Non-state non-profit institution
"Educational and methodological center VOG"
(UMC VOG)
UMC VOG since 1961 carries out educational activities for the preparation and improvement professional competence sign language interpreters for the deaf (sign language interpreters) and is the training base of the All-Russian Society of the Deaf.
Currently training of sign language interpreters carried out at three levels:
For 1 basic level training course "Sign language is a means of communication for the deaf" the basics of sign language (SL) are studied, including the SL system, varieties and "morphology" of SL, manual alphabet, counting, sign vocabulary, comprising 1200 sign signs, an introduction to the profession of a sign language interpreter, etc.
At the 2nd level of the training course "Technology of Sign Language Translation", on the basis of knowledge of the 1st level, knowledge and skills are formed on the implementation of sign language translation (theory and practice of sign language translation), expansion sign vocabulary and its use in the process of translation (qualification "Signal interpreter of Russian sign language").
Today, to learn a language, it is enough to have access to the Internet from any device. The web is full of sites that help you learn the intricacies foreign languages with the help of video tutorials. And applications for mobile devices offer to master the program in a fun way, passing interesting tasks. But there is one unique language that differs from others in a non-verbal way of conveying information. This is sign language. How to learn it from scratch? Where to start and what are its features, this article will tell.
Russian dactyl alphabet
The dactyl alphabet is a set of 33 letters corresponding to the Russian alphabet and visually reproduced using hand gestures. Therefore, communication by means of a dactyl is considered verbal. To designate a particular letter, the position of the fingers changes.
Most of the letters of the dactyl alphabet are similar to printed ones, which makes it easier to learn. With the help of the "finger alphabet" communication takes place between a deaf and hearing person.
However, this method of transmitting information is secondary, more often used for words or phrases that do not have special gestures, for example, for the names of institutions or proper names. Video tutorials will help you quickly learn the Russian dactyl alphabet, you can find them on the following resources on the Internet:
- Youtube is the most popular video hosting where you can find convenient video courses for learning dactyl;
- “Sign City” is a resource convenient for learning sign language, with a simple video dictionary interface and ongoing user support;
- Groups in the popular social network VKontakte - video tutorials, dating, interesting stories from the deaf and hard of hearing.
Sign language
In the communication of the deaf, two speech systems are distinguished: KZhR (tracing sign speech) and RZhR (Russian sign speech).
- Russian Sign Speech is used for communication between deaf and hard of hearing people in Russia. It differs from tracing sign speech in that it is not accompanied by oral speech, but is used for easy communication.
- Tracing sign speech is used in business communication and is accompanied by oral speech.
It is interesting that the KZhR consists not only of gestures that directly designate a word, it includes words consisting of combinations of lexical units with gestures, for example, the word "cabinet" will be represented as follows: k + a + b (letters of the dactyl alphabet) + gesture, meaning "room". Also in the KZhR there are words that consist entirely of dactylems - dactyl words, for example: k + o + n + s + e + r + v + a + t + o + r - “conservative”.
To master sign speech, communicate freely in the language of the deaf, use all sources of information - video lessons, video dictionaries, tests, watch films in sign language and, of course, practice communication.
List of useful services, literature, courses and activities for learning sign language:
- The sign language server is a simple assistant for learning sign language, including dactyl alphabets in different languages, phrase book, tests, and puzzles. Has a mobile version.
- G.L. Zaitsev Dactylology. Sign speech”, “Russian sign language. A course for beginners ”- among the educational literature, the works of Zaitseva are highlighted. From her books you will learn the history of the formation of sign language, its features, understand the language in structural level and master many gestures.
- A.A. Ignatenko "Collection of exercises and tests on sign speech".
- “Center for the Education of the Deaf and Sign Language. G.L. Zaitseva” conducts sign language courses at three levels: basic course; a course for those with primary communication skills in SL; advanced course. The first two courses are designed for a period of 3 months, after which you will be able to express your thoughts to the deaf.
In addition to learning activities, watch films for the deaf to reinforce your knowledge.
- The St. Petersburg film company Kovcheg makes videos and films for the deaf, and also publishes a video dictionary of Christian gestures. Look for individual films for the deaf on Youtube.
- Visit the Theater of Mimicry and Gesture in Moscow, where performances are performed by deaf actors, and translation is provided for hearing people throughout the program. The actors play expressively, the liveliness of the performances energizes, shows the richness of the sign language, and most importantly, such a performance will be equally pleasant to watch for both deaf and hearing people.
No matter what your reason for learning sign language is, make learning fun and playful, making the process easier as well as faster. Deaf people, whether they be your relatives, friends or colleagues, love to communicate just like you do. By mastering Russian sign language, you will expand your social circle and help people with hearing impairments.
