Auslan (Version 8.4)

Understand how Auslan works

Introduction

As a native user of Auslan, and as an advocate for the language and for the Deaf community, I am thrilled to see a national curriculum in Auslan come to fruition. For the first time, deaf children will have access to a formal first language learner pathway for acquiring Auslan, acknowledging their status and strengths as visual learners and offering a ‘Deaf gain’ perspective to their lives.

Rationale

The formal study of Auslan contributes to the overall intellectual and social enrichment of both first language (L1) and second language (L2) learners by providing:

opportunities for engagement with the Deaf community and insight into its rich cultural heritage

Aims

The Australian Curriculum: Languages – Auslan aims to develop the knowledge, understanding and skills to enable students to:

communicate in Auslan
understand language, culture and learning and their relationship, and thereby develop an intercultural capability in communication

Learning Auslan

Some linguistic features of Auslan are similar to properties found in spoken languages and others are not. For example, the 26 fingerspelled letters of the Auslan alphabet are based on the 26 letters of English.

Learner diversity and learner pathways

Pathways
There is diversity in the background of learners of Auslan. Learners may be deaf, hard of hearing or hearing, and may be learning Auslan as a first language or as a second language.

Developing teaching and learning

Sequences of learning
The Australian Curriculum: Languages – Auslan has two learning sequences: one from Foundation to Year 10, and another from Year 7 to Year 10 (Year 7 Entry).

PDF documents

Resources and support materials for the Australian Curriculum: Languages – Auslan are available as PDF documents.
Languages - Auslan: Auslan glossing conventions and principles
Languages - Auslan: Auslan Glossary

Glossary

Context Statement

Years F–10 Sequence

The second language learner (L2) pathway caters for students learning Auslan as a second or additional language. This will usually be students who are not members of the Deaf community; typically, hearing students who may or may not already know a second language. The L2 pathway may also include deaf or hard of hearing children already fluent in another language, such as a different signed language in the case of a recent immigrant, or spoken English for some deaf children who have residual hearing or access to speech. These students are introduced to Auslan as a language to add to their existing linguistic repertoire. Teachers will use the curriculum to cater for learners of different backgrounds by making appropriate adjustments to differentiate learning experiences.

The first language of most L2 students will be a spoken language, and this pathway gives them an opportunity to study a language that is very different from a spoken language. If L2 learners are learning in a school attended by deaf students, they will have a unique opportunity to use their new language on a daily basis in an authentic context.

L2 programs occur with constant involvement from a variety of fluent signers from the community. A key expectation is that students will have opportunities to interact with elders and members of the Deaf community.

Years 7–10 (Year 7 Entry) Sequence

The second language learner pathway Years 7–10 sequence offers students the opportunity to learn Auslan as a second or additional language commencing in their first year of high school. These learners are typically hearing students with little prior exposure to the language or to the Deaf community; but many will have learnt an additional language in primary school and some have proficiency in different home languages. They consequently bring existing language learning strategies and intercultural awareness to the new experience of learning Auslan. This cohort also includes deaf or hard of hearing students already fluent in another language, such as different signed languages in the case of recent immigrants or spoken English for deaf children who have residual hearing or access to speech. These students are introduced to Auslan to add to their existing linguistic repertoire. Teachers will use the curriculum to cater for learners of different backgrounds by making appropriate adjustments to differentiate learning experiences.

The first language of most L2 students will be a spoken language, and this pathway provides an opportunity to study a language that is very different from a spoken language. L2 learners learning in a school attended by deaf students have a unique opportunity to use their new language on a daily basis in an authentic context.

Foundation to Year 2

Foundation to Year 2 Band Description

The nature of the learners

Children enter the early years of schooling with established communication in one or more languages and Auslan will be learnt as an additional language. Cognitive and social development at this stage is exploratory and egocentric; thus learning typically focuses on their immediate world of family, home, school and friends. Children at this level are learning how to socialise with new people, share with others and participate in structured routines and activities at school. Auslan will be learnt in parallel with English literacy, and the learning of each language assists with the learning of the other.

