Sign language in schools?

[CorSie]

Why isn't sign language taught in schools as standard, rather than Spanish, French, German etc?

It's something I've always wondered but never really put too much thought into it until just recently.

When I was in school our options were French and Spanish and all we were taught was how to order food, ask where toilets were, booking hotels etc which, now, I don't really see as important. Surely teaching children sign language from an early age is more beneficial?

You do realise it isn't only people with hearing impairments that sign don't you? Those with speech difficulties often also sign.

I think learning sign such as Makaton would be beneficial

Actually not all that many use sign language. My DD1 for example is partially deaf but she has hearing aids and the school use a special microphone to help her hear the teacher's voice. She's never learned BSL, it's just never been necessary.

BSL would be a useful option to offer on language courses at university, I would suggest.

Not teaching sign as standard is divisive and separates communities.
I'm not even sure what that means. Standard what? How does it separate communities? It doesn't make sense.

There's nothing wrong with wanting everyone to be integrated into a bigger and more inclusive community.
So learn sign then! There are lots of ways of working towards community inclusion though, not sure why you have singled out just BSL. As others have pointed out, there are many reasons why not everyone learns it - relatively small number of users and difficulty in becoming proficient. This does NOT mean that I think it is not worth learning and I never said it did. Glad to hear that you are studying it but NOT studying it does not mean that I don't care. That would be like me berating you for not learning Urdu...

BSL should be taught alongside English, not instead of a foreign language. Spanish or German is a far more useful language for business, even if you aren’t fluent.

I learnt French at school but I've never used it since. I know a few people who use bsl though and I wish I'd been able to learn that at school instead.

BSL isn't what's used world wide. It's now ASL

But if you like in Britain.....

'I & most other deaf or hearing impaired people do not use sign language & whilst I think it would be good if people learned to sign I understand that is difficult '
It would be. The fact is many Deaf people don't use BSL anymore, with cochlear implants there are more and more oral Deaf people.

Deaf awareness would be of much more value and parents teaching basic good communication skills, eye contact, look at the person, include them in the conversation, turn down tvs if someone is HOH and you're talking to them because aids turn up all back ground noise and make communicating more difficult.

whoops, live in Britain obviously.

Standard in schools and how can you not understand how it separates communities? The obvious communication barrier being the main thing.

I'm not singling out Bsl , it's a thread about Bsl! I'm also not berating you for not learning it, I'm saying it should be taught in schools.

The thread is about why it isn't taught in schools. If you want everybody to learn it in schools, it is difficult to justify it on the grounds of numbers. What would you have it replace?

I did year 1 of BSL nearly 20 years ago.
Could hold a basic conversation.
Never used it since.

Unless you have regular contact with deaf people who use it themselves, or need for work, then it's a bit of a waste.

If you want to learn then night classes in college are great but it would cost far too much to teach in schools.

Instead of 2 languages I'd have bsl and 1 language the student chooses. Or as a pp said teach it alongside English

I agree it would be useful, but as well as the existing foreign languages, not instead of. Not sure how that would work in practice however.

But surely many students don't study two languages anyway? BSL is a separate language with its own grammar. It doesn't make sense to teach it in an English lesson.

'Or as a pp said teach it alongside English'

Why though? As has been said unless used daily it is impossible to make any progress. There are more oral Deaf, BSL just is not used that widely anymore. If you have Deaf family or friends then obviously it should be learnt but not for every school kid it's just not justified.

I think another issue is finding people to teach it in schools. Many deaf people have reduced educational advantages because of their disability, and you would likely have not enouh deaf people that have been able to access degree education and teacher training in order to teach it in schools, and its incredibly hard to learn fluently unless you are either deaf and involved in your deaf community, or have deaf parents and were brought up with it as a first or second language. The vast majority of BSL interpreter you will see, will have deaf parents.
Being able to say a few phrases, or make a basic conversation is great, but its not going to integrate anyone

@steppemum I do live in Britain. And ASL is the "universal" sign language

Youcantarguewithstupid it absolutely is not. It is American.

'I do live in Britain. And ASL is the "universal" sign language'
Why do you think this? BSL is used here, ASL in America.

ASL is often a lingua franca in areas where it isn't a first language.

Sign language is difficult, there are some children who would really struggle to copy signs accurately and I think it would need to be done in much smaller classes, because where as in say a French lesson you can introduce a new word and get the kids to repeat it and then be able to hear if anyone's mispronouncing it, you wouldn't be able to watch 30 kids well enough to notice if someone wasn't signing it properly. Also, schools are struggling to fund anything, you'd need teachers well enough trained to teach it which would cost money

Thanks for all replies, it has opened my eyes as you've all taught me a lot I didn't know.

I didn't mean for this thread to become a debate I was genuinely interested to know why. Reading over all the replies I realise other languages are beneficial (just maybe not in my experience) but I definitely do stand by what I feel regarding BSL.

Reading people's views has definitely made my mind up about learning it myself, I expect it to be hard but I'm willing to learn as I do feel like it'll help.

As for a pp mentioning Makaton, I didn't know very much about this until farely recently when DD become slightly obsessed with Mr Tumble. She's only a year and a half and has already picked up a few signs (only 2 or 3 and I know she's more than likely to forget it) but I'd love for her to learn properly

I really do appreciate all replies, even those who don't agree. It's always worth asking and seeing other people's opinions on things

I really do appreciate all replies, even those who don't agree. It's always worth asking and seeing other people's opinions on things

We learnt sign language in primary school. We had a deaf 'unit' and so there was a handful of deaf kids in the school. We had to learn to sign along with quite a few of the songs that we sang in assembly and we learnt the alphabet.
I still remember it all at 31 and think it's brilliant that we did that.