British Sign Language: Teach Yourself: Book

Do you want to be able to understand and use British Sign Language confidently?
All you need is this best-selling course. Learn everyday, useful BSL through real-life situations that make the grammar and vocabulary easy and memorable. Hundreds of line illustrations throughout the book and constant references to video clips on the Teach Yourself library make learning fast and fun.

British Sign Language (BSL) is used in the United Kingdom. The number of Deaf people in the UK using BSL has been put at about 50,000; there are in addition many more hearing people who use BSL to communicate with Deaf users. Sign languages are not related to spoken languages and BSL is completely different, for example, from American Sign Language. Sign language conveys meaning through the use of space and movement of the hands, body, face and head.

We know that many hearing people are keen to learn BSL (it is a very popular evening class course, for example). But there is a lack of good teaching materials written in English for hearing learners of BSL, which this course fills. Get Started in British Sign Language follows the BSL curricula taught currently in colleges (Council for the Advancement of Communication with Deaf People CACDP and Institute of BSL) and therefore will be able to be used as support material by learners, as well as providing a complete grounding in the structure and grammar of BSL.

Flexible
Learn in your own time and at your own pace

Time saving
Learn quickly with one- and five-minute essentials

Expert
Written by Deaf authors

Informative
Sections of Deaf culture

Jargon-free
Learn the grammatical features of BSL with ease

Practical
Reinforce your learning with examples and exercises

Authentic
Learn everyday BSL through real-life situations

Video clips
Video clips online on the Teach Yourself library

Teach Yourself British Sign Language includes:

Chapter 1: Starting out with BSL structure
Chapter 2: More about Deaf people
Chapter 3: BSL Structures
Chapter 4: Deaf culture and BSL etiquette
Chapter 5: Introduction to facial expressions
Chapter 6: Asking 'wh-' questions
Chapter 7: Asking 'yes'/'no' questions
Chapter 8: More about questions
Chapter 9: How to use facial expressions
Chapter 10: BSL mouth patterns
Chapter 11: Starting out with fingerspelling
Chapter 12: Learning to fingerspell
Chapter 13: Reading fingerspelling
Chapter 14: Fingerspelling signs
Chapter 15: Using fingerspelling in conversation
Chapter 16: Other fingerspelt words: months
Chapter 17: Starting out with placement
Chapter 18: Describing a room
Chapter 19: Introduction to referent handshapes
Chapter 20: Understanding switching
Chapter 21: Describing a room from memory
Chapter 22: Understanding someone describing a scene from memory
Chapter 23: Starting out with directions
Chapter 24: Directions - describing localities
Chapter 25: Complex directions: adding more information
Chapter 26: Using directions with landmarks
Chapter 27: Colours
Chapter 28: What next?

Rely on Teach Yourself, trusted by language learners for over 80 years.

Access the video clips for this course by downloading them to the Teach Yourself Library app or streaming them on library.teachyourself.com.

Paul Redfern was Head of Community Development of the British Deaf Association for five years before becoming Chief Executive for Richmond Advice and Information on Disability. He has been very active in the training and teaching of Deaf and Disability Equality.

Nicholas Callow and Laraine Callow are partners and co-directors of Deafworks, a specialised consultancy exclusively concerned with the social and legal issues around D/deafness. They have 25 years' teaching experience with Deaf children in day and residential special schools and in hearing-impaired units.