British Sign Language and Deaf Culture 3B (T5007)

15 credits, Level 5

Spring teaching

This final stage of the 90-credit pathway in British Sign Language (BSL) and Deaf Culture allows you to improve fluency in conversational technique in BSL, to add specialised vocabulary to your repertoire and develop your knowledge of approaches to professional and academic engagement with deaf people.

You'll aim to:

• demonstrate, with fluency, clear use of sign language grammar and some complex structures, at an upper-intermediate level
• analyse your own production, using TL linguistic reference tools
• take opportunities to use BSL in a professional setting
• explore opportunities to engage with deaf people on a topic of specific interest
• develop knowledge of deaf culture and sign language in specific areas of interest (e.g. discourses in teaching and deaf children, development of oralism in 19th century onwards, the evolution of video-telephony technology, implementing human rights in developing countries)
• translate (e.g. from English to BSL) specific professional and/or academic information in a semi-public arena using commonly available technology (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, vlogs)
• develop study skills to create an evaluation report in BSL, supported with references and quotes in English.

This module is at B2 on the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) for Languages.

Contact hours and workload

This module is approximately 150 hours of work. This breaks down into about 44 hours of contact time and about 106 hours of independent study. The University may make minor variations to the contact hours for operational reasons, including timetabling requirements.

We regularly review our modules to incorporate student feedback, staff expertise, as well as the latest research and teaching methodology. We’re planning to run these modules in the academic year 2024/25. However, there may be changes to these modules in response to feedback, staff availability, student demand or updates to our curriculum.

We’ll make sure to let you know of any material changes to modules at the earliest opportunity.