Anumpa Achukma/Good News
Language Loss Can Be Reversed
2005.05
This
is a newsletter dedicated to reporting the successes in revitalizing endangered
languages worldwide. Share your good news with us by sending us an
article about your program or current activity in revitalizing an endangered
language.
Please forward this newsletter to anyone who might be interested.
Pedagogy
One of the schools I visited was Te Kura Kaupapa Maaori o Te
Ara Rima, a Decile 1 public school. Decile 1 means that the students come from
low income backgrounds: Many would fit the US label of at-risk. There I saw
older students teaching younger students: The younger students were following
the older students with respect and interest. I asked the principal if this was
their normal behavior. She said it was. The older students work with the
younger students in both traditional Maaori arts as well as literacy and math.
This system of having the older students help the younger ones is called
Taukana/Teina, a traditional Maaori philosophy.
The language of instruction was Maaori, and it accompanied
activities so that the instructor provided the Maaori language appropriate for
the activity. This is an effective immersion method, and several very good
language methods are built around this idea of matching language to movement
and real objects. One of these is Gattegno’s “Silent Way.” The Maaori call it
Te Aatarangi. Giving it a Maaori name makes it more Maaori.
To read more about this method, click on these links.
http://www.cuisenaire.co.uk/languages/sway.htm
http://www.onestopenglish.com/News/Magazine/Archive/silentway.htm
http://bogglesworld.com/glossary/silentway.htm
Jim Green uses this approach to teach Lakota. To read more
about what he is doing, go to this site. http://www.alliance2k.org/daklang1/daklang1.html
Another immersion approach is Asher’s Total Physical
Response (TPR). This approach uses the imperative voice with the teacher
demonstrating each command initially so that students can learn the meaning by
following the movement and listening to the command. While the Silent Way
requires the students to speak early on, TPR allows a student a silent period
not requiring the students to speak until ready. This silent period has been
shown to improve pronunciation and mimics the process of language acquisition
among children.
You can get more information about these approaches at these
links.
http://www.tprsource.com/asher.htm
http://www.tprstorytelling.com/story.htm
http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~jar/RIL_5.html
http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~jar/NNL/NNL_1.pdf
A similar approach pioneered by Clark Carr over 20 years
ago, uses movement and telling a story. This approach is based on the success
of Gouian several hundred years ago. He observed that children rehearsed language
as they play, telling little stories about what they had learned and
internalizing the language to go with the activity. Carr developed a curriculum
around this approach that allows a person to acquire a basic vocabulary of
about 300 words in a relatively short period of time (i.e. a few hours a day
for no more than a couple of weeks). This approach has the advantage that it is
interesting and easy. Ideally, each “story” is learned in the appropriate
environment. The first lesson begins something like this.
The boys wakes up.
He opens his eyes.
He stretches.
He touches his toes.
He walks to the bathroom.
He brushes his teeth.
The instructor is demonstrating this sequence while saying
it, allowing the students to observe. Then the students follow the movements
while listening to the sequences, and so forth until students in a short amount
of time are able to demonstrate the sequence as it is said to him/her. It is
this approach that I am currently experimenting with to see if it can be
adapted to video so that a person could follow the same sequence at home.
Language camps are another kind of immersion. In this case,
usually the participants have already taken some classes, and the camps allow
them to actually use the language. This approach has also been used to teach
Navajo to urban teenagers in Albuquerque.
Here are some links for language camps.
http://www.ling.yale.edu:16080/~elf/Isham.html
Some of the basic principles involved are language connected
to movement and real objects and only using the target language. These methods
really work for engaging learners in understanding and using the target
language.
Please contact me for more information on creating immersion
language programs for your group.
George Ann Gregory hoanumpoli@yahoo.com
Responses and
Questions
Jeanette King at the School of Maori and Indigenous Studies,
University of Canterbury, Christchurch, NZ, is interested in hearing from those
involved in pre-school language programs. You can reach her at this email
address.
