British Sign Language (BSL) training
BSL is a language used by Deaf people to communicate using hand signs, gestures, facial expressions and lip patterns. It’s a totally different language to English. Help your staff have a basic conversation with colleagues and customers whose first or preferred language is BSL. Our Start to Sign or BSL for Work courses can be delivered by an experienced trainer at your workplace.
Start to Sign
This course will provide your staff with basic BSL skills to communicate with people who are Deaf and use BSL. They’ll learn how to:
- use appropriate greetings
- introduce themselves using fingerspelling
- explain their job title/role in BSL
- hold a brief conversation with a Deaf person using everyday vocabulary
- recognise and apply basic grammatical structures in BSL.
BSL for Work
This course can be tailored to include BSL signs which are relevant for your organisation. By the end of the course, your staff will be able to:
- sign the BSL alphabet to fingerspell names of people and places
- count in BSL and express money and quantities
- give and receive basic information at work using BSL
- understand the structure of BSL and how it differs from spoken English.
More about BSL training
BSL is the preferred language of over 87,000 Deaf people in the UK for whom English may be a second or third language. A total of 151,000 people in the UK can use BSL – this figure does not include professional BSL users, interpreters and translators, unless they use BSL at home.
Source: British Deaf Association
- Start to Sign: There are half-day (3 hours) or full-day (6 hours) courses available.
- BSL at Work: This course lasts for 18 hours and can be delivered in three full-day sessions or six half-day sessions.
All of our sign language trainers use BSL as their first or preferred language. This means they are able to use their personal experience of the barriers faced by people who are Deaf.
As the UK’s largest charity for people living with deafness, tinnitus and hearing loss, we’re expertly placed to provide BSL courses for the public, private and voluntary sectors.
Other products you might be interested in
Communication support
Deaf awareness training
Hearing loops
Stay in touch
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