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mothwingI took my first class in of the very short introductory course on German Sign Language that Crocky's uni's offering today, and it was awesome. Hard, though, because I missed the first class. It's only a very basic class for beginners and we won't get further than basic introductions and easy sentences, but it definitely leaves me wanting more. There are also a few really good resources online, too, like the German Sign Language dictionary, and I also very much like the look of Signing Savvy, which I wish were available in DGS.
Given our oralist past, it's not surprising that there is more material online, though. Most of my linguistics lecturer's deaf DGS teachers were forbidden to sign in class at their school back in the day. If they did sign, which the hearing teachers would interpret as being fidgety and not paying attention, they'd go so far as to tie their hands behind their backs.
Signing in general was frowned upon, the teachers couldn't speak DGS, as the central idea was to train them how to to lip-read instead, as DGS wasn't recognised as a language at all.
Until, oh, 2002 or so.
Go, Germany.
Given our oralist past, it's not surprising that there is more material online, though. Most of my linguistics lecturer's deaf DGS teachers were forbidden to sign in class at their school back in the day. If they did sign, which the hearing teachers would interpret as being fidgety and not paying attention, they'd go so far as to tie their hands behind their backs.
Signing in general was frowned upon, the teachers couldn't speak DGS, as the central idea was to train them how to to lip-read instead, as DGS wasn't recognised as a language at all.
Until, oh, 2002 or so.
Go, Germany.
