Students at Cheshire College – South & West have been learning the basics of British Sign Language this September, in recognition of Deaf Awareness Month.

The beginner-friendly classes were taught by Andrew Mayers; a British Sign Language Teacher who was born profoundly deaf and has spent over two decades teaching BSL and deaf awareness to people in the local community.

As well as discussing his lived experiences with deafness, Andrew taught students the BSL alphabet and issued a series of challenges to test their knowledge.

Level 3 student, Emily, was present for one of the lessons and described some of the tasks which she and her classmates had to attempt: “Andrew would spell out the names of places or cars or types of fish in BSL and we had to use the alphabet to understand what he was saying to us.

“It was really interesting. I thought it would be complicated or confusing but once you know the letters it becomes quite easy to figure out. I felt proud that I was able to pick it up, because I wasn’t the best at languages in school, so I wasn’t sure I’d be any good at BSL at the start of the lesson.”

Cheshire College is committed to continued personal development, and frequently welcomes guests or employer partners on-site to share their knowledge or training with our students.

To learn more, visit www.ccsw.ac.uk.