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<div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'">Thanks for posting this, Phil! Those children in the video clips are my little language students in the Wicoie Nandagikendan Urban Language Immersion Program here in Minneapolis. For those that haven't heard of us, here is some background information about our program:</font></div><div><!--StartFragment--><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:10.0pt;line-height:17.0pt;mso-pagination: none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style=""><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'">The Wicoie Nandagikendan Early Childhood Urban Immersion Project provides a 3-hour-a-day early childhood language immersion experience that builds on the integral connections between culture, literacy, and educational attainment. The project partners with existing programs to provide fluent speakers and language curriculum.</font></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:10.0pt;line-height:17.0pt;mso-pagination: none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style=""><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'">Wicoie Nandagikendan began in January 2006 with a grant from ANA. Because the future of native languages is in the children, it is crucial to expose children to these languages at a young age. When the language (Dakota or Ojibwe) is not spoken in the home, due to generations of language loss, schools and day care facilities offer an alternative opportunity to expose children to their heritage languages in a supportive, non-threatening environment.</font><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><o:p></o:p></font></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:10.0pt;line-height:17.0pt;mso-pagination: none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style=""><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'">Wicoie currently facilitates two Ojibwe immersion classrooms, and one Dakota immersion classroom. The Ojibwe sites are located at Four Directions Family Center (ages 2-5) and at Anishinabe Academy (ages 4-5), a public Native American magnet school in Minneapolis. The Dakota classroom (ages 4-5) is also located at Anishinabe Academy. Each class meets for about 3 hours each day, Monday through Friday, and class sizes range from 10-25 students. In the fall, the program will be adding an after-school immersion option for children in grades K-2. </font><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><o:p></o:p></font></span></p> <div class="MsoNormal"><span style=""><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'">The classes are held in separate rooms of each daycare facility or school from the regular classrooms. In each immersion classroom, teachers speak only Dakota or Ojibwe (depending on the class). Because there is not always an overlap between childcare professionals and fluent speakers, each classroom has a licensed childcare professional or teacher in the room at all times, though he or she may not speak the language. An auxiliary program exists to help these caregivers and parents further instruction in the language.</font><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><o:p></o:p></font></span></div> <div class="MsoNormal"><span style=""><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"> </font><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><o:p></o:p></font></span></div> <div class="MsoNormal"><span style=""><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'">For more information, contact me, Beth Brown, at </font><a href="mailto:brow0857@umn.edu"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'">brow0857@umn.edu</font></a><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'">, 612-624-8217.</font></span><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><o:p></o:p></font></div> <!--EndFragment--> </div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><div><br></div><div>Wopida!</div><br></font><div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'">On Jun 11, 2008, at 9:04 PM, phil cash cash wrote:</font></div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"></font><blockquote type="cite"><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'">Greetings everybody,</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><br></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'">Although very brief (less than a minute), several video clips were just posted</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'">to YouTube on Dakota language immersion from Minneapolis, MN.</font><span class="Apple-converted-space"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"> </font></span><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'">The children are</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'">seen and heard conversing in the Dakota language!</font><span class="Apple-converted-space"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"> </font></span><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'">Very inspiring!</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><br></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'">The clips are entitled: "Caga Sni" AND "Wiciyanna kais Hoksidan?"</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><br></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'">You can view them here at my YouTube clips page:</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/weyiiletpu">http://www.youtube.com/weyiiletpu</a></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'"><br></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'">Phil Cash Cash</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Times New Roman'">UofA ILAT</font></div> </blockquote></div><br></body></html>