On the face of it, your enquiry seems to be about the use of a "Sign Language" -- and there is some gulf between the worlds of "sign language" as used by d/Deaf people (and their friends) and the world of "disability" -- thus, the present list tends not to carry very much discussion of SL.
A further confusion exists between "ISL" (representing Irish Sign Language) and "ISL" (representing International Sign Language). One might guess from your address that you are talking about somewhere in Ireland - but one has to have more than a cursory knowledge of geography to guess this -- and even if you are actually in Tralee, Eire or Ireland, one might still not be sure whether you are talking about introducing Irish SL, or some variety of International Sign Language (to go with 'universal design').
Unless there is a sudden outbreak of helpful responses on the present list, you might do better to try the Sign Language Linguists listserve,
[log in to unmask]
{many people use this in capitals, - (perhaps to avoid the confusions between l and L and 1) but it should also work in lower case} which I believe is an open listserve for viewing, though I forget exactly what one does to join - I've received their posts for years, but forgot the joining process, and very occasionally post, but even then I don't now remember quite how!}
The "Sign Language Linguistics Society" also has a Facebook page. By and large the Sign Language Linguists (or people in Sign Language linguistics) tend to be very helpful towards enquirers, but it is useful if one takes a little more trouble with the enquiry, to disentangle the kind of confusion mentioned above, and to state the location, and (e.g.) what is the common spoken language (or languages) of the children to whom you're hoping to teach {which} Sign Language -- none of this is likely to be known to the world's Sign Language specialists, so it requires extra patience to begin even thinking of guesswork and asking questions which may be obvious to the enquirer but are not obvious 'out here'. {And everyone who uses the web is busy, by definition...}
'Deaf' organisations (Irish and elsewhere) are also likely to have a lot to say on issues of teaching any SL to children at large; and will be interested, for example, in whether you yourself are deaf or Deaf, and how is your fluency in ISL (whether Irish, International, or whatever...)
best, miles
(west midlands, UK)
________________End of message________________
This Disability-Research Discussion list is managed by the Centre for Disability Studies at the University of Leeds (www.leeds.ac.uk/disability-studies).
Enquiries about list administration should be sent to [log in to unmask]
Archives and tools are located at: www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/disability-research.html
You can VIEW, POST, JOIN and LEAVE the list by logging in to this web page.
|