The target audience: a course for a wide range of people who want to study RSL "from scratch".
Course length: 72 hours.
Purpose: for self-development and initial practice of communication with the deaf.
Course “Russian Sign Language. Started." 80 hours
Target audience: course for teaching staff teaching the deaf in SPO and VPO organizations. Supplemented with lectures on psychological features deaf.
Course length: 80 hours.
Purpose: for the initial practice of communicating with the deaf within educational process.
Course “Sign language for parents. Family format. 40 hours
Target audience: a course for parents of deaf children studying in the final grade of the school.
Course length: 40 hours.
Purpose: to restore psychological balance in families and prepare deaf high school students for work in colleges with sign language interpreters.
A sign language course for parents of deaf high school students in a family format.
The main thing! - one place on the course is provided for three at once - a family: a father, mother or other relatives of a deaf child and for the child himself.
The course developed at the institute is aimed at the rapid study of sign language.
By completing this course, you will significantly improve the quality of your communication with your child and the ability to help him in his studies, and, along the way, learn sign language.
The course includes a lecture on the basics of the psychology of deafness (only for parents), which the candidate reads psychological sciences, professional translator sign language, chairman of the Academic Council of the Institute.
The number of places in the group is limited - only 10. That is - 10 families.
The volume of the course is 40 academic hours.
The sign language course is equipped with multimedia support - that is, the gestures included in the educational lexicon are filmed on video, which relieves students of the need to take lecture notes. Now this is not necessary: each family is given a textbook of sign language, a reference book "Short words: prepositions, particles, conjunctions" and mobile app"Russian Sign Explanatory Dictionary".
Therefore, this course will be useful not only for beginners to learn sign language, but also for the deaf, for whom RSL is their native language: they will be able to see the living connection of gestures with the language of those who hear.
The volume of the course is 72 academic hours.
In this course, the very beginnings of Russian sign language are given: the basic lexicon and the beginnings of RSL linguistics. First time gestures like lexical units, are given not as a mirror reflection of Russian words, but as independent concepts, which they are in essence, and a variant translation of these into Russian is offered for these concepts.
The course includes lectures on the basics of the psychology of deafness, which are read by a candidate of psychological sciences, a professional sign language interpreter, chairman of the Academic Council of the Institute Kuzmin Vyacheslav Vyacheslavovich.
Therefore, this course will be useful not only for beginners to learn sign language, but also for teachers of secondary and higher vocational education working with the deaf in inclusive groups.
The volume of the course is 80 academic hours.
For the first time, a sign language course is equipped with full multimedia support - that is, all the gestures included in the educational lexicon are filmed on video, which saves students from the need to take notes of lectures and record gestures shown by the teacher (in this case, each note turned into a Stirlitz cipher), which is inevitable led to distortions and made it difficult to memorize the studied material. Now this is not necessary: each student is given a set of 3 books - a textbook, workbook and a dictionary. About this kit teaching aids let's say more.
It all started again with the series. Although, to be completely accurate, then from a beautiful interior. I was looking for series with interiors from Greg Grande, the same one who was the artist on .
So I came across the series "They were mixed up in the hospital."
It is about two girls who were mistakenly confused by doctors in the maternity hospital, and the families found out about it only when the daughters were 16 years old. This is where the series begins, and then everything seems to be as usual: first love, conflicts with parents, disputes between the parents themselves, rivalry at school, parting and trying on. Oh yes, all this in beautiful interiors.
The trick is that one of the main characters is deaf.
She became deaf after an illness at the age of two and now wears a hearing aid, goes to a school for the deaf and speaks sign language. And the plot twists around it too.
I became seriously interested when I started watching interviews with actors and found out that some of the actors are really deaf.
Actress Cathy Leclerc, who plays the title character, has Ménière's disease, whose syndromes include hearing loss and dizziness. The disease does not prevent her from working, but it helps to talk about this diagnosis in an interview and more people go to the doctors to get tested.
Even at school, Kathy learned sign language. Imagine, in the States, you can easily choose a sign language as a second language for learning.
One of the episodes of the series is filmed entirely in sign language, not a single word is used in it. At the very beginning, the two main actresses appear, who warn the audience, they say, do not worry, everything is in order with your TV, but some of the scenes will be filmed in complete silence.
This is so cool! talk about people with special needs not with short commercials or tear-jerking speeches.
I watched the series and realized that people with disabilities are not only the people we imagine in wheelchairs.
Oh, this stereotype, firmly settled in my head thanks to the sign on the windows of cars and on the pavement of parking lots.
