Many people choose to learn another language such as Spanish or French but not many think of learning sign language. Junior Cody Bell is one of the ones who chose to study sign language.

“At my old school … I had to do a project that would benefit the community and which at least took 10 hours to graduate,” Bell said.

Bell chose to learn sign language to help interpret for special needs children.

“The project that I was going to do was interpret for the deaf whether that be one of the special needs kids that are nonverbal,” Bell said, “or go out of district for a day and you’ll maybe go to the Kansas City School for the Deaf and interpret for hearing students.”

Just like with any language, sign language can be difficult to learn as each type has its own way of signing.

“American Sign Language has its own grammar, syntax and idioms. When you sign ‘Are you a student?’ you’ sign ‘student’, ‘you’ with your eyebrows raised,” Bell said, “Some signs are easy to understand like boy is like a baseball cap, girl is a thumb on your chin kind of like makeup but, certain signs … there’s not a mental connection.”

Bell wishes to continue learning sign language so he can go on to help deaf students learn.

“I think I want to go to the University of Tulsa to continue learning and get my degree so I can teach the deaf,” Bell said.

As he learns more signs Bell has seen how beneficial the language is and recommends that others learn sign language as well.

“With learning sign language I have been able to expand my horizons beyond just English,” Bell said. “If I can’t think of the actual English word, but I can put the sign into it I can figure out what the actual word is.”