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

We have wrapped up Semester One with vibrant colouring and signing about weather and farm animals. The students became familiar with the seasons, various temperatures and weather elements such as the signs for rain, snow, lightning, sun and clouds. We played games such as ‘Warm, Hot, Cold’ to find the treasured ‘Fairy Ball’ hidden in the classroom, Four Corners where the students needed to find a Season 'corner of the room' and Simon Says with various weather and animal signs.

In our last week this Term, we enjoyed the story of ‘Who Sank the Boat’ by Pamela Allen with story props. We arranged the animals, boat and water to retell the story in sign and through visually seeing it unfold with the characters we had.

Year One

In addition to the activities that the Foundation students completed, Year Ones used matching cards to find the other animal pair . They needed to move around the room and ask each peer in sign “Do you have a pig?” (Pig, you have?/You have pig?). We focused on farm animals including; sheep, pig, cow, mouse, donkey, horse, duck, dog and cat.

Many students completed work in their Auslan books to reflect the seasons and the story of ‘Who Sank the Boat’.

Year One students are encouraged to draw upon their previous signing knowledge to practice phrases with new signs. Next term we will continue to build upon signs to assist the students in forming short phrases such as; like, want, need, more and the question words; what, where, who, why and when.

Auslan Student Agency

Our Foundation students assisted the 5/6 students with weather and the seasons this week. They had a bit of fun dressing up in weather appropriate clothing and helping each other remember the signs for Summer, Autumn, Winter and Spring. In addition, they shared the signs for wind, rain, hot, cold, warm, sun, clouds and lightning. So, on a cold and windy day we pretended it was all of these seasons. Some are more believable than others!

Auslan Electives

It has been wonderful to share Auslan with the Year 3-6 students during Term 2. They have shared many thoughtful questions and discussions about communicating with people who are Deaf, how Deaf children learn at school and building a vocabulary of sign knowledge that they can now use to fingerspell, count, talk about different foods, greet people and have some knowledge of question words. They have discovered the importance of using expressions and how they can use their body to communicate various characteristics of an item, person or animal. I hope that the elective has sparked an awareness, a growing understanding and interest of the Auslan language and Deaf Culture.

See you all in Term 3!