And so I ran into a deaf company at a crossroads. I remembered that at the age of eight I myself suffered a serious otitis media with the risk of losing part of my hearing. The organizers of the event, who invited me as a speaker, asked me to speak louder, as there was a participant with a hearing aid in the hall.
It felt like the universe was desperately hinting to me, “Would you like to learn sign language?”
I entered into the search "training in sign language" and very quickly found in St. Petersburg school of sign language "Image". The school is located on the territory Pedagogical University Herzen, which means that at least twice a week I find myself in the very center of the city.
The university campus that I need to completely cross - from the checkpoint with a strict security guard to building 20, our teacher Denis Aleksandrovich - “So, you already learn these gestures at home, now there is no time to spend on this” (in fact, he is very cool!) - all this brings me back to the nostalgia for the student past.
Training twice a week for two months. This is an express course, the regular course lasts four months. The session goes on for an hour and a half. What you need to learn something new and not get tired. And most importantly - no sportswear hated by me in a bag, changing clothes and showering in open booths. In general, one hundred thousand five hundred times better than sports.
There are many students in the group. One of my classmates born in 2000. Imagine! I thought they were still somewhere kindergarten, and they are already in higher educational institutions. It's hard for me to believe this. But there are also older students like me.
Most of my classmates ended up in class for the same reason I did. Interesting.
Only a few classes have passed, and I can already tell about myself, what my name is, what I do, how old I am and what year I was born. I can talk about my family and keep the conversation going: “Do you have a dog?” "No, I don't have a dog, I have a cat."
It's funny, but incredibly exciting.
Some interesting things about sign language
- sign language in different countries different, we have it Russian Sign Language (RSL). For some reason, this is terribly disappointing for everyone, so, they say, they could agree on one language and they would have super-strength.
- Dactylology is a form of speech where each letter is transmitted as a sign, but it is not a sign language. For example, you can dactylize a name or a foreign word for which there is no sign yet.
- Deaf people read lips, so it is important for them to see not only the hands that show gestures, but also the lips that pronounce words.
- AT sign language different grammar and therefore a different word order is used. For example, question word always placed at the end of a sentence.
- A sign language is not a tracing-paper from a real language, but a full-fledged language with its own linguistic features, structure, and grammar. In sign language, the form of the sign is important, its localization (the same gesture at the forehead and at the chest means different things), the nature of the movement and the non-manual component (facial expressions, turn of the body, head).
What I like most about my studies is that for the first time I try not to be an excellent student.
There is no need to write down anything in the lessons - I put the notebook out of my bag after the first meeting. Yes, there are homework assignments, but I don't always do them. No grades or tests. I remember well what they say in class and that's enough for me.
- Silent language interpreters are state-certified professionals who have gone through years of training to become highly skilled sign language interpreters. In most countries, there are certain rules about who can be a sign language interpreter in the fields of law, medicine, education, sociology and psychology. The fact that you memorized the entire sign language dictionary does not give you the right to translate, for example, in such a situation, if you see an accident on the road and a deaf-mute person wants to say something to the police. Every law enforcement officer knows that when a deaf person is involved in an incident, a professional and certified sign language interpreter must be called.
- Hearing people acquire knowledge of a language through a pair of eyes and a pair of ears with early age. Remember that many of your deaf and mute friends have never heard cues, which is a matter of course for a hearing person. Never assume that if a deaf-and-dumb person does not write so well, then this means that he or she is less intelligent than you. Know that when you communicate in sign language, you are also far from perfect.
- If you are studying a sign, do not assume that a deaf person should be ready to take a break from business and at any time begin to help you learn the language and hone your skills. If you want to meet a specific deaf person, be polite. Say hello if the situation allows it, but don't meddle in the person's personal circumstances.
- There are a huge number of systems for sign communication, for example, Sign Supported Speech (SSS), Seeing Essential English (SEE) and Signing Exact English (SEE2). They were created by people outside the culture in which they are used, i.e. by hearing people for the deaf and dumb. These are not natural languages for full and effective communication.
- Deaf-mutes value their personal space as much as hearing people. If you are teaching signing, please do not stare at deaf-mute families or groups of people in restaurants or other public places. Even if you look with admiration at the use of language, it is still very unnerving.
- Never make up your own signs. American English deaf-mutes - a universally recognized language, not a game of facial expressions. If you don't know a symbol, spell it out and ask the deaf person to translate it for you. These gestures were invented by the deaf and dumb community, and it would be very strange if a hearing person starts creating gestures.
- No dictionary in any language is exhaustive. For example, one of the links gives you only one translation of the word "abbreviate", a sign for shortening. And this common sign has another translation - “thicken” (two hands folded in the form of the letter C at chest level are clenched into fists). Remember that many different characters can match one English word, and vice versa.