Communicating about age
The students will learn to communicate about age in NZSL.
Getting started
To warm up, revise the numbers from one to 20.
Play:
Tell students to practise signing along with the presenters. Show the number flashcards from Units 1 and 2 in an ordered or random sequence and have the students sign the numbers.
Reviewing and assessing progress
Play Scene B – Meeting the family, which you used in Unit 2, and find out how much more the students can understand now.
Replay the scene. This process develops the students’ ability to view and comprehend NZSL in context.
Practice new learning
Play Clip 3.1b: Ages where the presenters give examples of ages. Ask the students to observe how the numbers are signed differently when they are used to describe age. The sign starts from the nose to indicate that the number refers to a person’s age. Signing AGE or YEARS OLD separately is unnecessary.
Play Clip 3.2: Birthday and age. Have the students look carefully at the way the presenters frown and do other things with their faces and bodies when they ask wh-questions. This is part of signing, too. Have the students practise these things along with the presenters.
Clip 0.7: Non-manual signals, question forms will give you further information about these grammar points.
Now they choose a name and an age, real or invented. Have them move around the classroom asking five other students their names and their ages. They write the responses in their workbooks (for example, Jane, 15). Project the following sentence patterns for the students to use.
What is your name? [Gloss: IX-you NAME WHAT; Non-manual signal: whq]
| My name is (name). IX-me NAME fs-(name)
|
How old are you? [Gloss: HOW-OLD IX-you; Non-manual signal: whq]
| I’m 12 years old. [Gloss: IX-me age-12 IX-me; Non-manual signal: nod]
|
Once they have collected five names and ages, they work in groups of three to tell each other what they have found out, reading the names and ages from their list using the following sentence patterns:
His/her name is (name) IX NAME fs-(name)
|
How old is he? [Gloss: HOW-OLD IX-he; Non-manual signal: whq]
|
He's 12 years old [Gloss: IX-he age-12 IX-he; Non-manual signal: nod]
|
As the students view the signer, they feed back the information in English to check their comprehension.
Play Clip 3.1a: When, where, older, younger which introduces the students to the vocabulary for Unit 3. The students practise signing the words along with the presenters. Hand out copies of Worksheet 3.1 (vocabulary related to when, where, birthday, other) for their reference.
Get them to access clip 3.1a and practise their signing in their own time.