Scarce resources hobble Dene language teachers (fwd)

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Scarce resources hobble Dene language teachers

Last updated May 5 2005 09:07 AM CDT
CBC News
http://north.cbc.ca/regional/servlet/View?filename=language-aboriginal-05052005

FORT SMITH, N.W.T. – People working to keep aboriginal languages alive
in the N.W.T. say there's a critical shortage of resources to teach the
subject.

School libraries are full of texts in English or French, but Dene
language instructors often have less than one shelf of written
materials to work with.

Instructors met in Fort Smith last week to talk about their quest for
new resources.

"It's a lot of man-hours," says Joanie Lafferty, who teaches at Princess
Alexander School in Hay River.

"It's not as easy as opening a book and going to chapter six to read
lessons one to three. You actually have to build it."

Lafferty and 16 other instructors spent three weeks creating resources
for aboriginal language teachers.

Gladys Norwegian, an experienced educator and language expert,
coordinated their efforts.

Norwegian would like to see more of the money that is now spent on
cultural programming reinvested in the development of resources for
language instruction.

"There's many of them that are just trying to make do with what little
materials they have and it is really important that they have a lot to
work with to make sure students learn the language," she says.

"Culture can be done anytime but to learn the language you need
resources."

Participants in the workshop represent each of the communities in the
Dehcho and Akaitcho regions, and funding for the project is coming from
divisional boards of education.

The books and projects they create will be available to aboriginal
language instructors across the Northwest Territories.