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.