Darnell Woods, American Sign Language

Darnell Woods is one of the coolest teachers I’ve ever met. He teaches American Sign Language and his classroom is a joy to learn in. Even though personally I struggle in ASL, the atmosphere he brings makes you feel comfortable to make mistakes while taking on a new language.

The memory I’ll cherish most is when we were learning about double letter signs sentence practice in ASL 1. One of the words he signed wasn’t a double letter. This was still early on and it was the first mistake that Mr.Woods had made that caused me and other students to feel more comfortable with our own mistakes.

The best words to describe Mr. Woods are hilarious and understanding, while also being stern to the students who don’t work or apply themselves in class. From the environment, his love of teaching his language to the people around is clear and the love of his students to absorb as much of the language as possible makes ASL truly a blast to learn.

I hope more people every year have the opportunity to experience what I have – a fun foreign language class that doesn’t make me afraid to fail.