NZ Sign Language Week

This week (2nd to 9th May) is NZSL Week to help promote the language as well as raise awareness about New Zealand’s Deaf community and the issues/challenges its members face each day. New Zealand Sign Language is one of the three official languages of New Zealand.

Deaf Aotearoa New Zealand would like all New Zealanders to gain a greater understanding of New Zealand Sign Language and the Deaf Community, so this year they are asking YOU to take a walk in a Deaf person’s shoes by introducing three "heroes" who tell us what their life is like as a deaf person. You can find this as well as plenty of other resources for learning NZSL on their website Deaf Aotearoa New Zealand.

In the library we have resources to help you learn more about how to live with deafness and NZSL.

Learn the New Zealand Sign Language with resources at this link. There are books, DVD's and CD-Roms to help you out.

For the deaf community we also have Storytelling and Joke collections in NZSL.

Deafness (or any sort of hearing loss) can be debilitating. But it doesn't need to be. Here are a selection of books about the different conditions and reasons why people are deaf, what can be done to aid them, and how those of us that have hearing can help.

Many of the DVD's in the Auckland Libraries collection have special subtitles for the hearing impaired. In addition to the dialogue, these special subtitles provide additional information to draw a complete picture of what is on-screen, from what song is playing in the background to describing sound effects.

NZSL is an excellent skill to have. Not only will it enable you to communicate more readily with the deaf community but from personal experience, I know more than one sports coach who can communicate with their players on court using this skill. Who would have guessed?