Languages- Auslan
Australian Sign Language
Communicating with the Specialist Team
We look forward to partnering with you in 2023, and welcome your input:
Amanda Oakley (Languages- Auslan) Amanda.Oakley2@education.vic.gov.au
Shar Stjerne (Languages- Auslan) Shar.Stjerne@education.vic.gov.au
We are looking forward to Term 4, with year levels Foundation through to Year 6 participating in Auslan lessons.
Foundation and Year Ones
Students across both Foundation and Year One have been exploring signs related to outside activities, such as run, ride, swim, kick, walk and play. We had the opportunity during some rain free days to play a game outside that incorporated these signs and enabled the students to demonstrate their understanding without voice.
The students then drew some favourite outside activities in their Auslan books and shared their stories with each other. One new sign in particular that we have been focusing on over the past couple of weeks is 'can'. Using the outside activities signs (verbs), eating, food signs in addition to Deaf awareness discussions, the "I can" statement has been strong across all topics. Year One students wrote an "I can...." sentence with each picture whilst many students have been recalling past signs to incorporate into their signing phrases and "I can" statements.
Last week we introduced a new concept called 'List Buoys'. A List Buoy is a placeholder or an anchor sign that helps keep ideas ordered or the events of a story in sequence. It can be used (but not linited to) giving instructions, explaining favourite activities, objects or making a list of activities.
To support the students' understanding of this slightly abstract concept, we used unifix blocks to build towers of five blocks. Utilising the 'I do, we do, you do' teaching model, and their knowledge of the colour signs, the students followed my instructions using a list buoy of what colour went first, second, third and so forth.
Several of the students volunteered to have a turn and gave the whole class instructions on their preferred order of colour blocks. Following on from here, students drew their own colour combination tower and shared it with a peer, some making several drawings and signing the order of colours using list buoys.
Student electives
This week in our second last class of our Auslan Elective, we watched a fascinating short film of the introduction sequence of the original Lion King movie in ASL (American Sign Language) using constructed action/classifiers. This sparked a discussion about the different ways of communicating that are involved in a visual language.
In Auslan this is referred to as H.O.L.M. + NMF:
Handshapes
Orientation
Location
Movement
+ Non-Manual Features
We explored communicating different emotions using our facial expressions and body movements. We also played a game of Pass the Box. Each student was passed an imaginary box that they created in their minds and expressed to the group the SASS (Size and Shape Specifiers). Some boxes were visibly heavy and big and other boxes floated through the air. It was a great lesson with amazing imaginations.
The National Week of Deaf People
The National Week of Deaf People (NWDP) is a week-long national celebration of Deaf individuals and the Australian Deaf community, which includes celebrating the International Week of Deaf People (IWDP) and International Day of Sign Languages (IDSL) which are initiatives of the World Federation of the Deaf (WFD). These two events are traditionally held during September and are based on the founding date of the WFD (23 September 1951). It is an opportunity for Deaf people to celebrate their communities, language, culture and history; make the public aware of their local, state and national Deaf communities; and to recognise their achievements.
Click the link above to find out more about what is happening at Deaf Australia.
This year's theme is