UNS — Four students of Special Education Program (PKh) Faculty of Teacher Training and Education (FKIP) Universitas Sebelas Maret (UNS) Surakarta successfully secured the 2nd position with the national sign language song cover competition. This competition was held by the Center for Disability Services (PLD) Universitas Islam Negeri (UIN) Sunan Kalijaga Yogyakarta to commemorate PLD UIN Sunan Kalijaga 14th Anniversary. All of the competition stages were held online.
These students are Wafi Erena, Andika Arfiana Putri, Aulia Yumna Zharifah, and Yasmine Raudhah. Since there is no limitation on what song to cover, these students choose to cover Tenang (Calm) song from Yura Yunita. Yasmine, a team member, said that they selected the song because it matches their current condition in a hectic schedule during the final examination.
“We took video separately at home or from hometown for the pieces assigned to each member,” Yasmine explained Friday (9/7/2021).
Yasmine added that her team learned sign language through the self-taught method from a YouTube video. They also asked their seniors, both from UNS and other universities, about the words they didn’t know. After went through all of the processes, their team was announced as the 2nd winner on Wednesday (30/6/2021). Yasmine said that she felt delighted with the result because she felt unsure about their chances.
“The video was prepared quickly. Maybe the signs are not accepted. Moreover, we are second-semester students who still learn to master sign language. Alhamdulillah, we got the opportunity to win 2nd best video,” Yasmine stated.
The video submission process was held through the Google Form platform, in which the team submitted the video they worked on for four days. Representing her teammates, Yasmine hopes that sign language would be more prevalent in the community.
“Hopefully, with competitions that involve sign language like this could introduce and build closeness between hearing and the deaf community. Hopefully, with more works on this kind of competition, our community could value the use of sign language and make sign language to be known and attract more people to learn it,” she concluded. Humas UNS
Reporter: Zalfaa Azalia Pursita
Editor: Dwi Hastuti