This week (13-19 March 2023) is Sign Language Week. Run by the British Deaf Association, the campaign aims to celebrate and educate about British Sign Language (BSL), to encourage more people to start learning it and preserve BSL for future generations.
This year’s campaign is ‘Protecting BSL.’
Sign Language Week is celebrated every year in March to commemorate the first time British Sign Language was acknowledged as a language in its own right by the UK Government on 18 March 2003.
Online safety resources with BSL translation
Childnet and the UK Safer Internet Centre have a lots of videos with British Sign Language to use with young people:
For under 7s
For 7-11 year olds
For 11-18 year olds
For parents and carers
We have also created Be Safe and Smart Online, whilst not with BSL translation, the resource was made with the National Deaf Children’s Society to help support Deaf young people and their parents, carers and teachers to help them how to stay safe online.
Advice from the British Deaf Association
The British Deaf Association shared the following guidelines for communicating with Deaf people:
- For Deaf people with limited hearing, or lip-reading skills, speaking clearly will help.
- Speak clearly in whole sentences, without using abbreviations. Be prepared to repeat yourself if the lip-reader doesn’t understand you first time.
- Even the best lip-readers only catch less than half of the words which are said to them, natural facial expressions and hand gestures can really help.
- Don’t be tempted to speak slowly, loudly or exaggerate your mouth movements, because that just makes things harder for the person trying to understand you.
- Make good eye contact; look directly at the deaf person, don’t turn away, and don’t cover your face or mouth.
- Remember to wait until the person is looking at you before you attempt to communicate.
- Don’t stand with a light or a window at your back; the light needs to be on your face.
- Begin the conversation by saying what you want to talk about.
- Be responsive; nod rather than saying “mmhmm”. Use gestures and body language where appropriate.
- Do speak clearly and slightly slower, but don’t shout or over-enunciate, as this will distort your lip patterns; keep your head fairly still.
- Above all, relax and be patient. If you’re really stuck you can write something down.
To learn more about Sign Language Week and how you can get involved, please go to https://signlanguageweek.org.uk/
