The Book Nook & Java Shop is hosting free American Sign Language (ASL) classes over the next two months, taught by Deaf mentor Leah Broomfield.
Broomfield works as a Deaf mentor for the Muskegon Area Intermediate School District, and when Book Nook owners Brooke and Andrew Kuharevicz offered the space to host free courses, she jumped at the opportunity. Deaf mentors work with families whose children are hard of hearing, providing resources to access the Deaf community and Deaf culture. Among other goals, Deaf mentors hope to improve parents' ASL skills in order to facilitate a better connection with their Deaf child.
"I have heard from many hearing people that there is a lack of local in-person ASL classes," Broomfield said in an email interview. "My main goal of offering these classes is to make more people aware of and involved with the Deaf community. I want hearing parents of Deaf children to know how supportive the Deaf community is."
The classes began this week and will take place Mondays and Thursdays at 6 p.m.; Broomfield said 41 people came to Monday's first class. Monday classes will introduce a new topic to go over, and Thursday classes will review the topic and employ activities to utilize what is learned.
ASL can be an intimidating prospect for those who have never studied it and aren't familiar with communicating via hand gestures, and Broomfield said her course can be a good introduction to it.
"The eight-week course is perfect for providing a baseline understanding of ASL, and I hope to offer further classes in the future," Broomfield said.
The portions of ASL that are easiest to pick up, in Broomfield's experience, are simple vocabulary words like colors and numbers, as well as letters. Sentence structure and grammar rules are areas where ASL provides a stark contrast from English.
However, every little bit helps, and that's what Broomfield hopes to bring to her classes.
"I am hoping that more hearing people, especially parents of Deaf children, will take the time to learn ASL," Broomfield said.
