All levels of ASL students began practicing for this year’s World Language Festival, starting in January up until the day of the event, Feb. 8. Faced with three main categories, including impromptu speaking, individual poems and a group song, these students took signing out of the classroom.
With only 15 students on the ASL team, six representing Spanish, and eight for French, Hagerty took home trophies in each category and won overall for the county. The categories included impromptu speaking, declamations and a group song, which only ASL participated in.
Each student at the event for ASL got an entertainment trophy, awarded after the presentation of their group song, “Drag Me Down” by One Direction, and a trophy for their presentation of poems. Almost all students won a trophy for their impromptu speaking, depending on how they were rated by the judges.
Junior Samantha Nicolas joined the ASL team this year to participate in deaf culture and enhance her signing abilities by communicating with deaf judges.
“I decided to participate because I thought it’d be super fun to experience the different cultures performing and for ourselves to perform and learn different sides,” Nicolas said.
The event was introduced in every ASL class and was open to students from all levels.She enjoys taking ASL further, connecting with people in the deaf community and embracing the different ways they express the visual language.
“I think it’s really good to learn some new signs [and] get to connect and see how other people sign because it’s also really important to see other people’s styles of sign,” junior Juliana Noorlander said.
Sophomore Taylor Voigt enjoyed the multicultural aspect of the event, which brought various cultures to life through song and dance. In addition to ASL, the event spotlighted Spanish and French culture.
“It was a very eye-opening experience [since] I got to see different songs performed in different languages,” Voigt said. “I would recommend the World Language Festival for younger kids [because] it was really good for expanding vocabulary, and you got to experience all different languages and cultures from around Seminole County.”
While ASL students had group practices after school to prepare, Spanish and French students practiced on their own, with access to teacher support if needed. Spanish teacher Yvette Rhode supplied her students with impromptu topic worksheets and poem inspiration when they began preparing for their individual evaluations.
“My students did a great job of preparing mostly on their own,” Rhode said. “[It’s nice] to showcase the students’ skills [that] they have acquired that year.”
Junior Juliana Alvarez had a singing performance near the end of the event, before the ASL group song. During practices after school, the students worked through picking a song, interpreting it and choreographing the performance. Though the other categories were geared towards individual practices, ASL teacher Barbara Chaves saw students helping each other become prepared for the competition, tying them closer together as a team.
“It’s team building, too,” Chaves said. “They create memories with each other and create a really tight-knit team.”
ASL teacher Grace Wilken-Yoder, whose classes consist of level one and two students, sees the World Language Festival as an event meant to combine what she’s taught in the classroom with students’ creativity and talent.
“It’s definitely [for] enrichment so that students are getting above and beyond what they learned in class,” Wilken-Yoder said. “It’s a really special experience that they remember because they become a team.”
Students were awarded the highest ratings and took home the most trophies for their ASL and Spanish performances, as well as any artwork that was submitted.
