British Sign Language Teaching as an Insight into Chinese Sign Language Teaching

Abstract

Linguists around the world have reached a consensus on the concept that the sign language is a type of natural language [1] . From twentieth century to twenty-first century, the idea of the sign language with its own language development trajectory has evolved from unacceptable into widely accepted. As a new niche in social linguistics and anthropological linguistics, the sign language “fever” surges in different social classes in China. The author of the current article is a Chinese Sign Language instructor, and this article mainly focuses on the current challenges in Chinese Sign Language (CSL) teaching, by exploiting British Sign Language (BSL) teaching as a core model for improvements in class management, teaching methods, teaching materials, qualification of sign language instructors and acquisition of CSL by Chinese deaf children. The future perspectives of CSL in China include the professionalization of CSL instructors, the dissemination of a common CSL, and the integration of deaf people into a more disabled-friendly society.