Auslan @ Bethany

Auslan is Australian Sign Language, the native language of the Australian Deaf community, and is a visual-spatial, natural language with its own grammar and vocabulary. 

Auslan is Australian Sign Language and is the language of the Deaf community in Australia. At Bethany, students in Years 3-6 are learning Auslan as part of the Languages curriculum. Students engage in weekly lessons taught learning to fingerspell and how to use sign to communicate with others.

The teaching of Auslan at Bethany Lutheran Primary School aligns with the Australian Curriculum. Students follow the Second Language Learner Pathway, Years F-10 Sequence. 

As an Australian Curriculum Learning Area, the teaching of Auslan aims to develop the knowledge, understanding and skills to enable students to: 

• communicate in Auslan
• understand language, culture and learning and their relationship, and thereby develop an intercultural capability in communication
• understand themselves as communicators
• develop a knowledge and an understanding of the diversity of Deaf experience and the nature of identity.

There are two strands to learning Auslan, communicating and understanding.