Die Firma 1 German Sign Language Do It Yourself A course for German Sign Language Learning on CD-ROM

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„Die Firma 1” (“”The Company 1”) is a beginners’ course in German Sign Language.

The course is primarily for hearing colleagues of deaf people who in Germany often do not have the opportunity or possibility to attend a Sign Language course. However, as the content is not very specific and uses rather common vocabulary, the program is suitable for other learners such as interpreter students, relatives of deaf people, and anyone interested in Sign Language Learning as well.

The course begins with an introduction explaining several topics related to the Deaf community, which is followed by eleven learning units.

Each of the eleven units plays in a building company. Thematically, the scenes are about everyday activities in (the office of) that company.

Concerning grammatical topics, the units deal on a basic level with the use of deictic means, pronouns, questions, number incorporation, time lines, agreement verbs, conditional and causal clauses, direct and indirect speech and so called classifiers [substitutors (semantic), manipulators (handling), sketches and measure (size and shape)] in German Sign Language.

Each unit consists of five parts: a Dialogue, Grammatical Explanations, Remarks (concerning either information about communication behaviour (signalling not to have understood, asking questions etc.) or additional information about the language itself), Excercises and an overview of the Vocabulary of the unit.

The innovation of this application consists mainly in using natural dialogs in an authentic environment as starting point for the learning process.

„Die Firma 1“, finished in spring 2000, has in a test been proven to be very successful and is already part of the curriculum of the German Sign Language course for beginners at the Institute of German Sign Language and Communication of the Deaf at Hamburg University. It is very well suited as a way to enter the world of Sign Language.

The interactive program "Die Firma 1" (ISBN 3-927731-73-0, EUR 34,76) is available at every bookstore or directly at Signum Verlag, Schloßstraße 4, 23883 Seedorf, Tel. 04545 - 791056, Fax. 04545 - 791057.

For further information, questions or suggestions you are kindly asked to contact: Die.Firma@sign-lang.uni-hamburg.de