Introducing vocabulary and aspects of Deaf culture
The students will learn about aspects of Deaf culture associated with sport and how to sign the names of some sports.
Play Clip 5.1: Sports. Ask the students to comment on the signs they have just viewed and work out what the sign is based on. Replay clip 5.1. Have the students sign along with the presenters.
Give students a copy of Worksheet 5.1, which is a matching activity. Have them complete the matching task individually or in pairs. Replay clip 5.1 for the students to check the accuracy of their matches. (Use Checksheet 5.1 to review answers.)
Play Scene F – On-court drama. Use the Scene F transcript to help you discuss the content with the students. Ask the students to focus on the ways that Deaf people communicate visually when playing a game.
Outdoor game
Set up an outdoor game or sport for your students to play. Choose one that needs a referee.
Discuss with the students what a referee would need to do to communicate with Deaf participants.
In Deaf sports, signals are communicated visually. For example, referees use flags, hand signals, and cards instead of blowing a whistle or firing a gun. Lights may signal the start of a swimming or athletics race. This task reinforces the students’ need to "turn their voices off" and enables them to experience relying on their eyes to communicate in a different setting.
Sentence patterns: Sports
Play Clip 5.2a: Sports and ask the students to practise these sentence patterns along with the presenters. Hand out copies of the sentence patterns to your students and have them work in pairs to have short conversations about the sports they play, changing the vocabulary in the sentences as needed.
Task: Creating a research topic
Use the following information on Deaf sports to make up some questions for the students to research. Some students may have experience of Deaf sporting events that they could share with the class.
You could have students work in pairs. They can collaborate on topic choice and research tasks. Suggest that they bring the information to class in the form of a poster.
Display the completed posters. Ask pairs to present their research findings.
Text for creating a research topic
Team sports bring Deaf people together, providing them with opportunities to converse and compete on an equal level. The New Zealand Deaf Games (NZDG) takes place each Labour Weekend. The National Deaf Rugby Championships are held every Easter weekend. The national rugby team is called the Deaf All Blacks. The Deaf community or Deaf clubs organise competitions for sports such as interclub indoor netball, lawn bowls, tenpin bowling, eight-ball pool, and netball.
Players may be asked for proof their deafness as participation in Deaf sports is restricted to those who have a hearing loss of at least 55dB in the better ear (NZDG Bylaws, 2008). They must remove hearing aids and cochlear implant receivers when playing in a national or an international event.
The Deaflympics, based on the Olympics, is held every four years. New Zealand athletes compete in events such as badminton, basketball, karate, and athletics. In 1989, Christchurch hosted the first Deaf Games to be held in the southern hemisphere.
As each country has its own sign language, when Deaf people gather for international sporting events, they communicate using International Sign. This is not a complete language in its own right, but Deaf people can use it to discuss common concepts. It helps that many signs relating to sports look like the action they are referring to.
The circular huddle, a feature of many Deaf sports, is where all the players face inwards in a tight circle. It was invented by the American football quarterback Paul Hubbard in 1892. When Hubbard realised that players in the opposing team could read his hand signals, he had his team form a tight circle so that he could use sign language out of their opponents’ sight.
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Text for creating a research topic
