Miss Trunk brings a new sign of hope to Delaware Valley

Miss+Trunk

Yvonne Magala

Miss Trunk

Ryan Levy, The Delphi Staff, Class of '19

There’s a lot of new teachers at Del Val this year, but there’s also a new class, Sign Language taught by Miss Kara Trunk.

Miss Trunk graduated from Bloomsburg University and studied American Sign Language 1-6. When Miss Trunk graduated, she received her degree in interpreting and eventually had the desire to teach sign language. Currently, she is in grad school at Saint Joe’s to study Special Education tied with Deaf Culture. Miss Trunk wanted to become a sign language teacher at Del Val because “everyone was welcoming and helpful.” With Sign Language being new, the class has become very popular.

Some of the main concepts that will be taught in the class will include: greetings, sharing thoughts and feelings, and how to sign amongst family members. Aside from understanding the language, Miss Trunk feels that it’s very important for her students to learn about deaf culture and the deaf community as it’s a way of understanding what deaf people go through. Some of the various ways she incorporates the deaf community into class is through videos as students get to see how people who are deaf interact with one another. Sometime in the future, Miss Trunk would love to bring individuals from the deaf community to class so students are able to interact with someone who’s deaf.

Miss Trunk’s teaching style is quite different from other teachers as it’s very interactive. Compared to other language classes, this is the only class that doesn’t have any speaking in it as it’s all movement. When
it comes to quizzes, they consist of writing down what words mean (in sign language) with Miss Trunk signing them. The main goal when teaching is for her students not to be fluent in sign language, but to take one step at a time because she has admitted that it’s “not going to be something where you walk into it and get it right away.” With that said, she encourages her students to practice because that’s the only way to get better at a concept that is difficult.

Outside of school, Miss Trunk helps out in the Deaf Community as she interprets for counseling ,medically ill, and also college kids. Besides the class, Miss Trunk would love to incorporate deaf culture outside of the classroom as she would love to form a sign language club. The club would consist of interacting with members of the deaf community. Baseball and bowling for the deaf were just a few events that Miss Trunk had mentioned she would like to bring to the club. Other than teaching sign language and interpreting, Miss Trunk loves to run and hike.

Before becoming a teacher, Miss Trunk used to play softball and performed as a cheerleader at Parkland High School. After graduating, Miss Trunk gave up her athletic background to pursue her major in ASL. Throughout college, she participated in many clubs that were tied to Sign Language. Sign Language wasn’t just something Miss Trunk suddenly became interested in. Her driving factor for studying this language was that two of her high school friends happened to be deaf. Miss Trunk is encouraging students to go to deaf events to possibly get interested in sign language and deaf culture.