Scarce resources hobble Dene language teachers (fwd)

[Mia Kalish (LFP)]

I will be doing my dissertation soon, and part of my research will be to
look at how we can build materials for revitalization. I hadn't intended to
do a distance component, but if there are people who would like to
participate in my research, they would get the materials to use for their
tribes and schools. 

I am working on mathematics materials using Fauconnier' and Turner's
Conceptual Blending Theory, and Lakoff and Nunez's embodied theory of
mathematics. The nice thing about these is that the mathematical theory can
be totally abstracted from the English, and recontextualized into the
culture of the People. (I think its pretty cool). 

I don't have money for travel, so everything we do would have to be done
over the web and via cell phone :-) but it could be both fun and
informative. It's pretty high-tech, lots of Flash movies, voice, and some
evaluation of how successful the materials were at meeting the goals and
objectives, something the teachers might be interested in. 

I people know other people who would be interested in doing something like
this, they could contact me. 

I tried to find the lady mentioned in this article, but there doesn't seem
to be any web site for the Princess Alexandra school. I found a contact and
a snail mail address. . . .,. 

Mia
 

-----Original Message-----
From: Indigenous Languages and Technology [mailto:ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU]
On Behalf Of phil cash cash
Sent: Thursday, May 05, 2005 12:59 PM
To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU
Subject: [ILAT] Scarce resources hobble Dene language teachers (fwd)

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-05052
005

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.