Students of the American Sign Language class performed “Last Christmas” by Wham! at the Christmas assembly, Dec. 19.
Each and every student had a chance to come to Mrs. Winright’s classroom during lunch to practice signing for the performance. Each week they practiced signing the right signs, with hand movements and swaying, which added to the great performance. Mrs. Winright chose the song “Last Christmas” because she thought it would be a good choice. According to Mrs. Winright, she states, “When I mentioned to the classes that I’d like us to perform a song for the Christmas assembly, there was no hesitation. It’s a great way to showcase students’ talent and learn more vocabulary along the way. The students glossed the song, meaning that they worked to break down the meaning of each lyric to find the best sign for it. What I hope to achieve is to challenge the students in the ASL work and see how they progress so far.”
Even though the song was chosen by Mrs. Winright herself, students can have their own opinions to this song idea. One student, Junior Rebekah Ross, states, “I really enjoy the song that we chose this year because it has a little bit of repetition and it doesn’t use many classifiers. Therefore, it makes it a bit easier to set up and follow. There are a couple spots in the song that are difficult to keep up with and find the rhythm. Me and Mrs. Winright are both right-handed so it’s harder to mirror her. The only thing I would change is the amount of people participating. ASL is really fun and I wish more people would take American Sign Language and learn how to sign. It’s easier and more fun than people think.”
Students and teachers saw how the ASL students performed so one can say that there were a lot of surprises that happened during the performance.
