During a game of “telephone,” one person begins by reciting a sentence to another person, who repeats the sentence to the next person, who repeats it to the next, until all of the people in the room have heard it.

The fun part is when the last person to have heard it makes the statement aloud. It’s usually quite different from the starting sentence.

It would seem that the game has the same result no matter what the language spoken. At least that was the case when two American Sign Language (ASL)-English interpreting students—Kaitlin McCarty and Meghan Libous—presented on ASL to sophomores, juniors, and seniors in French teacher Nicole Hensel’s class at Midlakes High School in recognition of Foreign Language Week last month.

“What a wonderful afternoon for our language students,” said Anne Meyer-Wilbur, coordinator of the College and Career Center at Midlakes. “The varied activities, link to other languages, things they can actually try out—they were great.”

Meyer-Wilbur said “most kids know some numbers and signs through sports, but otherwise [they don’t know ASL].”

In addition to the game of telephone, in which McCarty, a junior from Saratoga and Libous, a freshman from Binghamton, “gave the students a simple sentence in ASL to sign to the next person,” they explained a similarity between ASL and French.

“Their structure is alike,” said McCarty. “In both French and ASL, you say what it is and then describe it. For example, [in French and ASL] you would say ‘my shirt, red and green striped;’ whereas in English you say, ‘my red and green striped shirt.’”

They also taught the classes simple signs, some animals, colors, the alphabet, and numbers, according to McCarty.  

“They were having their school musical that night and weekend, so we taught them the sign for Carnival and also the tagline, ‘Love makes the world go ‘round,’” said McCarty.

Both women told the class why they pursued ASL. McCarty signed while Libous gave her reasons in English “so that the students could see what an interpreter does,” said McCarty.

“The students loved it,” said Libous. “They were anxiously asking questions and we were answering away.”

Said Anne Weed, chair of the Division and Fine Arts: “We are very grateful and proud that [Meghan and Kaitlyn] represented Keuka and the ASL program so well.”

-- Tanya Cornell-Kestler