Carri Neilson

Teaching Fellow (British Sign Language)

Biography

Background

Pronouns: they/them

As a profoundly deaf queer person, Carri is a native British Sign Language (BSL) user.

Carri has taught BSL to a wide variety of students for over 20 years.  As a tutor within a Deaf-led charity, they taught SQA (Scottish Qualifications Authority) BSL from Introduction level to level 2.  Since moving to the Centre for Open Learning at Edinburgh University, Carri has progressed their career to leading, designing and co-ordinating BSL courses in addition to teaching levels from Beginners 1 to Elementary 6 and elective courses for undergraduate and postgraduate students. 

Recently, Carri has been involved in building partnerships across university departments.  They have worked with IFP on using e-learning platforms in an effective way.  In addition, Carri worked with the Learning Technologists Team to improve the use of Canvas across COL and LfA.  Carri, as co-chair, has also worked with the BSL Implementation Group to secure funding to recruit an intern to research the history of deaf students and staff at UoE.

Carri is motivated to seek opportunities to collaborate and seek partnerships with other university departments where they can.

Carri attended Heriot Watt University and graduated with a Graduate Diploma in Teaching Other Tutors.  This included an introduction to BSL Linguistics, course designing and teaching skills.  From 2002 to present, Carri has attended various training courses as such as BSL Linguistics, how to teach Deaf Awareness, how to teach BSL and many more as a part of their professional development.   

Carri is committed to life-long learning and aims to engage in more courses to further develop their career.

 

Qualifications

  • Signature Level 6 in British Sign Language (2023)
  • Graduate Diploma in Teaching Other Tutors (2007)
  • City & Guilds 7307/2 Certificate in Teaching Adults Learners (2004)
  • Level 2 Certificate in British Sign Language (2003)

Responsibilities & affiliations

 

Undergraduate teaching

  • British Sign Language Stage 1 & Stage 2

 

Postgraduate teaching

  • British Sign Language Stage 1 & Stage 2

 

Project activity

'Away Day" for the BSL Implementation Group - June 25th 2026 (https://british-sign-language.ed.ac.uk/bsl-implementation-group)

As co-chair of the BSL Implementation Group, I worked with the other co-chair (Gab Hodges) to arrange a planning day.  We secured a small amount of funding from the University to cover event expenses.

We invited all members of our core group to attend.  This included interested parties such as students from the signing society, staff from Student Support and Access, and a member of staff from EDI, alongside our pool of BSL-using staff.

Two presenters worked with our group on using strategic planning tools and methods.  We had one presentation in spoken English and one in BSL.  We booked 4 interpreters to be present throughout the day to cover networking and group activities, in addition to the presentations.

Gab opened the session by welcoming our participants.  Before our guest presenters, I gave a brief update on how the implementation group is progressing with their plans. 

The day was successful and productive, and we hope we can make this an annual event.

Conference details

I have attended the following conferences as a delegate:  

  • AULC conference 2023, 27-28 April, Language for All in Higher Education: Inclusion, Diversity, and Sustainability @ University of Edinburgh 

  • LESICO 4 2023, October 20–22 – Sign language teaching methodologies, international networking, and Deaf community empowerment @ Heriot Watt University 

  • Signs@HWU Gender conference 2025, June 26 - Gender & signed languages, Deaf communities & intersectionality, gender studies, sign linguistics, & sociolinguistics @ Heriot Watt University 

  • Lavender Linguistics and Languages 2026, 2nd-4th September, Queer (dis)belonging @ University of Edinburgh 

In the future, I would be interested in speaking or presenting at conferences on a variety of topics related to deaf/BSL awareness, teaching BSL as a language, teaching methods, or my experience of a gender or queer journey as a deaf person.

 

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