the book discussion

[Heather Souter]

Kihchi-marsii por ton niimeel!  Thanks for your email.

Hmmm....

Maybe, we could just print the English on the back page with the
corresponding page numbers...?  (I am thinking as I write....)  That
would mean we wouldn't have to print two books....  Or we could bind a
copy of the book with just Michif and a copy with Michif and English
back to back  as I have seen with English/French pamphlets here in
Canada....

Eekoshi.
Heather

On Mon, Sep 21, 2009 at 2:43 PM, Tammy DeCoteau <tdc.aaia at verizon.net> wrote:
> Heather,
>
> We did a book about community workers (Who am I?) where you give clues and
> then lift the little cardboard to see the name of the worker and it was so
> labor intensive that we eventually just put the answer on the next page.
> Too much gluing and cutting and then binding.  But then a person could
> actually print two books, one with English and one without.
>
> We did our own recording using a free program - Audacity - it was easy to
> use for a novice and then we burn the cds and put a plastic sticky cd holder
> on the inside of the front cover.  It took awhile but we even figured out
> how to insert a little chime so you know when to turn the page.  Because we
> do so many, we bought a cd/dvd printer (which can make 100 at a time.)
>
> Tammy DeCoteau
> AAIA Native Language Program
>
> On Sep 21, 2009, Heather Souter <hsouter at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
>
> Taanshi kiiyawaw, hello all,
>
> I really appreciate this thread!
> I am working on a book in Michif with an Elder and was thinking about
> this very issue. I am thinking bout doing subtitling but binding a
> thin cardboard or plastic strip(s?) between pages so that this (these)
> can be used to "hide" the English and also having a recording of our
> Elder reading/telling the story.... Any other ideas?
>
> Eekoshi pitamaa. That is it for now.
> Heather
>
>
> On Mon, Sep 21, 2009 at 12:07 PM, Bernadette Santamaria
> <bernisantamaria at gmail.> wrote:
>> I agree with T. DeCoteau's assessment on whether to use subtitles--I've
>> taught Apache at the university level--English subtitles "interfere" with
>> teaching.  I found that students depend on them instead of learning the
>> words on their own with my oral-only presentations in class. They would
>> concentrate instead, on writing the word in Apache & English for their
>> notes
>> & not be concentration on listening or pronouncing.
>>
>> I switched to not writing the words on the board or anything but used only
>> immersion methods and got better results at end of semester. One thing in
>> our favor for Apache students from our tribe is that they still have
>> speakers all around them at various domains at our reservation--speakers
>> of
>> ages 40 and over. Those under that age are less fluent but still do have a
>> higher percentage of fluent speakers among younger people than other
>> Indigenous groups, even some children but we know that we need to be
>> conducting language maintenance and revitalization programming too to
>> avoid
>> further attrition of our language.
>>
>> Just contributing my comments.....
>>
>> Bernadette A. SantaMaria
>> Language/Cultura Consultant
>> White Mountain Apache Tribe
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Sep 21, 2009 at 9:52 AM, Tammy DeCoteau <tdc.aaia at verizon.net>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Han Mitakuyapi,
>>>
>>> I have been following the book discussions going on.  Two very important
>>> things have been brought up.
>>>
>>> To subtitle or not to subtitle.
>>>
>>> This is something that our program has struggled with.  Initially, we
>>> were
>>> attempting an immersion program in a daycare at the local tribal college.
>>> The problem was everything was in English.  And then another problem was
>>> that most of the people in the videos and books were non-Indian.
>>>
>>> This was when we started creating our own materials.  First we tried
>>> handwriting the Dakotah.  What happened was that the English looked all
>>> nice
>>> and the Dakotah looked second-class.  So then we tried printing the
>>> Dakotah
>>> on stickers.  That didn't look so great either.  So eventually we decided
>>> to
>>> create our own.
>>>
>>> It was then, that the discussion on whether to subtitle was held.  On the
>>> reservation where we are located, we are fortunate (by many standards) to
>>> have around 100 speakers.  But of those, even less ever learned to
>>> read in
>>> Dakotah.  However, we have the date of birth of 54 of those speaking
>>> elders
>>> and have determined that the average age of those speakers is 76.
>>>
>>> The next generation, in their 40's or 50's has only a handful of
>>> speakers.  And the young parents of today, still another generation away,
>>> has no speakers.  So these young parents, and the grandparents of our
>>> children are not speakers.  So they can neither speak nor read in
>>> Dakotah.  We have had some of our books narrated and tell parents these
>>> cds
>>> are for them to learn to read to their children.  But because of all of
>>> this, we did subtitle.
>>>
>>> I think subtitling would depend on whether you are an immersion program
>>> --
>>> then absolutely no English -- and whether your population could read the
>>> book.
>>>
>>> Tammy DeCoteau
>>> AAIA Native Language Program
>>
>