I started studying my Psychology degree at UOR in September 2024. In the few months prior, I had selected my optional module for first year.
As a part of my degree, I get 20 credits every academic year to choose an optional module either related to my course, or completely different to what I’m studying. (Please note that not all degrees have optional modules available) I love languages so I had a scroll through the Languages For All program to see what they had to offer.
To my surprise, I saw that they included British Sign Language as one of the modules on LFA! I was immediately hooked and I knew that I had to get into this university. I had wanted to learn BSL for years at that point, but had never gotten the opportunity to do so, so to get to take it at UOR alongside my degree was a thrilling thought to 16 year old me.
I started with BSL level 1, even though I had some slight experience with the language prior to beginning, I figured that it was best to go with level 1 rather than jumping to level 2 straight away, in case I got there and had no idea what was going on.
I knew straight away that I was going to love doing BSL. My teacher was incredibly enthusiastic and helpful, and I left my first lecture utterly exhausted, but ecstatic for the future. Even though I only had 3 hours of BSL every week, it was the one class that I would look forward to throughout all of my Psychology lectures. I remember thinking to myself, “Wow, I should have taken this as a degree.”
The BSL course at UOR allowed me to meet lots of new people and really break the ice in my first year of university, where I was struggling immensely with connecting with my flatmates in halls, and had previously felt like I seriously did not belong. It was super interesting to find out why other people were taking this language module, and that really showed me how unifying BSL can be. We were all completely different people, from polar opposite walks of life, but here we were, bridged together by this singular thing in our lives.
Sign language doesn’t allow you to shy away from the social aspect of communication. While hearing people may distance themselves through texting instead of talking, BSL is different. You have to talk to people. You can’t phone them, or text them, if you want to have a conversation with another person, you have to pick up that phone and facetime them. You can’t stay silent in conversation either – you’re expected to participate. It sounds horrifying, and at first, it was. I was overwhelmed, terrified, and 100% convinced that I was making a fool of myself.
But that’s the thing. Deaf people don’t care. Sure, they’ll laugh and tease you about mistakes, but you aren’t going to be mistreated for learning their language. You pick yourself up and push through it, and on the other side is a whole new world of communication. The Deaf community is a wonderfully vibrant place, and it’s surprisingly noisy, too. Everyone chats with everyone with a level of enthusiasm that I wasn’t previously used to, but everyone’s also genuinely pleased to have you take part.
However, you also learn how hard it must be to live in a world that’s not at all built for you. For the entirety of my first year doing BSL, I would go home afterwards more tired than I had ever been. Doing even an hour of classes would end with me going back to my flat and having a long nap. I learned how tiring it was to communicate in a whole different language, using parts of my brain that I didn’t normally use, and having to do so in order to keep up. I had to pay attention for the whole time, because if I didn’t, I would lose what we were doing. And that, I realised, is what it’s like for Deaf people, 24/7. That level of concentration and effort needed in the most basic of conversations is what they have to do all day, every day.
Sign language is so important in that way – talking to people in their own language means you’re connecting with them on a far more personal level. If someone can learn 5 different languages to interact with other people on the other side of the world, then why is it so “weird” for me to learn 1 different language in order to interact with people just down the road?
Access to language is vital for human connection, and as a species that requires social interaction to thrive, we have severely overlooked the Deaf community by ignoring the significance of having BSL being taught in schools.
Taking BSL at UOR has changed my life, my brain chemistry, and altered how I go about my day-to-day life. The world continues to be unaccessible, and that needs to change. This module acts as a first step to do that.
“If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his own language, that goes to his heart.”
Nelson Mandela (1918-2013)
| Sign Smart BSL | My Journey with British Sign Language 
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