A few weeks ago we created a video explaining why I chose British Sign Language (BSL) for my 10% time. Now I want to start sharing this skill with PDS and parliamentary colleagues.

So I’m setting up ‘BSL basics’ lunch and learns for anyone that wants to start signing. Do let me know if you’d like to come to this!

With this in mind, I thought celebrating Sign Language Week was the perfect opportunity to kick this off. I want to share with everyone why I'm proud of learning BSL (this year’s theme) and show you how to sign some common parliamentary words to get you started.

I hope you're inspired to join in with Sign Language Week on social media (perhaps even make your own video) but mostly I hope everyone learns one or two signs that they can proudly share with others.

I’m still learning the BSL grammatical structure so apologies if it’s still too English. There's no sound but there's a transcript below the video if you need it. I hope you enjoy!

Video transcript

Hello.

My name is Elisabeth. It's Sign Language Week - Pride in BSL. I'm proud because I can communicate with Deaf people, help hearing people sign, and I can teach colleagues BSL too.

The Parliamentary Digital Service is celebrating Sign Language week with ten parliamentary signs.

First - House of Commons

Second - House of Lords

Third - debate

Fourth - politics

Fifth - Oral Questions

Sixth - Written Questions

Seventh - law

Eighth - Committee

Ninth - report

Tenth - public

Find out more about 10% time in PDS.