Where am I going?
The students will learn how to give and follow directions.
Signed directions
Understanding signed directions can take some practice. Once a starting point has been established, NZSL expresses directions using the signing space like a "map". Signers usually give instructions by starting with a general location (that they both know) and moving to a specific location.
For example:
| YOU KNOW LIBRARY IX-loc, NEXT IX-loc CLASSROOM
|
Remind your students that a signer usually gives directions from their own perspective (as the starting point), so the viewer has to mentally turn the directions on the signed map around in order to understand how to follow them.
Watch a scene about giving directions
Play Scene K – Food to go. The scene includes giving some directions. Let this section be the focus for this activity. Hand out copies of the Scene K transcript and have the students role-play this scene.
Revisiting preposition signs
Find out how many location words (place prepositions) your students can remember from Unit 7, when they learned some signs for classroom objects and for where items can be located in a classroom. Play Clip 7.1b: Prepositions to help them with their recall.
Play Clip 17.1b: Prepositions, in which the presenters model the vocabulary for indicating direction. Have the students sign the words along with the presenters.
Write the prepositions from Worksheet 17.2 (vocabulary for directions) on the board in English. As you point to one of them, have the students sign the word. Hand out worksheet 17.2 for their reference.
Giving directions
Project all or some of the sentence patterns from the Unit 17 overview. Play Clip 17.2a: Where's the library? so that the students can use these as models for dialogues in which they give and follow directions. This will take them some time and you may need to replay this clip many times. They can change the names of places using the vocabulary from worksheet 17.2.
Their partners respond by giving an imagined location for the place.
For example:
| How do I get to the library? [Gloss: IX-me GO-TO LIBRARY HOW; Non-manual signal: whq]
| The library is ahead on the left. [Gloss: LIBRARY IX-loc; Non-manual signal: t] IX-you STRAIGHT TURN-LEFT
|
Extension task
Take the students outside and have them practise giving and responding to directions, in groups or as a class. For example, you or a student could give the instruction
The students respond by turning left.
Making meaning through physical movement will build their conceptual understanding. They will learn to link the signs with their meaning in NZSL without using English.
