Only 151,000 deaf people are fluent in, and use BSL on a day-to-day basis (Credit: Wikimedia Commons)
Adel Wilson is trying to eliminate the misconception that deaf people are unapproachable.
Yesterday, deaf actress Rose Ayling-Ellis said she thinks families of deaf children should get free sign language lessons and wants to encourage more people to learn sign language.
In April, the Royal National Institute for Deaf People (RNID) conducted a poll which revealed that almost 60 per cent of the general public lack the confidence to communicate with a deaf person over fears of not knowing how to do so. A further 84 per cent said they did not know how to use British Sign Language (BSL) to speak with a deaf person.
Wilson works as a BSL tutor. The 26-year-old is completely deaf in her left ear, and has been signing for over 10 years.
She is one of 12 million deaf and hearing impaired people in the United Kingdom. Only 151,000 of these people are fluent in and use BSL on a day-to-day basis, either as an additional means of communication alongside speaking, or as their first language.
Wilson finds her school years hard to recount, as she struggled to keep up with the other children in her class. “I was told I was ‘shouting’ and bullied in the playground,” she says.
She wishes her peers had been better educated on how to engage with those who suffer from hearing loss.
“You don’t need to know sign language to communicate with a deaf person. People panic and forget to use the basics like writing things down, pointing and mime,” she says.
As school got worse, Wilson’s parents decided she should be home-schooled. However, she believes that this is not a viable or fair solution for all deaf people, which is why she feels BSL should be introduced into the national curriculum.
In the UK, the majority of deaf children go through mainstream education.
Emily Harris, a primary school teacher runs an after school club that teaches Makaton, a unique language similar to BSL, which is made up of signs and helps children who are developing their speech, or prefer to sign.
She believes that all children deserve the opportunity to choose the way they communicate, whether through signs, speech, or a combination of both.
Harris hopes that the government will introduce measures to ensure that deaf children are properly supported within education.
“If a deaf child joined my class, I would see it as absolutely essential for the whole class to learn BSL. This would have major benefits for the child in question, in helping them feel more included and being able to communicate with their peers, but it would also have benefits for the rest of the class,” she says.
Harris is not alone in her view. A 2019 petition campaigning for BSL to be part of the national curriculum garnered over 35,000 signatures. But little has been achieved since last year, when BSL was legally recognised as its own language in the UK after the British Sign Language Bill was passed.
Charities like Auditory Verbal UK (AVUK) are pushing for more support for deaf children in schools. The highly specialised auditory verbal therapy programmes on offer aim to assist deaf children’s speech and language development.
Jane Warriner, PR Manager at AVUK says: “We want to raise expectations and outcomes for deaf children whether they choose sign language, spoken language or both.”
For those that cannot access these services, however, the options seem limited. But the emergence of deaf creators on the social app, TikTok, has brought about the provision of a fun and free way to learn basic BSL signs.
Alongside her company Traffic Light Tutoring, which she started to teach accessible BSL courses, Wilson creates interactive content on TikTok.
As her TikTok account grows, Wilson is hopeful for the future of the deaf community. She finds engaging with her 25,000 followers, most of whom are young people, incredibly exciting. Wilson uses TikTok to share the basics of BSL and to encourage the use of BSL in everyday life.
Wilson does not deny that BSL lessons and courses can be expensive, which is why she posts the basics on social media for free. “It’s all about passing on the knowledge and skills that I have learnt over the years so that the younger generations can use it to benefit themselves and the deaf community,” she says.
Wilson is optimistic that content creators like herself can help improve the experiences of deaf people, even whilst schools are not yet able to. “I believe we are finally moving in the right direction,” she says.
Adel posts on her TikTok: @trafficlighttutoring, Twitter: @TLTutoring, and Instagram: @trafficlighttutoring
Her website is: https://trafficlighttutoring.com
[…] Also Read: Young people are pushing for British Sign Language to be taught in schools […]