Frau McWhirter had the honour of attending the Auslan K-10 Syllabus Launch at NSW Parliament House on Tuesday in recognition of her work in consultancy on the syllabus.
In her former role as Vice President of the Modern Languages Teacher Association, Frau McWhirter had been asked to be a part of the syllabus development process. She attended these sessions as an expert in Languages Education, however, coincidentally, she has been learning Auslan for several years and, therefore, has a special interest in this new initiative of NESA to provide a syllabus for both native users of Auslan as well as second language learners.
“It was a privilege to be a part of this launch- to celebrate a language that has such a special place in the Deaf community, as well as an interest and warm affection amongst the Australian hearing community,” stated Gemma McWhirter about the event.
Being a part of the Auslan language learning community has given Frau McWhirter more understanding of how it feels to be a language learner in her own classroom.
“I really understand how it feels to be learning a language- it can be very scary, but you just have to be brave and give it a go!”
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