I received this communication from Whatarangi. Would anyone
like to jump into this discussion?
The proposition in first paragraph
of the PPP section concerning the similarity of the time lines for loss
and reversal (being equal in length) does not fit with our experience, I think.
However, this is an empirical question and the proposition is interesting.
What is the underpinning theory? Issues concerning the quantification
of the rate of loss and of the reverse would be present of course.
Research in this area for insights into this alone would be useful.
This idea of inviting contributions
to the subject of language revitalisation is a good one. I hope that it
attracts attention and contributions.
It would be
interesting to hear from others about their experiences. In my family, on the
Choctaw side the language was lost when the children were removed from their
Choctaw speaking grandmother and placed in a white orphanage. The Cherokee was
lost when my ancestors moved into the U.S. from their traditional nation.
Success Stories
The Comanche Language
and
Cultural Preservation Committee
NUMU
TEKWAPUHA NOMNEEKATU
PO Box 3610
Lawton, OK 73502
e-mail: clcpc@comanchelanguage.org
Fax: 1-580-353-6322
|
The Comanche
Language and Cultural Preservation Committee proposes to change the direction
of the language. That change is to restore the N |
To contact the Comanche Nation, call
580-492-4988 or toll free 1-877-492-4988 or visit their web site at: www.comanchenation.com
THE LANGUAGE:
Comanche people have increased efforts in recent years to insure the
language of our ancestors remains a constant part of everyday Comanche life.
Changes in the language began in the late 1800's when children were taken from
their homes and placed in boarding schools. They were discouraged from speaking
their native tongue, and disciplined harshly for doing so. This treatment was
not unique to Comanche people, but with native people throughout the newly
"discovered" America. Government policy dictated the civilization of
the First Americans, in part, by denying them their language.
The children were taught the language of their parents and grandparents was
bad. With this indoctrination, the language was not spoken in the home. English
became the language of preference.
By the mid 1900's, elders who could speak the language fluently were dying at
an alarming rate and children were not being taught the language in order to
maintain speakers within the tribe. In 2003, there are 12,000 enrolled
Comanches, yet there are fewer than 1% who speak the language fluently.
Early attempts to maintain the language have been sporadic, with language
classes and preservation efforts organized by individual tribal members, all
working independently, yet with a common goal to teach and preserve the
Comanche language.
In July of 1993, the Comanche Language and Cultural Preservation Committee was
formed with the vision of reviving the Comanche language into a "living
language" once again. Most of our fluent speakers are elderly, and they
are not being replaced with new, younger speakers as they pass on. We want to
change that trend and provide the opportunity for Comanche people of all ages
to be able to speak, write and understand the language in order that it and our
culture might live on.
HoAnumpoli &
Abqslams
Present
Endangered Language
Poetry Reading
HoAnumpoli and Abqslams present ABQ's first Endangered
Language Poetry Reading: non-world languages (e.g . Spanish, English,
French, German, Russian, Chinese, Arabic, etc.) including Native American languages,
Polynesian languages, languages, such as Basque, Welsh, Yiddish, Irish &
Scottish Gaelic, indigenous African languages, etc.
If you are not sure whether your language is endangered,
just ask. Come celebrate the diversity of language and sound in an
afternoon of poetry like you've never heard before.
For information and sign-up please e-mail hoanumpoli@yahoo.com
What: Endangered Language Poetry Reading
When: Sunday, January 15th, 2006 @ 2 PM
Where: Harlow's on the Hill, Albuquerque, NM
(nw corner of Carlisle & Central)
How much: $5.00 suggested donation
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Anumpoli! is a New Mexico non-profit organization. For more information about
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Send
your success story to us at holabitubbe@gmail.com
For
previous issues of Anumpa Achukma, go to http://www.oocities.org/hoanumpoli/anumpa.html
George
Ann Gregory, Ph.D.
Choctaw/Cherokee
Fulbright
Scholar