Teen signs way to first book

He’s only 16 years old, but this teenager has helped create common ground for both Korean and American hearing-impaired people.
Goo Jin-mo has accomplished this as an author of an American sign language book.
Goo, who is partially deaf, is a student at Phillips Academy Andover, a private boarding school in Massachusetts in the United States.
“As ordinary people need English skills, I thought it would be nice for hearing-challenged people in Korea to learn English so their compatibility in the global market could improve,” Goo said.
He donated 1,000 copies of the study book he wrote for the students at Seoul National School for the Deaf this August.
While on winter break, Goo visited the school, the only one in Korea that provides an American sign language class, to about 130 middle and high school level students.
Goo made it possible for the school to provide the class, which started in March, sign language materials from the U.S. that the school could not obtain easily.
Goo was diagnosed with a genetic hearing impairment when he was 10. He has no hearing in his right ear.
Goo can hear well enough, however, to have attended Yeouido Middle School, a mainstream middle school in Korea, instead of one for the hearing-impaired.
Since few of Goo’s classmates were hearing-impaired, he didn’t learn Korean sign language until his mother, Yang Soo-in, pushed him to do so when he was 14.
She wanted him to meet other hearing-impaired people out of concern that her son was self-conscious about his disability, Yang said.
“I learned sign language to freely communicate with my friends at the school for the deaf, who are very sincere,” Goo said.
Along with attending a mainstream boarding school in the United States, Goo also goes to a special school to learn American sign language.
“I thought if I can master American sign language, I could help my friends in Korea,” Goo said.
He began sending study materials on American sign language to the Korean school for the deaf last year.
He did Internet research at the library of a local university with good programs for the hearing- impaired. School teachers in Korea then translated the English-language materials to use in their American sign language class.
Goo plans to publish a second book using 1,000 sign language words.
“I would like to act as a bridge between the hearing-impaired and the non-impaired,” he said.

By Park Su-ryun JoongAng Ilbo/ Lee Yang-kyoung Staff Reporter [enational@joongang.co.kr]