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July 10, 20208-year-old girl learns sign language to greet delivery driver
Photo credit: Twitter @mummybear1903
While in lockdown during the global COVID-19 pandemic eight-year-old Tallulah from the UK didn’t see many people except for her delivery driver, Tim Joseph.
In response to Joseph continuing to deliver packages while others are at home, she drew a picture of a rainbow to give to him as a thank you. Once giving him the picture, she found out he is Deaf and wanted to learn sign language to communicate with him.
According to Metro UK, Tallulah learned how to sign “have a good day,” in British Sign Language (BSL.) When she saw Joseph she told him to have a good day in sign language, which her mom, Amy Roberts, caught on camera.
This is our @Hermesparcels delivery man, we see him 1 or 2 times a week, start of lockdown Tallulah drew him a #thankyou 🌈, he still has it proudly on show in his van, they have built up quite a friendship over these last few weeks @ststephensaud #proudmum pic.twitter.com/JELmaibyIM
— Amy Roberts (@mummybear1903) June 19, 2020
In response to Tallulah’s greeting, Joseph was surprised and taught her how to say “good morning,” in BSL, which Tallulah happily and quickly learned.
Joseph told the BBC that he was shocked and happy to see Tallulah sign to him and willing to learn more sign language.
“I was very happy and I then showed Tallulah how to sign, ”good morning, have a good day” and then she signed it perfectly and it absolutely made my day,” he said.
Learn basic sign language
By learning basic sign language, you can communicate with more people in your local deaf community. It may surprise someone like it surprised Joseph or like a kindergarten class surprised their Deaf school custodian by signing “Happy Birthday” to him.
Read more: Kindergarteners surprise Deaf custodian by signing Happy Birthday!
There are many different ways you can learn sign language including taking an online class or watching online YouTube videos. Try it with a friend and then practice signing to each other, you can even do so on Zoom if you can’t meet in person.
HearingLikeMe writer, Ellie Parfitt, shares her tips for learning sign language.
“Practice your fingerspelling!” she says. “Fingerspelling is quite simple, and an easy way to communicate with deaf people without memorizing all the word phrases. Even a little bit of sign language will be beneficial when communicating with deaf people!”
Read more of Ellie’s tips and about different ways to learn sign language here.
