Youth want to boost language skills (fwd)

[phil cash cash]

Youth want to boost language skills

Saturday, February 10, 2007
By Deborah Bulkeley
Deseret Morning News
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,660194357,00.html

      When asked if they spoke their indigenous language, only about a
third of the students attending an American Indian youth conference
raised their hands.
      When asked if they wanted to learn to speak it, nearly everyone
else raised their hands.
      Shirlee Silversmith, Indian education specialist in the State
Office of Education, told youths at the Salt Palace Convention Center
Friday they could make a difference by encouraging Sen. Howard
Stephenson, R-Draper, to make funding for "indigenous heritage
languages" a priority.
      "Many languages are becoming extinct," Silversmith said, urging
students to support a proposal to add $275,000 each year in ongoing
funding to the Office of Education budget to develop curriculum for
each of Utah's five principal indigenous languages and dialects: Navajo
(Dine), Ute (Nooahpahgut), Paiute (Numic), and Goshute and Shoshone
(Shoshoni). The proposal didn't make it onto a final priority list
legislators are looking at.
      "It was number 17 on the list. It didn't make the cut," said Toni
Turk, federal programs director for the San Juan School District. "It's
not too late to restore it."
      Stephenson, who chairs the Public Education Appropriations
Subcommittee, did not return phone calls seeking comment on whether or
not the funding would likely be put back on the priority list before
the Executive Appropriations Committee makes its final budget
recommendations.
      The San Juan District offers Navajo language courses in its K-12
curriculum and has a media center that is producing curricula
materials. If the earmarked funding is restored, it would fund such
efforts statewide.
      "This is having an impact on students academically," Turk said,
pointing to an analysis that showed for English proficient Navajo
students, learning the Navajo language narrowed achievement gaps with
non-Indian peers.
      In language arts, the achievement difference between white and
Navajo students narrowed from 22 percent to 15 percent; in math it went
from 35 percent to 23 percent; and in science from 45 percent to 10
percent.

E-mail: dbulkeley at desnews.com