BY MICHELLE NGUYEN & PRISCILLA MEDINA / PHOTO CREDIT: MICHELLE NGUYEN

This year, a number of new teachers have graced the campus of West Covina High. Among these teachers, American Sign Language teacher Greg Koppel stands out. Not only does he teach one of the most, if not the most, visual languages, he himself is deaf and uses the language on a daily basis.

Koppel has a great commitment to teaching at WCHS, but also teaches two ASL classes at Irvine Valley College, and has been teaching evening classes at IVC for the past four years. Koppel chose to teach a high school level class because he felt that this would be a fun, new challenge for him.

“I really enjoy watching the students using their sign language outside of the classes and are able to sign things such as `Good Morning’, `How are you, I’m cool’, or when they’re having a normal conversation in ASL everywhere on the campus or even in the classrooms,” said Koppel.

Koppel encourages his students, and others as well, to learn American Sign Language, as well as learning about the Deaf culture. Often, Koppel also tries to teach his students about various aspects of the Deaf culture, such as the perception of Deaf people and of society by Deaf people.

“ be afraid of the Deaf community,” said Koppel. After all, after much observation, Deaf people are not so different from any other person.