Online technology used to preserve Choctaw language (fwd)

[phil cash cash]

Online technology used to preserve Choctaw language

By Ken Studer
Herald Democrat
http://www.heralddemocrat.com/articles/2005/01/20/local_news/iq_1715132.txt

DURANT - Choctaw Nation is combining history with the future by using
the newest online technology to preserve its native language.

Creating community classes for teaching the Choctaw language was a
priority for Chief Gregory Pyle when he was elected in 1997. Pyle hired
a language coordinator and a language specialist whose priority was to
develop these community classes.

The 48-week community class curriculum of literacy, vocabulary and
conversation has been attractive enough to students to be able to
create more than 30 classes in the 10 counties. In the year 2000, the
Choctaw Nation decided to take advantage of modern technology and
created an Internet course. At that time, the course served
approximately 1,000 students Technology has provided the avenue for the
Choctaw language to be taught in the public schools. Terry Ragan,
language director of Choctaw Nation, has spent most of his adult life
in education. Ragan spent 16 years as school superintendent before
coming to this program.

"We have been in the forefront of native language preservation and
teaching on the public school and college level," Ragan said. "The
strengths of the other languages like German, Spanish and French is
they have been taught for a hundred years."

Ragan said when the Choctaw language course first started in the
schools, it was considered an elective class. Now, through legislation,
it has become an accredited class. Using the tools provided by modern
technology, the Choctaw Nation has harnessed the power of the Internet
to create distant learning programs in 37 schools and four colleges.
The program has reached the international level with students from
Germany, Japan, Thailand, United Kingdom and Canada.

"Mainly these students are service-related people who are of Choctaw
descent and either they tape it because of the time difference, or some
of them are on live with our people," Ragan said.

As the course progressed, the classes grew from one beginning Choctaw
class to multiple beginning and intermediate classes during the day and
evening.

Currently, the language program makes use of streaming audio and video
on a T-1 line. A student can enroll in the course by visiting the
Choctaw Nation Web site listed below. The interested party can navigate
the site to reach the enrollment form and enroll online. There is
absolutely no restriction on who can enroll. A student can also call
the Nation's toll-free number to enroll. At that time a student is
given a user name and password.

Wayne Coston, technology and media specialist of Choctaw Language
School, said, "Currently the students can see the teacher, but she
cannot see them. They can communicate with the teacher by typing their
questions and answers into the system. With the next version of the
software, the students will be able to talk back to the teacher, only
if they are set up with a broadband connection, such as DSL. The
version after that will have video and audio going back and forth."

As the program progresses, the qualifications for teaching continue to
grow. Ragan said, currently the colleges don't have nearly the
curriculum requirements as public schools do, nor do they have the
requirements on teacher certification as public schools. The No Child
Left Behind Act affects the teachers as well with state accreditation
mandates.

"All of our people that we have teaching have to have highly qualified
stats. That means they have to have a bachelor degree as well as having
gone through the certification program by the Nation. The bachelor
degree is not for the community teachers but for the people we have
here teaching in the public realm," Ragan said.

The Choctaw language is also being taught in the 14 Headstart facilities
scattered throughout the 10 counties. "The program is developing
childhood curriculum from 4 years old to third grade. You don't build a
ball team when the kids are juniors and seniors," Ragan said.

According to Congressional testimony in 1992, several hundred indigenous
languages were spoken on this continent at one time, but only about 155
still remain. The testimony emphasized that language is a core
component of culture of the Choctaw people so its survival is
imperative. The preservation of the Choctaw language depends on at
least two important factors: The number of speakers and the extent to
which adults are teaching the language to children.


www.choctawschool.com