What teaching through BSL revealed about teaching, assessment, and the learner journey

Being a lecturer means learning about “one’s own values, self-theories, thoughts and identities as well as gaining other forms of knowledge needed to encourage that valued, complex learning which can involve the student as a whole person” (Knight, 2002, p. 24)

Higher education often treats access as something extra: an adjustment layered onto otherwise ‘normal’ teaching. My experience of teaching through British Sign Language (BSL), working with designated BSL–English interpreters, has led me to question that framing. Teaching through a third party does not simply require a shift in perception; it exposes hidden assumptions about how teaching, assessment, and learning are designed.

This post reflects on how teaching through BSL shaped my approach to curriculum and assessment design, drawing on longitudinal student feedback and established pedagogic frameworks. It is not a personal narrative, but a reflection on what interpreter-mediated teaching reveals about good pedagogy more generally.

Designed interpreters: “a marriage between the field of interpreting and Deaf professional’s discipline or work environment” (Hauser, Finch & Hauser 2009, p. 4)

As a deaf academic with limited confidence in spoken English, I rely on BSL–English interpreters to mediate my teaching for hearing students. In practice, this often involves working closely with designated interpreters (Hauser, Finch & Hauser 2009) to support meaning rather than word-for-word translation.

Literature review

In 2019, after five years of teaching through interpreters, my engagement with the literature revealed a striking gap. At the time, most research in higher education focused on the experiences of deaf students taught by hearing lecturers (see Lang, McKee & Conner, 1993; Lang 2002; Jarvis & Knight 2003; Napier 2004; Hyde et al. 2009; Noble 2010; Lang et al. 2018; Kermit & Holiman 2018). Since that time, Batista & García (2023), Obasi (2023) and Nikolaraizi and Kofidou (2024) have published on this topic.

There was some literature examining deaf lecturers and academics (see Trowler & Turner 2002; Woodcock, Rohan, & Campbell 2007; Smith, Harry & Andrews 2015; Holmström & Schönström 2018), but comparatively little work addressed the experience of hearing students being taught by deaf lecturers through sign language and interpreters. More recently, Yabe (2024) seminal work, the first full international, mixed-methods monograph focused specifically on deaf faculty and not students, was published, but does not discuss interpreter-mediated teaching as a pedagogy.

I understood this absence primarily as a gap in research attention. With hindsight, and informed by subsequent scholarship and my own practice, I now see it more clearly as a manifestation of a hearing-centred epistemology, one that positions deaf people predominantly as recipients of knowledge rather than as its producers. The question now is why interpreter-mediated teaching has remained largely unexamined.

Language, complexity, and cognitive load

Legal education is dense, abstract, and language-heavy. For example:

“the veil of incorporation” 

“as far as reasonably practicable”

“failure to make reasonable adjustments”

res ipsa loquitor

volenti non fit injuria

Concepts are layered quickly, specialist terminology is routine, and much is assumed rather than explained. In spoken delivery, students often absorb meaning through repetition and contextual cues.

Interpreter-mediated teaching makes the cognitive load of this immediately apparent. Where no lexicalised sign exists, I may need to fingerspell a legal term, paraphrase it, or explain the concept before moving on. This process highlights when too much information is being introduced at once, or when conceptual links are implicit rather than explicit.

Rather than simplifying content, this prompted me to reflect on how complexity is managed. It became clear that clarity, sequencing, and explicit signposting were not measures to ensure access, but core elements of effective teaching.

From delivery style to curriculum and assessment design

Over time, these reflections shifted my focus away from individual delivery and towards design. Instead of asking how I could adapt my teaching style, I began redesigning teaching and assessment materials so that meaning did not depend on spoken delivery at all.

This involved:

• clearer visual and structural organisation of materials;
• explicit sequencing of concepts rather than assumed progression;
• reduced cognitive density within individual teaching sessions; and
• clearer alignment between learning outcomes, teaching activities, and assessment.

Assessment design was particularly important. Legal assessments often assume students can infer expectations from disciplinary norms. Teaching through interpreters made those assumptions visible, prompting a more explicit approach to assessment criteria, task structure, and alignment with taught material.

Crucially, these resources were designed not just for my own use, but for reuse by colleagues. Templates, frameworks, and structured materials made inclusive design portable, supporting consistency across teaching teams and reducing reliance on individual delivery styles.

‘Listening’ to students’ experiences

To explore how students experienced being taught through BSL and designated interpreters, I conducted two informal surveys: the first in early 2015 during my initial year of teaching, and a second in 2018 after several years of refining my practice. Both surveys targeted students enrolled on modules I taught and sought to understand whether interpreter-mediated teaching influenced their learning.

I framed the surveys using Lowman’s (1984; 1987) two-dimensional model of effective teaching, which distinguishes between intellectual excitement (clarity, interest, challenge) and interpersonal rapport (warmth, approachability, and student-centredness).

Across both surveys, the findings were consistent. The majority of students reported moderate to high levels of intellectual excitement and interpersonal rapport. Most students were aware that teaching was mediated through BSL–English interpreters, yet reported that this had little or no negative influence on their learning experience. In some cases, students commented that teaching felt clearer and more structured.

What these results suggested was not that interpreters were invisible, but that effective teaching does not depend on spoken delivery alone. Where curricula were clearly structured, expectations explicit, and assessment aligned with learning activities, interpreter mediation did not disrupt the learner journey.

What this revealed about effective teaching

Situating these findings within Lowman’s framework was instructive. Interpreter-mediated teaching did not undermine either dimension of effective teaching. Intellectual excitement and interpersonal rapport were maintained, even when communication was mediated through a third party.

This challenged a common assumption: that warmth, engagement, and clarity are inherently tied to spoken communication. Instead, the data suggested that these qualities are products of design, structure, and pedagogic intent, rather than delivery modality.

For me, this reinforced a key insight: inclusive teaching is not about exceptional measures for particular learners. It is about examining and refining the assumptions embedded within our teaching and assessment practices.

Why this matters

Although these reflections emerge from teaching through BSL and working with interpreters, their relevance is much wider. Interpreter-mediated teaching simply makes visible issues that affect many learners.

Students new to a discipline, students working in a second language, and students navigating complex or unfamiliar assessment regimes all benefit from teaching that is:

• clearly structured;
• explicit in its assumptions; and
• transparent in its assessment expectations.

Inclusive curriculum and assessment design does not dilute academic standards. It often strengthens them.

Reflection and looking forward

Looking back, what began as an exploration of interpreter-mediated teaching became a sustained reflection on teaching and assessment design more broadly. The involvement of interpreters did not disrupt learning; it disrupted assumptions about how learning is communicated.

As Knight (2002) suggests, being a lecturer involves learning about one’s own values, assumptions, and identities, alongside developing the knowledge needed to support complex learning. Teaching through BSL has continually prompted that reflection for me, shifting my focus from individual adaptation to shared, transferable design.

The ongoing challenge is embedding these principles institutionally, rather than relying on individual practice. My hope is that sharing these reflections encourages colleagues to examine not just who their teaching reaches, but how their curricula are designed to be understood.

References

Knight, Peter. Being a Teacher in Higher Education. Open University Press, 2002.

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Asare, Dora Anokye. ‘Classroom Communication among Deaf Students, Interpreters and Lecturers of the University of Education, Winneba’. University of Winneba, 2023.

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