2004-07-26 - 5:26 p.m.
NZSL

Yay! I got into the NZ Sign Language course that I wanted to do! Even though I missed the first lesson and the class was pretty much full they put me in!
I'm so glad that I followed it up again - on very good advice, instead of just giving up because I missed the first lesson.

The class turns out to be Very full, an extra 7 or so people over the upper limit (the brochure says that the largest class size is 17) I'm finding it still ok.

Our teacher is called Peter and he is deaf so it takes a mixture of lip-reading and basic body language with basic signing to to get what he is saying, but the class is basically quiet while he is instructing us so as people whisper and figure parts out you can generally get the gist of what's going on.

Fortunately I'd already learnt the alphabet from a book so I could catch up pretty well from what they did in the first lesson and also I can now count to a ninety-nine and say: How are you? What is your name? Who are you? Nice to meet you. My name is .... Man, Woman, Single, Partner, Boy, Girl, Friend (and boy-friend etc) Same, Different, Yes, No, Married, Practice, Again...That's all I can rememeber now.

It was a little bit hot in the room and I got a headache from concentrating and nodding and shaking my head so much, but I really enjoyed it and I can't wait to practice and go again next week!