the ASL Club at Johnston.

Despite being initially formed in 2016, the club was inactive from early 2020 up until this 2022-2023 school year. A primary struggle of getting the club up and running again was finding a student who knows ASL and is willing and able to lead the club. As of now, two students are leading the club but they are always open to more help and students who are eager to learn ASL, or to teach it to their peers if they already know it.

The ASL Club meets after school on the first and third Monday of every month, where they spend time learning new signs, reviewing the signs they have already learned, sharing information about ASL and the Deaf community, playing games and socializing. For many of the club’s members, it is a great opportunity to meet new friends while learning a new language and educating themselves about the Deaf community.