[HERITAGE-LIST] Course offerings: Aboriginal Language Revitalization Program, University of Victoria - DEADLINE FAST APPROACHING

Mon Mar 5 21:44:11 UTC 2007

The University of Victoria and En'owkin Centre are pleased to offer the following learning opportunities for people interesting in enhancing their knowledge of indigenous language revitalization. Space is limited in these wonderful offerings so please register soon! 
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Methods for Immersion Language Teaching and Learning 
LING 187: Special Topics in Aboriginal Language Revitalization, 1.5 Units
Dates: March 26 – 31, 2007; 9 am – 4 pm
Location: En’owkin Centre, Penticton, BC

Immersion formats create highly effective environments in which endangered aboriginal languages can be taught and learned. This six-day intensive course for language teachers and others involved in language preservation and revitalization work, provides an introduction to immersion teaching and learning principles and techniques, and explores three practical immersion methods in order to create a foundation for practical applications in a variety of situations and programs. 

Topics include the nature of full immersion in real world learning, and modifications required for delivery within structured delivery environment. Three immersion models will be discussed by resource people involved in their development and delivery:
- elementary school immersion model utilizing total physical response (TPR) methods 
- a modified adult classroom immersion model, utilizing associative/cognitive method 
- a small group Master/Apprentice model in which fluent speakers converse with apprentices through full immersion 

Instructor
Jeannette Armstrong, Doctor of Letters HC; University of St. Thomas; BFA, University of Victoria; Fine Arts Diploma, Okanagan UC; Executive Director of the En’owkin Program; and Academic Advisor to the Certificate Program in Aboriginal Language Revitalization.

Jeannette Armstrong is an Okanagan Indian who was born on the Penticton Indian Reserve in British Columbia. The grandniece of Hum-Ishu-Ma (Mourning Dove, 1888-1936), considered the first Native American woman novelist, Armstrong is a writer, teacher, artist, sculptor, and activist.

She speaks both Okanagan and English and received a traditional education from Okanagan elders and her family and has raised her own two children on the Penticton Indian reserve. 

To register in this learning opportunity please visit http://www.uvcs.uvic.ca/forms/crm/calr-reg.aspx 

Language in First Nations Culture 
LING 186, 1.5 Units
Dates: April 30 – May 5, 9 am to 4:30 pm
Location: University of Victoria

An intensive examination of the ways in which language is embedded in the cultural heritage and social context of a selected community, with a focus on oral history, including legends, song, dance, and cultural practices, methods, and protocols, along with the impacts and implications of social change on language. 

Marianne Nicholson brings to the course her own background as a Dzawada’enuxw member of the Kwakwaka’wakw First Nations of the Pacific Northwest Coast. However, the course draws students from various cultures and each participant is asked to bring the experiences of language and culture from their own background into the learning environment of the course. Ultimately, exploring the experiences from different communities will enable participants to surmise both common denominators in language and cultural relationship as well as strategies in dealing with language and cultural revitalization.  

Topics to be covered include: 
-Definitions of language 
-Definitions of culture 
-The importance of language to culture  
-Language and world view 
-Language use in song, dance, art, history and geography 
-Natural language shift vs. radical language change  
-Possible results on a culture when it experiences radical language shift over a relatively short period of time 
-Historical and contemporary states of First Nations languages and cultures 
-Language, politics and power 
-First Nations cultural and linguistic revitalization at the turn of the twenty-first century 
-Realistic strategies for success in First Nations linguistic and cultural revitalization 

Instructor
Marianne Nicolson is a member of the Dzawada’enuxw Tribe of the Kwakwaka’wakw First Nations who reside on the coastal mainland of British Columbia. She holds a BFA from Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design and a MFA in Visual Art from the University of Victoria. As an artist her work has been shown both nationally and internationally at venues such as the National Indian Art Centre, the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, the Jordan National Gallery, the Vancouver Art Gallery and the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria.   

Most recently, she opened a solo exhibition at Artspeak Gallery in Vancouver B.C. in January 2006. Her artworks are contemporary expressions of traditional Kwakwaka’wakw concepts. Due to an emerging belief that these concepts could be better understood through comprehension of the Kwak’wala language and a growing concern over the endangered status of this indigenous language she engaged in linguistic and anthropological study at the University of Victoria where she completed an Interdisciplinary MA in 2005. 

Currently she is engaged in PhD research involving the conceptualization of space and time in Kwakwaka’wakw language and art and the importance of indigenous language to indigenous worldview.

To register in this learning opportunity please visit http://www.uvcs.uvic.ca/forms/crm/calr-reg.aspx

For more information on these and other courses visit http://www.uvcs.uvic.ca/calr/courses.aspx or contact:

Lisa Mort-Putland
Program Coordinator, Cultural Management Programs
Continuing Studies, University of Victoria
PO Box 3030 Stn CSC, Victoria, BC V8W 3N6
250 721 6119
Cultural Resource Management Program http://www.uvcs.uvic.ca/crmp

Aboriginal Language Revitalization Program http://www.uvcs.uvic.ca/calr

Intercultural Education and Training Program http://www.uvcs.uvic.ca/iet 