This free online sign language course teaches you how to use British Sign Language to communicate with deaf people.

This course provides some basic British Sign Language (BSL) terms and expressions that allow you to interact with deaf people in social or professional environments. After learning about BSL, you'll practise fingerspelling each letter of the alphabet with both hands. We then demonstrate how to combine fingerspelled letters to sign names. The course also demonstrates how to use signs for everyday words such as ‘bathroom’, ‘living room’ and their contents.

We then explore the use of BSL to convey a variety of greetings, inquiries, opinions, introductions and taking-leave terms such as ‘hello, nice to meet you’, ‘my name is Emma’ and ‘see you soon’. After that, the course teaches you how to use sign language to describe various individuals, your family, pets or other animals. We demonstrate how to use BSL and its unique grammar that differs from English’s to talk about your mother's name, your look, your pet's characteristics or your family members.

The course shows you how to combine different signs to discuss the weather and modes of transportation to create a dialogue. Finally, we outline the BSL gestures used to identify colours, sizes, numbers and time. This introductory BSL course is taught by a teacher with over twenty years’ experience and helps you to develop your ability to communicate with other sign language users while also improving access and inclusion for deaf people. Enrol now to learn a valuable new skill and add sign language to your professional portfolio.