Communicating without words
Mohamad Nazrul Azwa Zulkipply, Salleharon Ahmad and Irene Justin learned sign language to communicate with hearing-impaired colleagues
FOR those of us who are used to speech as a medium of communication, learning to “talk” with the hands and fingers may seem overwhelmingly daunting.
But Mohamad Nazrul Azwa Zulkipply, Salleharon Ahmad and Irene Justin have shown that with the determination, it can almost be as easy as learning your “ABCs”.
Nazrul, a physiotherapist to hearing impaired athletes, mastered it in three months and Salleharon, a marketing manager, learned enough to strike up a conversation in just a month.
Even faster is Justin, who learned the basics in just two weeks.
Nazrul’s experience with the hearing impaired began three years ago when he joined the Malaysian Deaf Sports Association (MSDeaf).
“I didn’t know sign language so I had to write down my instructions on a piece of paper whenever I did a physical assessment of the athletes,” he told theSun recently.
Even then, it was still difficult to get through to them.
“That was when I decided to learn their language,” Nazrul said.
He had a lot of help from MSDeaf treasurer Chan Kok Sheng, who would “drill” him in sign language.
“The athletes also encouraged me every step of the way to ensure that I could ‘sign,’” he said.
“I just had to shut my mouth,” he added with a laugh.
Nazrul also took to tutorials on YouTube to enhance his sign language skills.
He is so comfortable “speaking” sign language now that he even does it with his friends.
“It’s become automatic,” he said. His friends have even started to learn the language from him.
For 50-year-old Salleharon, it was another challenge that led him to pick up the language.
He recalled that five years ago, a young man walked into the cafe where he works to ask for a job.
Salleharon wanted to hire him but when it was revealed that the man was hearing impaired, the Human Resource Department had to reject his request.
The incident struck him as untenable.
“My personal feeling is that we should fit into their culture and learn how to communicate with them,” he told theSun.
Salleharon found an innovative way to learn the language.
Apart from signing up for sign language classes, he would watch the news on RTM with the volume down and observe the interpreter translate the news for the hearing-impaired.
He managed to learn the language in record time.
He later drafted a working paper on recruiting the hearing-impaired to work in his company.
“It was an uphill task convincing the employees to learn sign language but they eventually took to it,” he said.
Happily, the man who first approached him for a job is now managing a cafe in Kuala Lumpur.
“I’m very proud of him,” Salleharon said.
Thirty-nine-year-old Justin, who works at Deaf-in-Business Cafe and Catering in Kuala Lumpur, said when she joined the company, she did not understand what some of her colleagues were trying to communicate to her.
“I decided to learn the language and within two weeks, I knew enough to communicate with them,” she said.
“I started learning the alphabets and numbers.
“I’m still learning specific words and for more help, I’d look it up on the internet,” the aspiring special needs teacher said.
One good way to learn, Justin said, is to celebrate together and that is what she does with her team.
“I don’t normally celebrate my birthday but it’s been different since I came here.
“We even have a birthday list.”