College forges Ojibwe language program

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Sault College of Applied Arts and Technology is working out the details for a four-month language pilot project, which it hopes to have ready this month.

Because of the rapid decline of the use of Native languages, First Nations, the college and their partners in cultural and language education realize they have reached a critical juncture if Native languages are going to be preserved. The Native Education and Training Department of the college has implemented programs, training and services to help save Native languages, but it recognizes that these efforts are not enough. English is rapidly replacing the Ojibwe language as the dominant language in schools, communities and homes in the region served by the college and beyond.

That is why Sault College is planning to implement what it describes as the Anishinaabe Pane Pilot Curriculum from Jan. 12, 2004 to April 30, 2004.

The pilot project is being designed to produce Ojibwe language speakers, and it has the additional goals of measuring the effectiveness of immersion programs on language retention, as well as developing a language program that deals with the issue of language loss.

If the project goes ahead, it will be held on campus from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., Monday to Friday, with one hour for lunch. The curriculum will include four themes: storytelling, writing, cultural identity and singing. Students will acquire six hours of class time per course and have the opportunity for independent study in the language lab.

The program will be facilitated by qualified Ojibwe language teachers and will include guest speakers who can add to students' exposure to the language.

Carolyn Hepburn, the Ojibwe language initiatives co-ordinator at Sault College, hopes prospective students will take note. The college wants to have a minimum of 15 students enrolled in the pilot program.

The college hopes this will lead, Hepburn said, to implementation of a one-year (32-week academic year) immersion program the college is developing, to be taught 95 per cent in Ojibwe. This certificate program would be open to people with some knowledge of Ojibwe or with no knowledge of the language.

"What we'd like to do is partner up with interested First Nations and Aboriginal organizations to see if they would commit to sponsoring a student to attend the four-month pilot, and then we'd measure the results after the four months."

Carolyn Hepburn said the pilot project is the idea of retired dean Mary O'Donnell, who now has a role as director of Native strategy planning at the college.

The 1996 Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples noted that only a "small number of Aboriginal people speak Aboriginal languages." By 2001, the number of people reporting an Aboriginal mother tongue had decreased 3.5 per cent from 1996. Ojibwe language speakers declined 6 per cent in the same five years. The 2001 Canada Census revealed there were only 21,267 fluent Ojibwe speakers in Canada, down from 22,625 in 1996.

Sault College hopes that by providing students with a sixteen-week immersion pilot program, they will want to continue striving to learn Ojibwe and improve their skills. It is hoped that sponsored participants will be able to bring the language and traditional knowledge they acquire back to their communities and workplaces.

When the pilot project is complete, sponsoring agencies will critique the program and make recommendations for a language program that meets the needs of their communities.

Last March the Chiefs of Ontario (in a special assembly) recognized and affirmed three language families (Ojibwe, Cree and Iroquoian) within Ontario as "indispensable components to the survival and sustenance of Indigenous nationhood." The chiefs voted to support in principle the implementation of language immersion centres and to support an Ontario First Nation-driven language strategy incorporating a number of recommendations from the Ontario language caucus. The recommendations they pproved include implementing a First Nation language action group; gaining approval and endorsement for a First Nation language foundation; looking at protective legislation for Ontario's First Nation languages; lobbying the government for resources to implement language revitalization, and implementing a communications campaign.