We eat fruit all year round, hopefully as part of a healthy five-a-day habit, but summer always offers a wider variety of fruit. Not forgetting the exciting (and sometimes naughty) ways of eating fruit – a fruit sorbet, a FroYo, fruit salad, and even braai’d fruit kebabs.
In our latest South African Sign Language lesson, Thabo introduces you to a few basic signs relating to fruit, including bananas and tomatoes. Watch and learn.
Having difficulty viewing the video? Try this link.
In our latest South Africa Sign Language lesson you get to expand on what you learned in Episode 720’s lesson. In that lesson Thabo discussed school subjects, and in this lesson he discusses tertiary studies.
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Who doesn’t love a party? Whether you are hosting one yourself, or have been invited to one, there is always a lot to plan, and so much excitement. Music, decorations, food, and the guest list; all of these things need to be decided on beforehand, and they all need to complement each other.
And then there’s your outfit! Forget the tuxedo and sequined dress when it’s a braai, or pool party, but don’t dare show up at a formal dinner party in shorts!
But perhaps most important of all is remembering to have fun, and to socialise.
Thabo discusses all of this in our latest South African Sign Language lesson¹, so watch and learn.
¹ Thabo does not discuss outfits, but does hope that you will always select the right outfit for the occasion.
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In Lady Windermere’s Fan, Oscar Wilde has Lord Darlington utter the wonderful line
we are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
and although there are many ways of interpreting this line, I like to think of it in terms of personal goals and dreams. Having personal goals and dreams are important as they help us grow and develop. Some of them must be achievable in the short-term, but some of them can quite easily be wild and extravagant; what remains important is that we always celebrate the goals we achieve, and the dreams that we realise, rather than just lamenting those that we do not.
In this week’s South African Sign Language lesson, Thabo introduces us to discussions around goals and dreams.
Yesterday we introduced you to the judges responsible for the South African entrants in Zwakala, and today we introduce you to the judges responsible for the gala event.
These judges will be looking at, and assessing, the very best that each of the 11 SADC nations have chosen during their own finals, before selecting the final winners in each category.
Alison Swannack is an enthusiastic educator, activist and passionate advocate for the Deaf, with 23 years’ proven experience in the areas of teaching and curriculum development. She is currently employed as SASL Course Coordinator, curriculum developer and facilitator at Wits Language School. She is also currently involved in writing the SASL curriculum (CAPS) for the National Department of Basic Education. She believes strongly in delivering educational and management programs that assist students and the public in achieving academic goals whilst enhancing community awareness on issues relevant to the Deaf community.
Alison is currently pursuing studies in SASL/ Translation and Interpreting at Wits . She was awarded an Honourable Mention for her paper on `The fake SASL interpreter – A curse or a gift’ at the joint annual conference of the LSSA/SAALA and SAALT in June 2014. Her areas of interest include bilingualism, identity, language education, and the performing arts.
Ayesha Ramjugernath is no stranger to television as she has previously presented for Deaf TV on SABC. Intersexions, however, is her first acting role on television and she is excited about her future prospects. The ambitious 28-year old was born into a deaf family and her mother tongue is South African Sign Language. She says being born deaf helped her develop very quickly, and Ayesha had already started school by the age of three. Her mother and older sister are also deaf.
Ayesha Ramjugernath firmly believes in the empowerment of Deaf individuals and aims at bridging the communication divide between a linguistic and cultural minority group and the general society who often takes communication for granted.
Her disability has never taken away from her sterling achievements or prevented her from chasing her dreams. She matriculated with exemption from Parktown Girls and is a South African Sign Language Honours lecturer at Wits University Tutor and Subject Matter Master at eDeaf, a qualified assessor and moderator. She is currently studying towards a BA Linguistics, majoring in English.
The multi talented Ayesha has always had a love for the performing arts and did speech and drama as a subject in high school.
