Languages- Auslan

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

Foundation 

The Foundation students have had a 'roaring' start to the term learning the signs for many wild animals, and animals that we might see in a zoo. They have played board games, animal charades and 'guess who' whilst wearing animal masks and causing lots of laughter. The students used familiar signs such as size and colour to describe the animal, in addition to the sign for the name of the animal.  

To expand their use of Auslan, to communicate with their peers, students have created pictures in their Auslan book of what animal they might see in the zoo. Using this as a prompt, the Foundation student's developed the sign sentence "I see a ............(animal name)'. The students were also introduced to terms of time such as; today, yesterday, tomorrow, now, and mealtimes; breakfast, lunch and dinner. We will continue to practise these signs next week.

Year One

Year One students also participated in learning signs for the wild animals as explained above. As many of the students in this cohort can combine several signs more easily than the Foundation students, they were encouraged to use the signs; today, yesterday, tomorrow and now, within their signing phrase. They worked well in small groups playing Wild Animal Chase and practised the signs as they moved through the game.

The following week they created pictures to tell a story of what animal they saw at the zoo. Once they completed their work, they shared their signing phrase with myself and others at their table. The giraffe seemed to be the most popular!

Year One students have started using the sign 'eat/ate' in combination with the signs; breakfast, lunch and dinner. We have touched on signs for food items and will further explore these in more depth with 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' over the next couple of weeks.

Auslan Student Agency

The first couple of weeks of Term 3, the Year One and Foundation students shared their knowledge of wild animal signs with the Year 5/6 students. After teaching the older students the signs, they played the board game together in pairs and raced to the finish.

In addition, the students played 'guess who' by giving clues in sign, about the size and colour of an animal whilst some of them wore animal masks. This was then followed by practising the phrase "I see a ....." and "I see a ..... looking at me". The younger students enjoyed seeing the 5/6 students wearing the masks.

A big thank you to the 5/6 students who have been involved in the agency sessions these past two weeks. They have all demonstrated patience, encouragement and praise to the younger students.  Our wild animal mask wearing videos can be viewed in the links below.

Auslan Electives

We have kicked off Term 3 with a new group of students who are participating in the Auslan elective.  Last week we introduced some initial important signs such as greetings, "how are you?",  fingerspelling, in addition to the sign phrase "My name is....." and "Your name what?"

The students practised the alphabet, spelling their names, and completed a word (sign search) in small groups.  During the first lesson, all students voiced their ideas of what they wanted to learn in the elective. Our topics will include alphabet, numbers, greetings, having a conversation with people who are Deaf, food, animals, days/months/seasons and games. 

I'm looking forward to another term of sharing Auslan with the middle and senior school students. They quickly absorb new information, ask thoughtful questions and actively practise their signing skills with each other.