MMR07: a new way to learn sign language

Words like inspirational and motivational have become cliches when applied to speakers, but I can think of no other way of describing Gunilla Wagstrom. She works for the Swedish Educational Broadcasting Company, UR, where she became the world's first-ever deaf TV producer.

Gunilla was born deaf in a hearing family and first saw sign language when she started school at the age of seven. She was a teenager before she met a deaf adult and realized she would not grow out of her disability, as until then she had always believed. 

At school, deaf children learned signing for communicating with each other in the playground, but once back in the classroom they were forced to sit on their hands and lip read. They had to speak Swedish.

Fortunately, all that changed in 1981 when the country's parliament passed a law recognizing Swedish sign language and supporting the goal of bilingualism for all deaf children.

Today, sign language is becoming popular among hearing people. Indeed, such is the level of interest that there is a shortage of teachers and places to learn.

This gave Gunilla and her colleague Ingeborg Swartling the idea to do something on the Internet. Surprisingly, this was virgin territory with no existing sites that attempted to demistify, popularize and teach signing.

Gunilla and Ingeborg developed a website around the very simple and effective idea of a subway map because it would be easily recognizable.

They used Flash because of the flexibility and freedom it provided in terms of translating their design online and realizing their goals. The result is Teckensprak, an elegant and attractive website which is very easy to use. 

The different lines and stops on the subway map correspond to difference themes and topics. Visitors can learn how to sign by watching videos, which often feature Swedish celebrities, including actors, singers, politicians and sportsmen, 

Gunilla and Ingeborg called on the EBU to do more in the area of access services to help other broadcasters to produce similar web services. I had always thought that signing was international, but in actual fact every country has its own distinct sign language.

This means the Swedish site has a limited audience.

The EBU Technical Department has already done a lot of work in this area and has published recommendations and guidelines on access services. Much more remains to be done. 

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