Tribal-language teaching struggles (fwd)

Tue May 8 17:06:13 UTC 2007

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http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2007/05/08/news/state/40-tribal.txt

Published on Tuesday, May 08, 2007.
Last modified on 5/8/2007 at 12:27 am

Tribal-language teaching struggles

By JODI RAVE
Missoulian

BOZEMAN - Verda King gets excited when she talks about teaching youths in a
nearby public school how to speak the Cheyenne language from her office at
the Dull Knife Community College.

"This class has done a marvelous job," King said of her 12 students. "We've
translated nursery rhymes, like Humpty Dumpty. And it's been fun. We've
learned Cheyenne songs, and I'm learning my own language."

She's teaching 12 students in an elementary school in Colstrip by satellite
from a tribal college classroom on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation in
southeastern Montana.

Language teachers like King are passionate in their desire to preserve the
language and believe they can make a difference. But they face many
obstacles, such as the lack of K-12 curricula and state support that
effectively prevent them from teaching students their American Indian
languages like Cree, Gros Ventre, Kootenai and Nakota.

Typically, the number of new language speakers remains stagnant.

The most proven method of teaching a language is through immersion schools,
but the state Legislature recently nixed House Bill 750, a bill that called
for the state to provide funding for three existing tribe-based immersion
schools, including the Gros Ventre, Salish and Blackfeet programs. The bill
never made it out of committee to reach a full vote before the Legislature.

About 90 percent of Indian students attend public schools.

It has been difficult for tribes to start their own immersion schools
independent of the state because they can't afford it. The Confederated
Salish and Kootenai Tribes were able to create an immersion school because
the tribe pays for the majority of the private school's operating budget.
But other tribes in the state don't have the same economic options to start
their own.

In the past, federal grants typically precluded funding to go to immersion
schools. But in 2006 Congress passed the Esther Martinez Native American
Languages Preservation Act, which promises to revive language preservation
efforts and the act makes immersion school funding a high priority. Fort
Belknap is one of the first reservations in Montana to apply for the grant,
which could infuse the community with $300,000 over a three-year period.

Meanwhile, tribal-language teachers typically are left using myriad and
unsystematic methods in language instruction since they don't have a
standardized curriculum.

The Office of Public Instruction doesn't have a budget for language
preservation.

"We're doing very little because we don't have any money dedicated to
language programs," said Lynn Hinch, the bilingual specialist for the state
Office of Public Instruction. "We need a K-12 program. Teachers here talked
about teaching three times a week for 15 minutes. You can't teach a
language in 15 minutes. Spanish teachers wouldn't put up with that. English
teachers wouldn't put up with that. Math teachers wouldn't put up with
that."

Tribal languages have "little support at the state level," said Hinch.

American Indians say they lack state support because they are still fighting
historic assimilation practices that stripped indigenous people of their
language, said Henrietta Mann, a Montana State University professor
emeritus.

"Those that came to live with us were steeped in their own cultural world
views and wanted everyone else to be like them, to the way we were educated
to the way we're supposed to think," said Mann. "In order to accomplish
that, they sought to destroy Native languages.

"You still have this tendency to want to change us, to homogenize us. It
hasn't changed," said Mann.

"I think it's a threat to them," said Minerva Allen, a tribal elder cultural
coordinator for the communities of the Fort Belknap Reservation. "They feel
they can't understand us and they want us all to be equal in their sense of
equal, not in ours. They want us all to be in this melting pot of all races.
They had a hard time getting us to learn English and now we want to turn
around and learn our Native language."

But many people fail to understand that a bilingual speaker more readily
absorbs new knowledge and abstract concepts because they can view and
participate in life from multiple vantage points, said Richard Little Bear,
president of the Dull Knife Community College.

Rebuilding a language base isn't easy work. One of the first steps is to
create a persistent awareness of the language, said Tachini Pete, executive
director of Nkwusm, a Salish revitalization school on the Flathead
Reservation.

Language preservation is at a critical level because most fluent language
speakers are dying.

"We could lose 30 or 40 speakers in a matter of two or three years," said
Pete.

Today, there are only 56 people who grew up speaking Salish as a first
language. The tribe lost about 50 speakers in the last 15 years. Most
speakers are now over age 70.

"We got to teach the young adults and teachers to teach the language before
the elders are gone," said the 69-year-old Allen. "That's why I'm always
telling everybody, 'Hurry, I only have a few years to live.' "

Reporter Jodi Rave can be reached at 800-366-7186 or at jodi.rave at lee.net.