What is British Sign Language?
Beth's skills
Sign with Beth provides a fun, friendly and relaxed atmosphere in classes for any age and any sized group all held in Exeter or online zoom.
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I am fluent in BSL and have been in the Deaf community for over 30 years, with just over 10 years of teaching experience. BSL is a beautiful language to learn and is such an expressive way of communicating.
Many signs are natural gestures. Other signs are based on some characteristics of the sign's concept. For example, for the word "cup" one hand represents a saucer and the other hand encircles the shape of a cup, what it represents is called its "iconicity" and it is iconicity that makes sign language easier to learn.
LEVEL 6 BRITISH SIGN LANGUAGE
LEVEL 3/4 PTLLS
INTRODUCTION TO BSL LNGUISTICS
LEVEL 2 LITERACY
Cert.HE FINE ART
LEVEL 1 WEB PAGES
Beth's languages
BRITISH SIGN LANGUAGE
ENGLISH
Beth Bartholomew, BSL teacher
Based in Exeter
What is BSL?
British Sign Language (BSL) was officially recognised as a language by the British Government since March 2003. The native language of Deaf people and was created by deaf people for the purpose of communicating with each other.
Sign language is a rich, unique, visual-gestural language. It's a very physical language system of communication and makes use of the facial expressions, mouth patterns and is also their first or preferred language. BSL is completely different from English grammar and structure.
90 percent of deaf children are born to hearing parents who do not know sign language. Not knowing BSL when you have family or friends who speak it can be disappointing and frustrating for the deaf and the hearing.
Hearing children as CODA (Child of Deaf Adult) grow up to be adults whose parents are deaf learn Sign language naturally and often become excellent interpreters.
As history goes, BSL has been around as far back as 1570.