There are almost a million people in the UK with severe/profound deafness. If we included age-related hearing loss, this rises to over 11 million! That is one in 6 of the UK population!
When I was a kid, there was an old lady at my church who was deaf and blind. Her husband used to sit beside her in the services and translate the sermons using a version of the BSL (British Sign Language) alphabet which is drawn onto the other person’s hand. My brother, sister and I all learnt it so that we could communicate with Elsie, and I can still remember it to this day, but never really used the skill again after she passed away.
I have often watched the late night shows with the little translator in the corner, especially in my Student days, and I always fancied giving sign language a go. The Deaf/Blind alphabet is all very well, but I never met anyone else that was deaf/blind and the alphabet, whilst similar, is different enough that it doesn’t quite translate to BSL. So I popped it on the list and started to research courses.
As the skill can be considered a transferable skill I asked my employer if they would be willing to assist in funding the course. I wrote a justification as to how I thought it could enhance our company’s offering and was delighted to learn that the company would make a contribution towards the cost.
I began my research by looking into an Adult Learning evening course. There was one at Surrey Uni for £252, but they were one term in to a year’s course and they felt it would be a big jump to catch up. I then found a private company (Dot Sign Language) who offered a 20 week course in BSL Level 1 for £350 (plus assessment fees). Unfortunately I missed the sign up deadline, and the next term didn’t start until October, so I enquired about private tuition instead.
Amazingly, the Director, Kathleen Grehan, was more than happy to offer one-to-one sessions at a cost of just £30 an hour. She even agreed to meet me at my workplace during my lunchbreak, so that I could fit it into my working day! We agreed a 10 week course, and we would take a view as to whether I would be able to complete a qualification or not, depending on how quickly I picked it up.
When arranging to meet, I discovered that Kathleen is deaf and that we would be communicating by pad/paper or typing onto a laptop; or sign language. I was a little nervous before we met, but luckily Kathleen was absolutely fantastic; very friendly and non-intimidating.
Our learning objectives were:
- Understand and communicate basic conversations when meeting Deaf people
- Know basic numbers
- Know different weather conditions
- Know range of transport modes
- Communication a range of directions
I spent my first lesson learning greetings, the alphabet, how to offer tea and coffee, basic numbers, and number contexts such as time, money, age, 1st, 2nd, 3rd etc., and questions such as who, what, where, why, how. Kathleen followed up after each session by emailing me with a copy of the notes from our session along with a video clip so that I could practice.
The rest of the 10 sessions went as follows:
- Week 2 – We discussed the news, election, political parties, colours, numbers
- Week 3 – Days of the week, today, tomorrow etc, and general weather topics such as sun, rain, cloud, hot, cold etc. We then moved on to directions, and different types of transport.
- Week 4 – We practised, as I had my first assessment the following week!
- Week 5 – First Assessment
- Week 6 – Family, background, home, describing people, ages, jobs
- Week 7 – Hobbies, dancing, holidays and my 40 things.
- Week 8 – Second Assessment
- Week 9 – Job role, insurance, directions,
- Week 10 – Final Assessment.
The assessments took place by setting up a video camera and then having a conversation around a set topic. Kathleen then sent off the videos for external verification.
A few weeks later, I received confirmation that I had passed! Whilst not the greatest mark, I achieved 60% so I was fairly OK with that – had to remind myself that’s a 2:1 in degree terms!
The certificate arrived today and I have promised myself that I will keep practising and I hope to tackle level 2 at some point!
I really enjoyed learning BSL, and it is such a great skill to have. There are so many people who can be isolated from the hearing world and I am keen to do my part in including them. Anyone can learn, and it doesn’t have to be a classroom environment. You could probably get a few of you together and share the cost too!
For more information:
40 things... 