Auslan learning and use

Rich language input characterises the first stages of learning. The curriculum builds on children’s interests and sense of enjoyment and curiosity, with an emphasis on active, experiential learning and confidence building. In these years there is an emphasis on developing language to enable learners to participate in class activities such as storytelling and games. Creative play provides opportunities for using the language for purposeful interaction in a relaxed and informal context.

Children build vocabulary for thinking and talking about school topics, routines and processes. They build knowledge and understanding of Auslan by interacting with each other, the teacher and deaf children, and by participating in structured routines and activities. With support and modelling, they use Auslan for different functions such as greeting, thanking, apologising, asking and responding to questions, expressing wishes, likes or dislikes, following simple directions, and taking turns in games and simple shared learning activities. They learn to produce signed phrases independently using modelled language, for example by describing simple pictures.

Contexts of interaction

The primary context for interaction is the language classroom, with the Auslan teacher and classmates. Learners’ use of Auslan primarily relates to classroom routines and activities and to talking about their own life. Additional language enrichment may be gained through interactions with visitors from the Deaf community.

Texts and resources

Texts include filmed children’s stories and teacher-generated materials such as pictures or short descriptions. Learners watch live and filmed texts such as explanations. They respond to resources such as short video clips, or substitution or matching exercises, and produce texts such as conversations using formulaic language.

Features of Auslan use

Children in Foundation to Year 2 become familiar with all handshapes, movements and locations of single signs. They are learning to produce simple positive and negative statements with some time marking, and to use plain verbs or unmodified indicating verbs. They learn to describe familiar objects, animals or people using simple lexical adjectives and to depict the movement of people, animals and means of transport using an appropriate classifier handshape in an entity depicting sign. They are able to use simple handling and SASS depicting signs. They explore emotions through the use of NMFs, and begin to use NMFs for grammatical purposes in modelled language. They learn to use simple constructed action to represent the characteristics of a single animal or themselves or another. They learn the metalanguage of nouns, verbs and adjectives, and learn that signers can modify verbs to show the referents involved.

As children learn to adjust their language to suit different purposes and situations, they begin to understand how culture shapes language use. They compare how they feel when they use different languages and how they view different languages and people who use them. This introduction to the meta dimension of intercultural learning develops the ability to ‘decentre’, to consider different perspectives and ways of being, and to become aware of themselves as communicators and cultural participants.

Level of support

Support is provided through visual and tactile materials, such as pictures, objects and charts, and the use of gesture and modelling. The main source of support is the teacher’s talk, such as questions and statements, explanations, prompts, recycling of language, stories and feedback. Learners rely on modelled language and scaffolded tasks to create their own texts, for example, choosing signs to complete sentences or using pictures to sequence a story that has been told to them.

The role of English

Learners are encouraged to use Auslan whenever possible, with the teacher providing rich and supported language input. English is used as a medium of instruction and for explanation and discussion or in areas from the Understanding strand. This allows learners to talk about differences and similarities that they notice between Auslan and their first language(s) and culture(s), to ask questions about language and culture, to consider how they feel when they see or use Auslan.

Foundation to Year 2 Content Descriptions

Communicating

Socialising

Participate in simple interactions with their peers and teachers using high-frequency signs, non-manual features and gestures to talk about self, family and class activities

[Key concepts: self, family, friends, experience, feelings; Key processes: interacting, greeting, asking/answering questions, describing] (ACLASFC127 - Scootle )

Participate in guided group activities such as signing games and simple tasks using repeated language structures, facial expressions and gestures

[Key concepts: games, space, place, memory; Key processes: playing, singing, following instructions, exchanging, classifying] (ACLASFC128 - Scootle )

Develop interaction and communication skills for participation in regular class routines and activities

[Key concepts: fingerspelling, attention, signing space, visual communication; Key processes: interacting, signing, recognising, gaining attention] (ACLASFC129 - Scootle )

