Learn a new language: a sign of the times

Volume 10 Number 12 December 8 2014 - January 11 2015

 

An extraordinary level of demand for sign language courses has prompted the MGSE to significantly expand opportunities for students to pursue them. By Lisa Zilberpriver.

If you want to learn a new language, the common wisdom says the best way is by immersing yourself in it – for example, by going to live in a region or a country where no one speaks anything else. 

But how do you immerse yourself in a language that isn’t spoken by a majority anywhere? And what do you do if most classes that are available to you are taught by non-native speakers?

That is the situation usually faced by students who want to learn Australian Sign Language – or Auslan. 

In the face of growing demand for quality, immersive education in Auslan, the Melbourne Graduate School of Education has teamed up with the Northern Melbourne Institute of TAFE to offer intensives taught wholly by deaf teachers.

 “‘Intensive’ means all the students are immersed in the language, the visual language, the body language, facial expressions. Some signs are included in there, but actually, they’re learning deaf culture and the approach to deafness and Auslan,” says Ross Onley-Zerkel, NMIT course co-ordonator and teacher.

The course was offered in response to a high volume of requests from students studying a breadth subject called Auslan and Visual Communication at the MGSE.

“That subject is about all different aspects of deafness including cochlear implants and noise-induced hearing loss and a whole range of different things,” explains MGSE course co-ordinator, Ms Kate Leigh. 

“Two weeks of the twelve weeks are always about Auslan and the deaf community, and in the feedback at the end of semester, students invariably say “I wish we could have more Auslan”,” Ms Leigh explains. 

“We really expected perhaps 20, maybe 60 students to enrol in the intensive, and we just had this incredible interest. 

“The numbers just grew and grew and grew,” says Onley-Zerkel. “So many students enrolled – it was like they were just lined up and waiting to do the course.” 

Enrolments finally had to be capped at 175 students, with scores more turned away, as plans were put in place to consider offering two courses in 2015. 

Ms Leigh says the immense popularity of Auslan may be due to its usefulness.

“Deaf people would certainly say in their experience that when two deaf people who speak different sign languages meet, they’re able to communicate with each other a lot more easily than two speakers of different spoken languages because of that underlying gestural and visual communication,” she says. 

“They can bridge those communication gaps often a lot more easily than we can with spoken languages.”

However, according to Ms Leigh, it may also be the pure visual appeal of the language that makes it so attractive to students. 

“I think it’s a very beautiful language; it’s really gestural and expressive. I think people find it so interesting that you can convey all the subtleties and abstracts concepts of spoken language and that can all be done in a signed language,” she says.

Another teacher from the intensive, Stephanie Linder, was never formally taught to sign. Instead, she picked it up at school, from other kids. 

Even though nowadays Auslan is offered as a Language Other Than English subject at Victorian high schools, Linder says fundamental improvements need to be made to the way it is taught. 

“I try to avoid teaching Auslan through the English language because they’re so completely different as languages,” she says.

“Traditionally, it’s always been the case that people are trying to teach Auslan using English, and I try and separate the two languages and develop students’ experiences to try and get them to think differently and not rely on English,” Linder explains. 

“I use visual cues like pictures and try and immerse them in that visual frame of mind so that they can link concepts together rather than linking a concept to English and then learning the Auslan for it.”

It is critical that students learn Auslan from deaf teachers, according to Linder, and she is not alone in that view.

“We need to get qualified deaf teachers in schools because that is the foundation of the language that is going to develop among students,” she says.

“It should be deaf people who deliver Auslan training,” Onley-Zerkel agrees. 

“If you’re learning Japanese or Chinese or Italian, it’s best to have an actual native speaker deliver that training program or that class – same with Auslan,” he says. 

In the meantime, students who took the Auslan winter intensive are doing their part to bring the language to the wider community. 

For her assessment task, Phoebe Imms created a series of videos aimed at introducing kids to Auslan using the visual methods taught by Ross and Stephanie. 

Her classmate, Alma Schonken, took the opportunity to develop an entire system for creating new signs to express difficult concepts in physics. 

Both are determined to further their knowledge of Auslan and to spread the word – no matter whether it’s spoken or signed.

Watch a story about the Auslan intensive in the latest episode of the University’s vodcast, Visions.

www.education.unimelb.edu.au

Watch an episode of Visions covering the rise in interest in Auslan teaching : 

 

visions.unimelb.edu.au