Sign language on the BBC

[corydoras]

Cory - I am not complaining about the wee small hours. Try watching on a Sunday - according to the TV magazines there are quite a few!

The sign zone, is not really the answer as the few people who do watch it need to be night owls as it runs from 12:55am in the morning!! Surely with all the technology available today it COULD be possible to make it an elective service................ Or is it just that the BBC would have to find more programs instead of runnig thes repeats!!

Make your mind up what your complaining about KB. Is it the repeats or because they are repeats with signing. How come I can watch programs with signing and it just don't bother me?

[jeepster]

Just because somebody can get broadband, why should they have to go to that expense just so you can record things at 2AM Ken? Why should someone wanting access to signed programming have to buy a computer, sign up for a broadband connection and use iplayer? I really really still can't see what your beef with this is, I seldom agree with what you say, but this time you really are being a dick

[Alan Stubbs]

How many are we talking about ?

No broadband would be a very rural area with an antquated telephone exchange and no 3G coverage and there can't be many people in that situation.

Given that the internet is such a boon to the hearing impaired with it being largely text based and (with broadband) capable of supporting BSL comunication using services like Sype video calling, there can't be many BSL users that don't already have full broadband access.

 

 

No Broadband availability needn't restricted to a very rural area... large parts of Liverpool only got broadband 2 years ago, and if that's a major city's situation there are undoubtedly far more without it.

 

In my job, I am aware of broadband coverage...parts of Kent, Sussex, Linconlshire, Derbyshire, Yorkshire, Cornwall, Wales (parts of which get NO signal at all and a weak telephone signal - more than 12 miles from an exchange is not unusual) - and that's without effort. 3G coverage is only ever going to hit 90% of the country - which was all the companies' remit was and isn't fast enough to download at a sustainable speed.

 

The other point which renders your suggestion impractical is that signing needs to be fluid in its delivery. 3G is so short of bandwidth it will be forever pausing to buffer. it was also never designed for high bandwidth streaming and speed of delivery. and if signing was used via 3G, it runs the risk of misinterpretation as the signing vocabulary means that several signs have the same gesture but with a variable meaning according to facial expression and speed of delivery.

 

Why should hearing impaired people have to pay a full licence fee AND computer / digital tv just because you dislike repeat programmes being screened with signing?

 

The way you worded your post, it seems another case of using your sphincter as a voicebox.

 

That's quite without offering any consideration that you seem to think that only the dubious statstics you offered to propound a morally obnoxious point of view. Can I be so bold as to ask if you're a member of the BNP? Certainly your views are as offensive as theirs.

 

I know Jeepster can be quite blunt in stating an opinion. In this instance I think he understated things.

Edited March 16, 2009 by Alan Stubbs

[nursejudy]

perhaps there is a wider audience for these programes

 

<h1 id="heading-alone">Polyglot pupils turn to signing</h1>

• Rachel Williams
  
• The Guardian, Thursday 2 October 2008
  
• Article history
  

Staff and pupils at a primary school where the children speak 26 languages have turned to sign language to ease their communication problems.

 

Lithuanian, Polish, Arabic, Farsi, Japanese, Mandarin, Wolof and Shona are among the mother tongues of the 55 pupils at Fairlight primary school in Brighton for whom English is not their first language.

 

Now all the school's 300 children - and their teachers - are learning to finger-spell words in British sign language and communicate their emotions and feelings using the signing system Makaton. Since the start of the new term assemblies have begun with a signed "good morning".

 

The headteacher, Damien Jordan, said the techniques helped pupils who might otherwise get frustrated they could not make themselves understood, as well as being popular with English-speaking attendees. Children who had previously been divided by a language barrier were now communicating among themselves.

 

"They think it's fantastic," Jordan said. "It makes them proud of their languages and proud to be able to communicate with each other. They say 'It's great, because we're all learning at this stage so we're all at the same starting point'."

 

Fairlight's diversity stems from the fact it attracts many pupils whose parents are international students or academics, he added. Some children arrive at the school and nursery, which cater for three- to 11-year-olds, already able to speak two or three languages.

 

Such is the popularity of the signing venture that staff are having to work hard to keep up with their pupils' enthusiasm.

 

"We've even got children inventing their own signs for things. They want to know practical things as well - they keep asking me 'What's remote control, what's PlayStation?'"

