claireread

To me BSL is a MFL, as we learn Spanish, French or German, I believe BSL to be even more essential than these. This is firstly because we cannot travel to 'Deafland', they are our silent neighbours and part of our own country, often being excluded from some areas due to ignorance. Even though they have a culture and community themselves, I can imagine traversing the World of the Hearing, to be a very lonely and unfriendly kind of place. I appreciate the need to lipread- but as we are learning creature, skills need to be acquired by both sides and it is time more Hearing people learn and adapt their abilities to better enable us to include other.

I work in a S&L department of a primary school and the addition of BSL into learning would very much help with their understanding and development of language, furthermore I have access to a wide array of children and speaking and signing may catch their attention, both to get them interested in learning BSL and also to reduce the isolation of the Deaf community and deaf people. I think that it is super important that BSL is learnt and taught more widely, I hope after this training to be able to have a full conversation; and perhaps in the future help someone in need with BSL.