Petition for Auslan 5 April, 2008

Australians are being asked to sign their name to a petition for more funding and support for Signing children, who currently exit the education system with poor communication and literacy skills.

As part of the education revolution the government is evaluating the funding needs of children with a disability (not that Deafness is seen as a disability by the Deaf community!). Auslan is a poorly funded area, yet so vital to so many children within Australia.

Please sign petition for Auslan. An online petition has been started, which will be presented to Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

If you support Auslan (Australian Sign Language), please support the petition and sign your name at http://www.bilby.net/Sign/AuslanPetition.asp

Minister Gillard,

We the undersigned wish to voice our support for the following :

1. The recognition of Auslan as an Australian National Language.

2. Funding and support for Auslan as a priority LOTE (Language Other Than English) subject within Australian Schools. Auslan is important as a LOTE as it provides access to the language to the peers of children who need the language, and in the longer term, help raise awareness of the language throughout the broader community and thus overall quality of life for those who need the language.

3. Funding and support for parents and extended family members of Australian children who use Auslan to communicate, whether at a key sign or fluent basis. We believe that it is important to increase the support for these members of our community whose rate of adoption of Auslan influences the longer term communication and eventually linguistic capabilities of the children who rely on them. When the
adoption of Auslan, by family members and carers is limited and laborious, so too is the adoption of communicative capabilities and access to overall communication for children who need this language to communicate, especially within the formative years, so vital in a child’s linguistic development.

4. The funding of services, such as that of SignPlanet.net, which provide free and easy access to Auslan, as a starting point for those learning Auslan. We support “The development of web portals which will enable parents to participate in their child’s education” (http://www.digitaleducationrevolution.gov.au ). We wish to voice our support of the enhancement of web-base information, and courses that will support those, especially within rural and remote areas, learning Auslan to communicate with their children.

The language of… 2 April, 2008

Guess what! I met a Deaf Japanese woman last night!! How exciting!!! My head is spinning with the mix of Auslan, English, JSL (Japanese Sign Language) and spoken Japanese. So far I know how to sign “arigato” (thank you) and “wakarimasu” (know/understand) in JSL. It must be equally confusing for her to watch me fingerspell a Japanese word in Auslan (because JSL has different finger spelling).

Deaf Festival 10 November, 2007

Last month I volunteered at the Deaf Festival in Brisbane. It meant a day of helping set up booths, collecting donations, going around holding up signs to announce the next event, painting kids faces, packing up furniture, communicating with organisers, other volunteers and visitors and drinks at the pub afterwards. It was my first full day of signing, and I was rather knackered by the end of it (though the late night and beer the night before didn’t help that!).

There were a few interesting cultural differences that I experienced that day:

• Although there were lots of people there, it was a quiet festival! Music and microphones not required.
• I was keen to see the festival opening presentations, and the program indicated the time they started. I was on my way to watch the presentations and got side-tracked looking at the stalls close to the stage, and it wasn’t until a few people clapped that I realise the presentations had already started! (Cause they were all in Auslan, there was no loud speaker announcement.)
• There were interpreters for the presentations for the purpose of someone doing that speed typing thing (can’t think of the name for it, you know, like they have in court), which was projected onto a screen.
• When a balloon suddenly popped, there were only a small number of people who jumped!
• While I was at the front gate of the festival collecting donations as people arrived in their cars, I wondered why people didn’t wind down their window to communicate with me. Then I realised – you don’t need to have the window down to sign!

My face painting skills were really put to the test that day – how do you tell a kid that you have no idea how to paint a small face to look like the Incredible Hulk (interesting connection – one of the Incredible Hulk actors is Deaf), Spider Man or a skull? My skull ended up looking like a light bulb and the Incredible Hulk kid got asked if he painted his own face! Everything’s a learning experience…