Storytelling with sign language

Using sign language can really bring stories to life – it’s like drawing a picture in the air to illustrate the meaning of a word. 

Sign language is all about using visual techniques; facial expression, body movement and eye contact. It’s enormously helpful for children learning language, and learning to understand concepts and meanings – and it’s great fun!

Hands, body language and facial expressions add interest, emotion and expression to a story – and they actively engage children with them rather than them simply being passive listeners.

Don’t worry if you’re a novice to sign language. Start by choosing the keywords from the text that you want to learn first, then watch how our storytellers sign it. Look at how they use their hands, body and face to convey the sign.

Facial expressions

Children respond positively to animated faces and gestures and they help keep their attention. They also teach children about emotion and expressing themselves non-verbally.

The most important thing to remember is to match your face to the mood of the story – why not practise in front of the mirror?!

Take at look at these examples:

In Bringing Down The Moon Khalid uses his face to show the mole’s astonishment at seeing the beautiful full moon. And in Can’t You Sleep Little Bear? Denise uses her expressions to convey how scared Little Bear is of the dark.

  

Body movement

Body language is key when using sign language – and not just so the signs can be seen clearly, although of course this is important. Deaf people use body language and movement to enhance their signed language, to add emotion and to keep it attention-grabbing.

• You can lean forward to add intimacy
• Use exaggerated signs to be more dramatic
• Folded arms might show concentration, or nonchalance

Thankfully most body movement usually comes pretty naturally and conveys emotion without us really needing to think about it. The only difference is that if you really want to get across a particular emotion, you may need to exaggerate the body language – so even more slouched if you are reluctant about something or bouncing around if you are happy!

In Amazing Grace, Donna really captures the movement of Anansi the spider!

 

Touch

Different cultures view touch in different ways. In some Asian cultures touching parts of other people’s bodies such as the head is frowned upon.

But touch is an important aspect of body language in Deaf culture and sign language to get someone’s attention and to show affection.

Eye contact

Sign language is a visual language and eye contact is important – not only to understand the conversation but also in Deaf culture to show that you are listening and are interested.

Eye contact also helps bring children into the story, like they’re a part of the story being told.

And it’s a powerful tool for getting and maintaining attention, especially when you’re storytelling to a group of children – it gives you a way to gauge the response of the children, are they enjoying it, or are they bored or confused?