by Flo
Ok, so I’m Flo, part of a group of 8 2nd year Medical Students who are learning sign language Level 1 and some useful Medical Sign Language. Part of what motivated me to do this project was that I love learning languages, and I wanted to learn a language that would be really useful for my future career as a doctor.
It’s been so fun learning it this week, as it’s something completely new, different and actually quite relaxing! I’ve found that it’s a very expressive language because of the facial expressions that add to the signs you are making. I think as it’s my first week in, I can already express what I mean more easily than if I was in my first week of learning a foreign spoken language. Most of the signs are quite easy to remember as they are quite intuitive – either using parts of the body, letters and miming shapes of objects to convey the word.
We’ve learnt the introduction section this week, so that includes learning the alphabet, numbers, different types of transport, weather, and animals. My flatmates and I really enjoyed this section, so much so that if you had entered our living room this week, you’d have seen us communicating across the table with big grins: pointing ‘you’ ‘pig’ to which the response would come ‘you’ ‘cow’!!!
Getting back to the origin of our task, I now need to learn an extra part which I’ll be teaching the group tomorrow in our session. This is our Medical Sign language part and we’ve decided to take a history-taking slant on it, imagining the situations when we are least likely to have a sign language translator available when we are practising doctors. We thought basic emergency communication was essential and then learning how to take a history from someone would be feasible to learn in just over a month. I found my section quite easy as I did the initial introductions we would make as medical students.
Sign Of The Times 