Inspired by the television show “Switched at Birth,” freshman Savannah Bryant said she decided that helping the hearing impaired was her goal in life, which is why she started the American Sign Language Club in December.

“I decided I wanted to be a ASL translator so to have more practice with it and to teach other people I decided to make the club,” Bryant said.

Bryant said she has been learning the basics of ASL for the past two months.

Along with freshmen Faith Cosby and Kristen Thompson, Bryant contacted special education teacher Deana Emerson about being a sponsor for the club.

“Having had the background, having the interest in it, I agreed to be their faculty sponsor,” Emerson said.

Emerson has previous experience communicating through sign language because of her husband, the pastor of Apostolic Tabernacle in Benton, who has members of his church who are deaf and partially deaf.  Her daughter has classmates who are also deaf and partially deaf.  Emerson took her first ASL class her sophomore year in high school.

“Our first meeting was an information meeting. We asked people who knew their ABC’s and we also taught them how to sign ‘Hi, my name is . . .’ and then sign their name,” Bryant said.

Bryant said that she hopes the club will be able to branch out and grow.

The ASL club consists of 11 official members, but Emerson said that at least 20 students show up at their meetings, which are held on Tuesdays after school from 3:15 to 3:45.

Emerson said the ASL meetings are similar to a class, which are led by Bryant with Cosby and Thompson as her assistants.  They have taught the club members Mariah Carey’s Christmas song “All I Want For Christmas Is You,” holiday words and family words.

“We have had deaf pastors who have come and preached at my church. You watch them preach in sign language and then the verbal interpreter is interpreting for them. It’s different when the roles are reversed,” Emerson said. “I think we all have the tendency to think that those who don’t communicate as fluently as we do are lacking and that is not the case at all.”