Methods explored to engage youth in Native language

Lying in her crib, tiny Gantowisa's mouth curls into a sleepy smile as she drifts off to a Kanien'keha (Mohawk) lullaby sung softly by a grade four student.
Though today's language lesson is over, the infant will coo and clap her hands when the students return to act out a silly skit delivered completely in Kanien'keha.
Such scenes sound too idyllic for school curriculum, but in Cornwall, Ontario, this vibrant, intergenerational dynamic is fostering a new generation of first language Kanien'keha speakers.
The pilot program, called 'The Language Nest', currently involves five babies and toddlers, zero to three years old, who, it is hoped, will eventually speak Kanien'keha as their first language, and naturally think in it.
"The dayhome, called Lakhinoronhkwa (We Love Them), where the project is being carried out, is full of the Mohawk language ­ on television, in music, on posters," explained Kaweienon:ni Margaret Cook-Peters, a language specialist for the Ahkwesahasne Mohawk Board of Education. "Grade four students visit the babies to sing, perform skits, dance, talk, tell stories and interact with them in Mohawk. We like to find situations where our elementary immersion students at Tsi Snaihne School have to speak Mohawk.
"It makes sense to start them so young. Language is picked up in the womb ­ the sound of the voice, the rhythm of the words. It should start from birth," said Cook-Peters. "The inter-generational transmission of language does not always have to be from Elder to youth."
Cook-Peters' husband, Theodore Peters, has hit upon a number of activities to make the Mohawk language come alive for his grade three and four students. Last spring, they planted a garden that highlighted the "three sisters"- corn, beans and squash ­ traditional diet staples. Now, as they're harvesting the last of their squash before the frost hits, they're discussing in Mohawk how the plants cooperate: the corn provides a climbing stalk for the beans, the beans provide nitrogen to the soil to nourish the corn; and the squash leaves spread out, preventing competition from unwanted vegetation and shade for corn's shallow roots.
"We make the program fun, using a lot of music in the teaching, translating contemporary songs into language, and starting every day with the Thanksgiving Address," explained Cook-Peters. "Children hold the wampum (traditional sashes painstakingly woven of carved purple and white shells) to represent sincerity of their words and how they'll be carried. And we constantly create new media resources. We use video as an assessment tool with our Mohawk students and, with some editing, we make them into CD's and DVD's for parents and children, or anyone in the community, to use. We even have film festivals in the Mohawk language and we rent the local theatre to show them on the big screen for the community. The result? Kids are using their language outside the classroom and with each other."
Across the country in Vancouver, a language resource on a somewhat smaller screen is making equal impact. It's 7:30 in the morning and four-year-old Maya is watching her favourite kiddy show. It's not 'Dora the Explorer' or any other cartoon, it's 'Nehiyawetan' (Let's Speak Cree).
"She gets to watch one show every morning and she always asks her grandmother to turn on 'that Cree show', " said Maya's aunt Kamala Todd, a writer and one of two directors responsible for the series aimed at city children who might not have a family member or school teacher to teach them ancestral language.
"Maya gleefully tells everyone 'I'm learning Cree!'," Todd adds, explaining the show has been well received by children watching the first season of Nehiyawetan. In each show a group of six- and seven-year-olds embark on an adventure with their language teacher ­ such as visiting a farmer's market to shop for fruit and testing their new Cree counting words as they fill a bag with apples ­ meeting interesting people, exploring fun places, singing songs, playing games and telling stories.
"We're filming the second season with Josephine Small from Hobbema as the kids' teacher," said Todd. "She's warm and natural. The shows aren't over-scripted or overstaged. The kids are learning as they go ­ they haven't rehearsed everything over and over.
"We even had a consultant from Sesame Street, Cathy Chilco, tell us to always include the viewer as part of the group learning to speak Cree. I think that's why kids like the shows so much. They feel included."
Todd has high hopes for the show's continuation, especially since cast members and show producers are beginning to become involved with their viewers and undertake outreach projects.
"We're forming relationships and networking with people in Aboriginal communities. One of our shows is about having a feast and we're going into a community to actually have a feast with the people there."
When asked why a Plains Cree language show is being filmed in a west coast setting like Vancouver, Todd responded many Cree speakers are indigenous to B.C., and that a good team of local people in Vancouver ­ Canada's Hollywood ­ are able to produce it.
"The show is aimed at urban viewers. For this reason, Nehiyawetan isn't necessarily so much about the land that the language comes from," Todd explained.
Hundreds of kilometres north of Todd's Vancouver home, Inuvik Elder Lillian Elias thinks the land has a huge role to play in teaching the Inuvialuktun language. In fact, the 65-year-old retired teacher is excitedly preparing to spend a day with Northwest Territories Education, Culture and Employment Minister Jackson Lafferty, hoping to talk him into letting the land do just that.
"I'll be telling him about my dream," said Elias. "I'd like him to give me a one month, on a trial basis ­ to take a couple of young language teachers and maybe a couple more Inuvialuktun speakers out on the land. It's the only way to give our young people the knowledge that goes behind the language. While we're picking berries, or looking for the vegetables that grow on the land, I'll be speaking to them in the language. While we're eating them with whale oil, I'll be telling them what they're eating. While we're fishing for whitefish, I'll be telling them old stories in Inuvialuktun and teaching them about the way our sentences are structured so they can confidently speak them."
Elias's sole purpose, before she dies, is to make the old language come alive again in the north.
"Since I was a teenager, I was an interpreter for my parents and grandmother when they had to deal with doctors or the government. I didn't do it to get money or anything. I just wanted to do it for my family. Now I want to give language to young people, so when I get really old, I won't have to struggle and run around anymore. I can just sit back and say 'yes, I did it; our people know their language.' "
Elders like Elias, working with teachers like Sandra Ipana, a kindergarten teacher at Inuvik's Sir Alexander MacKenzie School, and Priscilla Haogak, a teacher at Inualthuyak School, have put in long hours to revamp a regional language program that needed reworking. The new, ready-to-use curriculum has helped grade nine students at the Inualthuyak School in Sachs Harbour to learn the Siglitun words for "weather" ­ sila ­ and "winter is coming" ­ ukiuugaqsiyaa. The curriculum supports teachers of students in kindergarten through Grade 12 to teach language without having to devise their own exercises or relying on Elders to come into their classrooms.
"It's way better than what I had to work with as a teacher at the Samuel Hearne Secondary School back in the early '90's," said Elias. "We had a little here and there, but I had to make most of my own materials.
"And now we have the new reading and writing system that has eliminated a lot of the "oo's" and "ee's" so it's much easier for students to learn.
"But, still, I think the best way for children to learn the language and its meaning is to be out on the land. That's what I'll be drilling into the education and culture minister, but in a very gentle way," she laughed.