Will you help make Auslan available to everyone?

People, we are getting to the end of the lessons I originally created for this course. I’m so stunned and overwhelmed by the response to it. What started as a few quick videos to help a friend learn Auslan has turned into an epic project with over 11,000 students registered on Facebook and a good many of them signed up for the email version. Wow! Thanks for participating, and thanks for learning my language.

I’m now thinking about the future. There’s heaps more I can add to this course. Lots of signs I can teach, more tidbits of Deaf culture and insights into Deafness I can share.

It’s taken me a lot of time to run this course, to develop the content, post it every week in multiple places, and respond to all your questions. It’s been great, I’ve loved it, and I’ve been happy to do it for free. I’ve also spent my own money to create this course, paying for technical assistance, video subtitling, web help and more. Many of you receive email notifications about each lesson – unfortunately with so many students, mailing list platforms want to charge me a premium, and I’ve done a mix of paying up and finding time consuming work-arounds.

My question to you is, would you consider chipping in some money for this course? If you have enjoyed it, learnt something, benefited from it, or shared it with your people, then perhaps you can make a payment appropriate to what you feel it’s worth and what you’ve gotten out of it. Maybe you’d also consider contributing even if you aren’t a student – a way to help make Auslan accessible to everyone, and our society more accessible for Deaf people. Think about what you’d pay to attend a live course of a similar quality and content. VicDeaf charges $235 for their six week live course. I’m not saying you should pay that to me. Pay what you can afford and what you feel it’s worth.

I will use your donation to pay myself for my time, to cover the costs I’ve incurred out of my own pocket, and also to expand the course. I’ll add lessons, make it bigger and better and more accessible. I’ll be able to accommodate requests such as making the videos slower. Depending on how much money I end up with, I may even take it further and create something like a dedicated web page or ebook for the course. Your dollars will be well spent, people, I promise!

What do you reckon? If you’re happy to make a contribution, click here.

When you make your payment, feel free to tell me your thoughts about how the course has been for you.

Thanks so much folks.
Yours in appreciation!