Informing

Identify specific points of information in simple Auslan texts relating to people, places and things and use the information to complete guided tasks

[Key concepts: information, topics; Key processes: identifying, categorising responding, gathering] (ACLASFC130 - Scootle )

Present information about self, family, school and significant objects, using modelled signs and formulaic phrases

[Key concepts: self, family, routines; Key processes: presenting, describing, contributing, demonstrating, recounting] (ACLASFC131 - Scootle )

Creating

Participate in the shared viewing of recorded or live imaginative signed texts, responding through drawing, miming, gesture or familiar signs

[Key concepts: imagination, expression; Key processes: viewing, drawing, re-enacting, mimicking, signing] (ACLASFC132 - Scootle )

Express imaginative ideas and visual thinking through the use of familiar signs, mime and gestures, with a focus on emotions, appearance and actions

[Key concepts: imagination, emotion, expression; Key processes: re-enacting, depicting, creating] (ACLASFC133 - Scootle )

Translating

Translate words used in everyday contexts from Auslan into English and vice versa

[Key concepts: similarity, difference, meaning; Key processes: recognising, comparing, identifying, translating, explaining] (ACLASFC134 - Scootle )

Create simple print or digital texts such as labels, posters, wall charts or cards that use Auslan images and English words

[Key concepts: meaning, code, bilingualism; Key processes: labelling, creating] (ACLASFC135 - Scootle )

Identity

Describe aspects of themselves, such as membership of family and their school/class and languages they use, considering how these different elements contribute to their sense of identity

[Key concepts: identity, similarity, difference, self, family, belonging; Key processes: noticing, identifying, describing, explaining, comparing] (ACLASFC136 - Scootle )

Reflecting

Notice what is similar to or different from their own language and culture when interacting with stories, games and different forms of artistic expression in Auslan and from Deaf culture

[Key concepts: language, culture, similarity, difference, respect; Key processes: noticing, comparing, responding] (ACLASFC137 - Scootle )

Foundation to Year 2 Achievement Standards

Achievement Standard

By the end of Year 2, students interact with teachers and each other to talk about themselves, their families, friends and immediate environment. They follow instructions to complete action-based activities such as signing games or transactional activities, using repeated constructions, gestures and affective non-manual features (NMFs). They interact in familiar classroom routines by responding to requests, such as DS:line-up PLEASE, LOOK-AT-_me PRO1. Students ask and respond to simple questions and distinguish between statements and questions. They express likes, dislikes and feelings using lexical signs and affective NMFs. They recognise and produce fingerspelled names for roll call and games and produce modelled signs, phrases and sentence patterns in familiar contexts. They use culturally appropriate protocols, such as maintaining eye contact and responding to and gaining attention by waving or tapping a shoulder or table. They identify specific information in signed texts, such as the properties of colour, number, size or shape, and describe people and objects, for example, PRO3 5-YEARS-OLD, PRO1 HAVE 2 BROTHER, or THAT BALL BIG. Students demonstrate simple procedures using known signs, gestures, objects and list buoys. They recount and sequence shared events using familiar signs and visual prompts. They view short imaginative and expressive texts such as stories and nursery rhymes, demonstrating understanding through drawing, gesture, modelled signs or English. They use fixed handshapes in creative ways, for example to create amusing sequences of signs to enact movements, and portray characteristics through the use of constructed action. They identify similarities and differences in ways they interact when communicating in English and in Auslan.

Students know that Auslan is a language in its own right, different from mime and gestures used in spoken languages. They know that eye contact is necessary for effective communication and that meaning is communicated visually through the use of whole signs, gestures or fingerspelling. They identify and categorise signs according to handshape and they recognise major types of path movements. They know that some signs link to the appearance of a referent, for example PEN, HOUSE, and that some words, such as proper nouns, are borrowed from English by fingerspelling and mouthing. They know that locations of signs can be modified to change meaning, for example when pointing to people. They recognise the importance of facial expression, eye gaze and other NMFs in a visual-gestural language and culture and know that sign order is flexible in Auslan.