Sign language

[strawberriesandcream23]

Hello,

After a bit of advice really. I really would like to learn sign language and have seen a few courses where you get a qualification at the end of it but they are expensive. DH has offered to loan me the money however what jobs would I be able to get with these qualifications and does anyone have experience of these courses? It wold be a British Sign Language qualification.

Thanks in advance.

I'm not an expert (hopefully someone will be along), but AFAIK it takes years to get good enough to get a job on the back of. Or that's what the (hearing) woman who ran the level one course I did said anyway.

I only did BSL level one (years ago at college) and it was like starting any other language. The alphabet, animals, what/where/why, today/tomorrow/the time. I've no idea what level you'd need to get to to actually be conversational.

There's a deaf guy (non vocal) in a group I'm in and I haven't used what I leant at all, mutual lip reading and expression/ gesture work better than being able to tell him my rabbit died last week or spell things out.

I've done BSL L1 and part of BSL L2 (gave up part-way through). To be honest, to get a job using the BSL I would think you will have to get at least L5 or higher. They also expect you to use/practice your BSL in your own time by attending deaf clubs and interacting with BSL speakers, I just didn't have the time for that.

Our friend is an interpreter. He works in a college for youths with hearing loss. He started learning BSL in his spare time and spent a lot of it at deaf clubs and voluntary work. It took him about 8 years to get to this level.

If you have a passion for it, go for it, see where it takes you but it's not an easy 'do the course and get a job', it's hard and you need to keep practicing and a lot will be learned with other bsl users. Dd is deaf and I've been signing for almost two years, all day every day, learning gaps we've had and attending clubs/therapy, doing them myself etc and I'm still nowhere near what I'd class as fluent.

It's the most beautiful language I've encountered though and so useful. I can have a conversation with my kids across a playground, whilst I'm chatting to someone else verbally, I really do wish it were more mainstreamed and taught at school. Good luck

You need at least level 3 ideally level 6 to do any communication Support work in schools.
For interpreting you need level 6 BSL and English as well as the interpreter qualifications.