Institute works to stave off decline of traditional tongues (fwd)

[Phil Cash Cash]

Web posted Thursday, August 21, 2003

Institute works to stave off decline of traditional tongues
By ERIC FRY
The Juneau Empire
http://www.peninsulaclarion.com/stories/082103/ala_082103ala004001.shtml

JUNEAU (AP) ‹ Students in Donna May Roberts' class in Shim-al-gyack,
the language of the Tsimshian Indians, point to the ground in unison,
walk in place, rub their stomachs, make kissy sounds and generally do
whatever she says.

It looks like an aerobics class, but that's the way Roberts teaches
language, and it's becoming an important element in the Native language
courses at Sealaska Heritage Institute's Kusteeyi program.

''Oh, you guys look like Olympic runners,'' Roberts, formerly of
Metlakatla and now from Portland, Ore., told her students one Tuesday
evening.

Kusteeyi ‹ held at University of Alaska Southeast campuses in
Ketchikan in May and in Juneau for two weeks in August ‹ teaches
Southeast Native languages mostly by immersing students in the
traditional tongues.

Juneau's Anita Moran, whose grandmother speaks Tlingit, is taking a
beginning Tlingit class.

''We have the opportunity to communicate together in Tlingit,'' she
said. ''We attend a lot of potlatches, where they speak in Tlingit. It
would be great to understand it.''

Organizers and students at Kusteeyi hope to reinvigorate Tlingit, Haida
and Shim-al-gyack at a time when fluent speakers are declining as
elders die. There are an estimated 140 completely fluent speakers of
Tlingit, six of Haida and six of Shim-al-gyack in Alaska, said Sealaska
Heritage sociolinguist Roy Mitchell.

The program in Juneau attracted about 50 students from around Southeast
to classes that included beginning Tlingit and Shim-al-gyack, how to
teach language immersion, Tlingit public speaking for dormant speakers
and master-apprentice team training.

''It's like a person who is wounded who is starting to feel better
now,'' Paul Marks of Juneau said after Wednesday morning's
public-speaking class.

''We weren't talking before. It's like we were in a coma. Now we're
waking up. It's because of the younger people who are excited about it
and asking. If it wasn't for them, why would we want to continue on?''

Roberts' teaching method, a variation on what's called total physical
response, works by repeating phrases and movements as the silent
students imitate her movements. In just the first 15 minutes of her
class Tuesday, she gave well over a hundred instructions. She built on
them by repeating them with variations, such as ''point left,'' ''point
right,'' ''point with one hand'' and ''point with two hands.''

There's no time for students to daydream, and the teacher can see
immediately if a student doesn't understand an instruction.

''It is a lot of energy on the part of the teacher, and a lot of
language,'' Mitchell said. ''Students need to be comprehending hundreds
of times to sink into the subconscious mind.''

The idea is to teach a second language the way people learn their first
language. Young children hear the sounds of their language and come to
understand the meanings before they speak the words themselves. And
they learn language from their parents in real-life situations.

In Roberts' class, students also use workbooks illustrated with drawings
of stick figures that enact movements. And then there's Mary Chapin
Carpenter singing on the CD player about luck. That means it's time for
Shim-al-gyack bingo, in which students put stones on stick-figure
drawings that match the Native word for the action.

In the master-apprentice class, co-taught by Mitchell and Jordan
Lachler, students learn how to pass on the language in one-on-one
settings. It can be one way to teach a new generation of
Native-language teachers.

Clara Peratrovich, a retired Tlingit-language teacher from Klawock,
practiced the technique Tuesday with two other students and a family of
stuffed-animal sea otters, one of whom sported a Tlingit scarf.

Peratrovich, with words and by nudging the otters, instructed the
students to move the otters around as she spoke in Tlingit about the
animals' family life.

''There's no one in our community anymore that would step forward'' to
teach Tlingit, Peratrovich said after class. ''My value for the
language is really high. I feel we have to have somebody continue the
language teaching, so it won't die off.''

Debbie Head, a cultural arts teacher in Craig, has been an apprentice to
the master Peratrovich since September.

''She was as starving to share as I was starving to learn,'' Head said.

But adult learners are not the absorbent sponges that children are, she
said. Kusteeyi is modeling proven learning techniques, ''and they are
making a big difference.''

In Nora Marks Dauenhauer's class for dormant Tlingit speakers ‹ those
who understand the language but perhaps stopped speaking it ‹
students, mostly elderly, gave orations as beginning Tlingit speakers,
mostly young people, listened.

Afterward, Catrina Mitchell, who coordinates Kusteeyi and is learning
Tlingit, thanked the elder speakers.

''We're on a personal journey learning our language,'' she said. ''One
day, I'd like to stand before you and say more.''

Sitka's Paul Jackson, one of Dauenhauer's students, said the young
people perhaps didn't understand everything they heard in the orations.

But, he added, ''We have hooked them. I don't think we should let them
go.''