Auslan Report

Grade Prep

In the first two weeks of Term 2, Grade Preps will have learned the topics Deaf Culture and Feelings. In the Deaf Culture lesson, students learned to understand how Deaf people communicate using the Auslan Language and the things that are important to Deaf people. Grade Preps did an activity that involved drawing one of the 3 Culturally important things to do when you meet a Deaf person which are: Eye contact (eg. 2 people looking at each other), Smile (eg. face with a smile) and Greeting Sign - How are you?(eg. people signing). 

Grade Preps learned about Feelings and discussed some ‘Feelings’ words and signs e.g. happy, sad. The learning activity involved students practising the Feelings song with the teacher and drawing a picture of their face and choosing a feeling for the facial expression.

In weeks 3 and 4 Grade Preps will learn the topics Greetings and Questions and Things Around the House. When learning about Greeting and Questions, students and the teacher will practise the ‘Good Morning How are You? ‘ Song. The learning activity will also involve sitting in a circle or in pairs to practise signing ‘Good morning’ and ‘Good afternoon’. Students will ask each other ‘How feel today?’ and will answer with a feeling sign (taught last lesson). 

Grade Preps will learn about Things Around the House. The activity will involve being outdoors to play a game where students  line up at one end and choose 4 different things around the house (e.g. fridge, TV, window, door).  Each student will be labelled with a ‘Thing (or place) around the House’, the teacher or one student  stand a distance away and sign one of the four items and the students must recognise their sign and run to where the teacher (or student) is. This activity can be adapted and played in the classroom by a student standing at the front doing a sign and all the students representing that item can take one step forward until someone reaches the front. Grade Preps will also practise the ‘Welcome to my house’ song. 

Grade 1

In the first two weeks of Term 2, Grade 1’s learned the topics Food (picnic lunch) and Inside Appliances. When students learned about food they created their own Picnic lunch and discussed with a partner using Auslan some foods that they would pack in a picnic lunch box or picnic basket. The picnic food was drawn on a picnic basket sheet and was shared with the class. Grade 1’s learned about Inside Appliances by practising the signs together. The students were split into 2 groups and one person chosen from the first group mimed (Constructed Action) something to indicate one of the signs taught, e.g. standing in front of a heater rubbing their hands together = heater. A student from the other group needed to indicate the correct answer. 

In weeks 3 and 4 Grade 1’s will learn about Medical Signs and Fingerspelling. The Medical Signs lesson will involve a Constructed Action/mime Game. The teacher will sign simple Auslan phrases to indicate a scenario involving a medical situation and students will need ‘to act it out’. An example of a mime could be a child having a headache and the Doctor giving medicine (child/boy/girl headache Dr medicine). Grade 1 students will do a lesson on Fingerspelling and practice the Auslan alphabet including going through the vowels too. The teacher will choose a category such as colour and will spell a word e.g. red. Students will need to recognise the word and then have a turn fingerspelling a word in the same category or choose a new one like animals. 

Grades 2-6

In the first two weeks of Term 2, Grades 2-6 learned the topics Amusement Parks and Deaf History. When learning about Amusement Parks students learned the signs taught by participating in Constructed Action (mime). They worked with a partner or in groups to mime riding a rollercoaster and a Merry Go Round. This also included miming to be the ticket seller or ride attendant, whilst the other students mime the rides and then changed roles. Grades 3-6 students extended their learning by miming walking around after the rides and stopping to buy food to sit and eat which encouraged them to use food signs previously taught. In the Deaf History lesson students listened to a video story and discussed what it was about, focussing on who were the two main characters, the National signs, Southern Dialect and Northern Dialect variations and how this happened to be. Grades 2-6 students worked together with the teacher to shade using different colours on a A3 map of Australia to show the dialect variations and where they were used.

In weeks 3 and 4 Grades 2-6 students will learn about HOLM + NMF (Movement) and My Australian Holiday (Sydney). In the HOLM + NMF lesson students will learn that changing the movement of the signs changes the meaning when all other elements remain the same (Handshape, Orientation, Location and NMF). Students will continue working with minimal pairs, for example, changing the movement of the brother sign changes it to the sport sign. When learning My Australian Holiday (Sydney) students will discuss iconic signs that look like what they represent. Some of these signs will be Sydney (the bridge), airport (plane landing), Opera House (shape of the building roof) and Luna Park (people going through a mouth). Other iconic signs previously learnt will be included such as house, kangaroo, eat, towel, sunglasses and swim. Students will use their bodies to create the landmarks and other students will fingerspell the place, e.g. Luna Park - creating the mouth shape and others walk through. Students will also practise fingerspelling the names of the places. 

Keep updated on learning Auslan each fortnight in our Partners in Learning Newsletter during Term 2. 

Mrs Jessica Pfister