Saul and Jan's discussion

[Jan Ullrich]

>> Re: Jan. Excellent points, I think most of us will agree.

>>  The issue not only concerns what sort of language one should teach, but 

>> also the shape and format of the pedagogical materials. 

>>> I recently showed your Lakota children's textbook to a (non-Siouan
speaking) 

>> language revitalization committee, and one (non-native) 

>> colleague (who shall remain unnamed) pointed out: 

>> "we cannot do that here, the elders think that such manuals with color 

>> pictures are disrespectful to the language, we need to use traditional
ways, 

>> without color pictures".  I bit my lip. Have you heard such objections to
your 

>> textbooks from Lakota speakers?  My view is we do need colorful pictures
for children, 

>> other methods for adults.  You teach French to children 

>> with color pictures, but you do not teach Racine and Voltaire to adults
with colorful pictures...

 

Willem

 

As far as I can tell the color illustrations are welcome as a positive
aspect of the teaching materials. I don't recall hearing criticism of the
illustrations from native speakers, on the contrary.

 

But I remember an incident that is very much in line with the experience you
describe above: it was during one of the teacher trainings when we were
introducing the native teachers to various types of games designed for
teaching language in a fun, motivating and age appropriate ways; during the
class one of the native speakers said the following: "we cannot use games in
language classes because the language is sacred". 

 

This illustrates the level to which some of the heritage language became
disassociated from their normal function, which is everyday communication in
all contexts and situations. In my opinion this is very much the result of
emphasizing the sacredness and describing those languages as something that
is associated only with ceremonial and spiritual contexts. It is true that
this is the context in which the language is most commonly heard by
non-speakers today, but in those are families and communities where Lakota
is still spoken for everyday communication, it is indeed used in a number of
different contexts as well.

 

Jan

 

 

 

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