In March 2003, the government officially recognised BSL and announced there was £1 million fund available to support projects aimed at:
- Supporting the teaching of BSL
- Raising employers’ awareness of BSL users
Later the funding has increased to £1.5 million and half of it went to BSL teacher training and support.
Our partners has joined together in 2004 to create innovative initiative of this project and have bid to the DWP - Department for Work and Pensions for some of this fund for this development, which we were successful. The Sign On-line website was born in July 2005.
Sign On-line is a project which develops online materials to support teachers, assessors and learners of British Sign Language, particularly those in colleges and universities who are teaching, assessing and learning BSL at advanced levels.
The materials have been developed by three of the leading universities in BSL teaching and you can access the materials in both BSL and in written English. Each of the three universities has focused on one aspect of BSL teaching:
- The University of Central Lancashire has produced materials about curriculum development.
- City University has produced materials about BSL Linguistics.
- Wolverhampton University has produced materials about teaching skills.
RAD (the Royal Association for Deaf People) has designed and developed the website.
City Lit co-ordinated the trialling of the website in conjunction with Association of British Sign Language Tutors (ABSLT).
CACDP monitored the BSL materials and has co-ordinated with other partners in the project.
The aim of the website is to support the work of BSL teachers (and their students) in teaching and learning BSL. We, the partners, hope the website will grow and improve over the years as more information is added to it.
Enjoy your BSL teaching!
