Signing 101

3rd October 2009

I started a course in British Sign Language today. I've wanted to learn it since I was at school, but as I'm always a bit slow to get organdised, it's taken me until now to actually do it! So for the next 10 weeks, I'll be giving up my Saturday mornings to go to CityLit to spend two hours with Olga, our tutor, learning the very basics of a language I've wanted to learn since I was 14!

It was interesting to see the mix of people assembled outside the classroom before the lesson, all of us waiting like good Brits in complete silence in an orderly queue. The silence accompanied us into the classrom and stayed with us for the next 2 hours, which was a new and interesting experience. Learning BSL, we were encouraged not to use our voices, although there were a few whispers of encouragement in some of the group exercises when one or other of us was struggling to spell words backwards using finger-spelling!

I learned the finger-spelling alphabet from a little card when I was in the Girl Guides, but it was nice to actually see someone use it and find out where my fingers weren't quite doing what they should!

When learning a new language, sometimes your brain knows what it's supposed to do, but somehow the new word/phrase doesn't come out quite right when you try and say it for the first time. And so it is with BSL, which I was a little bemused about. Trying to spell my name, for example, I knew all the letters individually, but when I tried to put them all together, I was literally all fingers and thumbs! It's the exact equivalent of trying to make your mouth make noises it has never attempted before and frequently your hands won't make the shapes you want them to without you taking an age about it. Lots of practising in front of the mirror will be required! Anyhoo, here's a taster of wot I learnded:

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