Ismael Mansoor was born a hearing child, but lost his hearing at the age of two and a half. He attended Fulton School for the Deaf and completed his Matric in 2007. After matriculating Ismael didn’t know what to do, and he felt lost, but between 2011 and 2012 he rediscovered his creativity – and a love of writing grew. Since then he has written various forms of text such as affirmations, poetry and some stories, and feels that writing has become his compass in life, and his passion. He hopes to motivate and encourage others through his writing.
In his writing Ismael wants to motivate people to look at the positive side of life more than the negative, and he hopes that it will give people a different perspective and bridge the natural gap between reality and imagination. Through his writing he wants to tell people about who he is and how he sees the world.
Each year the Zwakala team selects a panel of judges who collectively have a sound understanding of the performing arts, the entertainment industry, Deaf culture and Deaf history.
In the first of a two-part post, we introduce you to the judges responsible for the South African entrants.
Modiegi Susan Moime was born in South West township (Soweto), Johannesburg South Africa. She has a hearing sister, and two Deaf sisters, and only became Deaf herself at the age of 3. Her parents found it difficult to accept her deafness, so she continued attending a hearing crèche, and saw several doctors over the years regarding her hearing loss.
Later she attended the Dominican School for the Deaf in Hammanskraal outside Pretoria, and completed her matric year at St Vincent School for the Deaf. Modiegi’s successes in life, including several years spent as an actor and presenter in various drama and magazine programmes on SABC Television, led to her parents finally accepting her fully.
For the past 13-years Modiegi has worked for Sign Language Education and Development (SLED) as a SASL facilitator and assessor, with a focus on storytelling and poetry. Despite her many qualifications, Modiegi sees herself as a lifelong learner and is currently in her third year as a part-time student at Wits, with the intention of starting her honors in 2016.
Jan Engelen started his career as actor, director and company manager in the Theatre. He followed a course in television production in Belgium and joined the SABC as a junior director in the drama department – that is long ago. His passion became youth programmes.
Jan wrote scripts and directed numerous youth programmes for the SABC, also youth drama series like Trompie en die Boksombende, Roep van die visarend en Seeduiker. As a freelance director, actor and scriptwriter since 1984 Jan worked closely with many production companies and has created hundreds of children’s and youth programmes; for some of them he received awards and nominations as best director or best programme.
Jan became part of the early days of Deaf television when he directed programmes for Talking Hands and DTV. He directed the deaf soapie series @Jozi and Eve’s Cradle. Jan has had a close relationship with DTV for many years, still has today and can’t wait to get involved. Recently Jan played the part of Zoutevis in the kykNet drama series Moeggeploeg. He completed the youth magazine programme series Hug A TreeTv for SABC, and is presently writing and directing a follow up series of the popular youth magazine programme series How Do They Do That!!!? for SABC.
Jan is co-director and co-owner, with Vicky Kente, of the production company HADIDA Television. Apart from corporate work the company is presently working on the youth drama series danZ! for kykNet.
Growing up as a Deaf child in a Deaf family, South African Sign Language is Atiyah Asmal’s mother tongue.
Atiyah currently works as a facilitator at eDeaf, the acronym for Employ and Empower Deaf, teaching Communication in English Level 2. Atiyah is a qualified assessor and moderator, and also teaches SASL to Deaf and Hearing learners. Atiyah enjoys teaching SASL and English as subjects and believes that the joy of learning a new language can be instilled in the groups that she teaches. Her unique understanding of the Deaf community have helped her become an exceptional and empathetic facilitator.
Atiyah previously worked at SLED, conducting workshops around the country to help teachers of the Deaf, and Deaf learners, understand SASL grammar and literature. Since 1996 Atiyah has also worked as a presenter for television programmes for the Deaf , and she has a passion to see young children development their creative, unusual language to become expressive through the use of poetry or SASL storytelling.
In her free time Atiyah spends time with her loved ones, reading books, enjoying the outdoors, and traveling around the world to explore new places and food.
