Communicating about age and phone/text number
The students will complete a survey. Before they begin this task, play Scene C – What's new? (in this scene, the girls are discussing Ben’s visit).
Challenge your students to find out how old Ben is. Ask them, "What other parts of the scene can you understand?”. Let them use the Scene C transcript to help them to follow the dialogue and check their responses.
You may wish to talk to your students about how Deaf people use a range of technologies in order to communicate with each other and with hearing people.
Gathering and recording information
Each student asks six other students for information about their name, age, and phone/text number. This information does not have to be true. The aim of the activity is to provide and record information accurately so that the communication is effective.
Before they engage with this task, sharpen their focus on numbers. Hand out sets of cards with the numerals 1 to 20 on them, one set per group. The students spread the cards on a table with the numerals showing. The leader signs a number. The first person to pick up the correct card keeps it. They continue until they have picked up all the cards. The person with the most cards wins.
Play Clip 3.1b: Ages. Continue the task with the following variation. The leader signs a number and points to a student, who picks up the card and signs a sentence that includes the number as an age (for example, IX-me SISTER age-8).
Play Clip 3.2: Birthdays and age. Project or hand out copies of the sentence patterns for the students’ reference. The students practise the sentences along with the presenters.
Still working in groups, have each student write a phone/text number on a slip of paper and place the slip on the table, face up. The students take turns signing a phone or text number. The rest of the group work out the number being signed and try to be the first to pick up the matching slip of paper.
Now the students work individually to survey six other students using the following four questions, which you can either project or hand out on slips of paper.
| 1. What is your name? [Gloss: IX-you NAME WHAT; Non-manual signal: whq]
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| 2. How old are you? [Gloss: HOW-OLD IX-you; Non-manual signal: whq]
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| 3. What’s your text number? [Gloss: IX-you TEXT-NUMBER WHAT; Non-manual signal: whq]
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| 4. When is your birthday? [Gloss: IX-you BIRTHDAY WHEN; Non-manual signal: whq]
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Make a chart
Have the students record the information on a chart set out like this:
Note: The students have not yet learned to sign the months of the year. Ask them to establish these categories: TODAY, YESTERDAY, TOMORROW, NEXT WEEK, SOON, FAR for gathering the information about birthdays.
Clip 0.5: The concepts provides guidance on how to use space to express concepts of time.
After the students have completed their surveys, they check the accuracy of the information they’ve recorded with the students who gave the responses.
Signing and singing "Happy Birthday"
Play Clip 3.3: Happy Birthday song several times and have the students sing along with the group. From now on, you and your students can sing this song whenever a class member has a birthday.
