Fife teen runs workshops to teach deaf children to sign songs

Layla Cooke (15) led a total of eight Zoom workshops from August 11-21 for deaf young people aged eight-15 and taught the participants how to sign a number of popular songs, including ‘Little Me’ and ‘Don’t Give Up On Me’.

The workshops were a great success and moved one participant to comment: “I was worried that I would not hear or follow the words of the song, but I was glad to receive it before we started.

“There was a screen with words in karaoke style that worked really well. I learnt something new and I feel more confident to meet new people.”

Layla is perhaps best known for teaching pop singer Lewis Capaldi how to sign Happy Birthday in August last year. She also signed for the Red Hot Chilli Pipers on three shows. In 2019, Layla won an Outstanding Achievement award from Enable Scotland and was given a motion of congratulations from the Scottish Parliament.

Layla has been learning sign language since her hearing started deteriorated at the age of five. In December 2019, she received a grant from the National Deaf Children’s Society’s Make a Change fund, which aims to raise awareness about deafness and break down communication barriers for deaf young people in the community, to set up the LC Academy.

The LC Academy officially started operations on February this year, with the aim of teaching signed songs and running weekly sign language classes for both deaf and hearing young people. Layla is hoping to start offering online sessions via the LC Academy during lockdown.

Commenting on the workshops, Layla said: “The signed song sessions were amazing! I loved every second of it and I am so lucky they asked me to do it. The best thing about it was seeing the end results and everyone enjoying it.

“It was so emotional to see the young ones learning the song in their own time and doing the signs all by themselves at the end. The staff were so lovely too. They were amazing at learning the signs and signing along.”

Kerry Ross, roadshow manager at the National Deaf Children’s Society, who organised the workshops, added: “Since March, the roadshow team have been working hard to repurpose all of our workshops for deaf young people to be delivered digitally. This was a first for us but we had no need to worry as Layla was fantastic at teaching the signed songs!

“We all had so much fun learning the songs with Layla and finding out about how she had used the money from the Make a Change fund to set up her own signed song academy. It really inspired the young people who came along to the sessions and lots of them now want to apply to the fund to set up signed song groups in their own schools!”

In addition to signed singing workshops, the National Deaf Children’s Society has organised a wide range of virtual activity workshops for deaf children and young people, including topics such as music, yoga and baking.