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Tui Scott is one of the best communicators I've ever seen. And, ‘seen' is the appropriate verb here. Her body language is clear and direct and accompanied by corresponding facial expressions of unmistakable meaning. I thought I could communicate quite well, but Tui was well ahead. I wanted to know how to do what she could do.

This week's Write Space by Janice Giles.

I was delighted, and my sense of play was invoked, when I learned that Tui gave classes in her particular skill. You see, Tui is Deaf. That's with a capital ‘D'. Being Deaf means belonging to a culture and community many of whom use sign language to communicate.

Now I've had my first class, and I'm happy as a kid with a new toy. No voice was allowed, so we had to pay attention to sign instructions. Our small group were all fluent, if not very fast, finger-spellers within an hour. Finger-spelling is surprisingly easy, although that isn't all there is to signing. We also learned some basic phrases, a few words, and had good handouts to increase our vocabulary. There's an excellent New Zealand Sign Language website too: http://nzsl.vuw.ac.nz/

I'd always wanted to learn to sign. As a child I'd naively thought that, if everyone could sign, international language barriers would fall and the world would be a better place because we could all talk to each other. Unfortunately, that isn't the case. There are many variations in sign language, each emerging from differences in cultures. However, apparently it is still possible to communicate to some degree with signers from other language and cultural bases. I also thought it would be so cool to be able to ‘speak' to someone across a distance without having to yell. That's still a possibility.

Sign doesn't appear to be overly sophisticated. Grammar is very simple – a bit like Pidgin English. But nuance can be achieved with facial expression, body language and degree of forcefulness or repetition. A gift for mime is probably an asset. Most of it is easy to figure out and, like finger-spelling, seems both logical and intuitive.

Well, there are another eleven classes to go, and maybe I'll be quite good at sign by the end, and it's fun to learn. But right now, I need to flex my fingers and get back onto the NZSL website to learn some more. I've got a way to go yet if I want to catch up with Tui.