Interest in British Sign Language on the rise

On the 5th of November I was invited to do a BBC radio interview in Shrewsbury, after they had found the details of the BSL course that I run in a newspaper. 

There was lots of talk about Rose on Strictly Come Dancing and how she has encouraged and inspired many people to learn BSL. They then asked how I learned sign language, to which I responded: I learned sign language when I was about 15 or 16 years old, this progressed slowly as I started to attend Wolverhampton Deaf Club and meet more deaf people. I saw a lot of deaf people there that were signing and it really had an impact on me. Looking back, I was quiet and found it hard to communicate with others at first, but the more I went, the more I picked up. 

When I was about 26 years old, I became a BSL tutor and have now been teaching BSL for over 20 years. They then asked me who I can teach, to which I responded: I can teach variety of people such as professionals, social workers, DWP officers, and many other people of various professions. Finally, I was asked what courses I teach, to which I explained that I currently teach BSL Taster courses, BSL Level 1 courses, and BSL Christmas Workshops. 

I even taught Ryan some basic fingerspelling and he managed to finger-spell his name!  

Written by Dawn Lynch

Anyone interested in learning BSL should get in touch with Dawn Lynch via email (dawn@zebra-access.com) or text/WhatsApp on 07729134155.