[nursejudy]

ps..... we certainly have diverse topics on this forum...

[Alan Stubbs]

Cory - I am not complaining about the wee small hours. Try watching on a Sunday - according to the TV magazines there are quite a few!

 

So less than 7.5% of 1 channel's output is too much for you?

Quite apart from the fact that Sunday morning is hardly 'prime time viewing', but as you seem to think that any is too much why does that surprise me? Actually it doesn't.

 

 

 

I was right, you are an exclusionist by nature. As someone who uses his status as a full time carer to garner support / sympathy for your plight, I'd have thought you would have shown a degree of consideration for others who have physical incapacity of their own.

Obviously not. I'd have honestly believed that you'd have allowed deaf people usable access to mainstream television without complaint, given your wife's position. She at least has full usable access to BBC radio services, whereas hearing impaired people obviously can't, but they get no allowance towards that loss of amenity from their licence.

.

[corydoras]

perhaps there is a wider audience for these programes

 

<h1 id="heading-alone">Polyglot pupils turn to signing</h1>

• Rachel Williams
  
• The Guardian, Thursday 2 October 2008
  
• Article history
  

Staff and pupils at a primary school where the children speak 26 languages have turned to sign language to ease their communication problems.

 

Lithuanian, Polish, Arabic, Farsi, Japanese, Mandarin, Wolof and Shona are among the mother tongues of the 55 pupils at Fairlight primary school in Brighton for whom English is not their first language.

 

Now all the school's 300 children - and their teachers - are learning to finger-spell words in British sign language and communicate their emotions and feelings using the signing system Makaton. Since the start of the new term assemblies have begun with a signed "good morning".

 

The headteacher, Damien Jordan, said the techniques helped pupils who might otherwise get frustrated they could not make themselves understood, as well as being popular with English-speaking attendees. Children who had previously been divided by a language barrier were now communicating among themselves.

 

"They think it's fantastic," Jordan said. "It makes them proud of their languages and proud to be able to communicate with each other. They say 'It's great, because we're all learning at this stage so we're all at the same starting point'."

 

Fairlight's diversity stems from the fact it attracts many pupils whose parents are international students or academics, he added. Some children arrive at the school and nursery, which cater for three- to 11-year-olds, already able to speak two or three languages.

 

Such is the popularity of the signing venture that staff are having to work hard to keep up with their pupils' enthusiasm.

 

"We've even got children inventing their own signs for things. They want to know practical things as well - they keep asking me 'What's remote control, what's PlayStation?'"

They should be teaching them English Judy, not BSL nor Makaton. When my son went to France he couldn't speak hardly a word of French. Within three months you couldn't tell the difference between him and the wee boy next door. He even had the accent perfect. Young children learn new languages quickly and the younger they are the quicker they learn.

[chesters1]

There are huge swathes of Scotland that still can't get broadband, 3g or terrestrial TV.

 

Your there can't be many of this and can't be many of that don't cut no ice with me Ken. Your arguing through personal incredulity. I expect better from you.

not just scotland ,were in commuter belt surrey ,no freeview ,no mobile (standing on one foot whilst holding a hand up in a 2" square part of the garden isnt really good coverage) ,my "broadband" isnt much faster than dialup (far to slow for video) and the nearest lamp post is 2.5 miles away ,hell we even have highwaymen still and i have heard tales of huge footprints found near the local caves.

Edited March 17, 2009 by chesters1

[kleinboet]

Alan Stubbs - The last thing I want is for people with hearing problems to be deprived of TV coverage!!

All I am advocating is for the service to be elective, which according to some is impossible (I wonder if they said the same about subtitles) although I can't see why the BBC cannot do it!!

[Alan Stubbs]

Alan Stubbs - The last thing I want is for people with hearing problems to be deprived of TV coverage!!

All I am advocating is for the service to be elective, which according to some is impossible (I wonder if they said the same about subtitles) although I can't see why the BBC cannot do it!!

 

 

Because at present it can't be done without Broadband / Digital availability and that isn't totally available yet. Quite apart from which, there's the question of why people should pay a full licence fee, then an additonal charge - albeit indirectly, and still be marginalised as your solution would mean.

 

When there is a policy of inclusion in this country, it's the likes of you and Ken that seek to undermine it.