teacher training

[Monica Macaulay]

Hi all,

I’ve had an email with a question in it that I can’t really answer well, and I’m wondering if anyone has any advice.  A person (from a non-Algonquian tribe) emailed asking about where one would go to get good training in teaching Native languages.  Of course I thought of AILDI, but I really don’t know of anywhere else.  She had emailed our Second Language Acquisition program about this, but they responded that they couldn’t do it because they don’t have anyone in the program who specializes in her language and so couldn’t provide her with an advisor.  But of course, no program would have a specialist in exactly her language - so what’s the best approach?

I feel like she’s really put her finger on a gap in language preservation programs - it seems like there are very few people who are trained in how best to teach a language, to adults or children.  Most of the linguists who work in this area are trained in various linguistic theories and methods - we’re great at analyzing grammar, but that isn’t the same as teaching a language!  And the language activists from the tribes that I’m familiar with very rarely have teacher training at all, let alone in second language acquisition.

Well, any advice I could pass along to her would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Monica

Monica Macaulay
Department of Linguistics
University of Wisconsin
1168 Van Hise Hall
1220 Linden Drive
Madison, WI  53706
phone (608) 262-2292
fax (608) 265-3193
http://monicamacaulay.com/





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