At Out of the Ark we firmly believe that singing should be inclusive and accessible to all, and so we are proud to have recently added lots of new signing videos to our song catalogue. Here, our new British Sign Language interpreter Natalie Davies gives us an introduction to BSL, tells us how she got involved in it and why it is useful in schools.

BSL is a visual language that uses hand movements (gestures), facial expressions, and body language to communicate, rather than using spoken words. It has its own grammatical structure; it doesn’t just follow the English language. Much like spoken accents, BSL has regional variations, meaning that signs may be completely different depending which area of the UK the signer is from.

FUN FACT: on the 18th March 2003, BSL was officially recognised as a language, and legally became an official language in 2022. Hooray!

I’ve been involved in music for as long as I can remember. I grew up in Birmingham, in a house full of music. Our family has a rich history of music, in fact my great, great (great?) grandad played the organ at Queen Victoria’s coronation concert! I’ve been lucky enough to play in many different orchestras, wind bands and groups of many styles including samba, steel pans, gamelan, panpipes and choirs. I was fortunate enough to have had private lessons in violin, clarinet and piano. Over the years I fell in love with musical theatre and have performed in well over 100 shows, both on stage and in the pit, either as a band member or as Musical Director. I studied music at the University of Huddersfield where I completed my undergraduate degree in music and master’s degree in musical composition. It was during this time that my interest in BSL started. I was teaching piano for the charity Music and the Deaf which really opened my eyes to how music can, and should, be made accessible to everyone.

Music, for me, has always been a passion. Not only does it teach you a huge variety of life skills, you become part of a community of like-minded people. It’s a very special feeling. Once I graduated from university, I knew I needed to educate myself further and learn BSL. I’d learnt a few signs from my deaf students, but it wasn’t enough. Out of the blue a friend rang me up one day and asked if I would go with her to a beginners’ BSL course, which was the start of my BSL journey. I have my Level 6 qualification, work with deaf students in a college and also perform signed songs for concerts and theatre productions.

BSL can be really beneficial when used in music, not only as a way for sign language users to understand the meaning of the song, but also a way to show the emotion, style and musicality of a piece. It is an art form in itself. It can also help non-BSL users to understand the music better as they can follow the visuals of the signer. I find it helps me to get a deeper connection with the music as I have to analyse the lyrics (more on this in Blog 2!) and really get to understand exactly what the song is about and then work out how to portray that story to an audience.

As of last year, BSL has been added as an option to the GCSE syllabus. I don’t know of any schools that are running these courses yet, but hopefully over the coming years it will become available as an option for students to choose. I know lots of schools are choosing to include signed songs in their lessons/assemblies but it’s really important for those who are teaching the BSL to have enough knowledge of the language to explain to their students what they are signing. There are many people putting out signed song videos on the internet who aren’t using BSL, but are saying in their video description that it is. If you sign in English word order, that is called Sign Supported English (SSE), a really useful tool to help signers understand English word order. However, to sign a song using SSE completely changes the meaning of the song to a BSL user. So, it’s really important to make sure you are using reputable BSL material to teach to your students.

I honestly believe all schools should offer BSL as part of the curriculum. There is a huge focus on learning modern languages in schools, which is great for students who thrive on spoken and/or written language, but there is a huge percentage of students who respond much better to visual and kinaesthetic learning. For me, I really struggled to learn French at school and found it near impossible to remember anything (unless it was a French song – those I found much easier to learn). Sign language opens up a new way of accessing language as it is visual and uses movement. This means it can be accessible to many more students, not just those with hearing impairments, but those with communication delays, those who get social anxiety and struggle to speak in public, and many more. Language is important throughout a person’s life and anyone could go deaf in their lifetime. How great it would be if they already had an alternative form of communication so going deaf wasn’t as traumatic! Plus, if everyone could communicate with the deaf community, wouldn’t the world be a nicer place for them? No more struggling when they have to access services or go anywhere. Everyone should be able to communicate.

BSL signing videos are available for more than 45 songs in our catalogue, including many Out of the Ark favourites such as Everywhere Around Me, We Are One, Harvest Handclap and Child In A Manger Born. These are all available on Sparkyard or free with purchase of the relevant eSongbook.