Tag Archives: language

M3 P2

Decolonizing the French Language Class… Digital story-telling?

As I go through (the limited) literature about de-colonizing French Immersion classes, I find that a lot of it is Social Studies focused. Where I struggle is more in my Core French and FRAL courses. I realize I’d also love to implement more technology while also de-colonizing my classroom. Before taking the course, technology and indigeneity seemed like oil and water to me. However, I’m seeing that there are ways in using technology while also making space for Indigenous knowledge and ways of teaching in my classroom. I’m curious to know more about digital story-telling as a way to learn more about Indigenous stories but for students to also tell their own stories in relation to the land where they are situated. I will be using modules 3 and 4 to explore some directions for my research paper, so I apologize if they are a little all over the place!

Thing 6: Digital Storytelling

M1 P2 Five Ideas to Support Indigenous Languages in Canada

As a language teacher, I love the idea of incorporating more Indigenous language learning into the classroom. This video is short, sweet and to the point.  It provides 5 easy ways of supporting Indigenous language revitalization in Canada. As we have read in this week’s readings, language is an important part of Indigenous culture and knowledge.

The main suggestions for support from the video are :

  • Learn a greeting and a response from an Indigenous language
  • Learn more Indigenous phrases and words through smart phone apps (such as First Voices)
  • Learn the names of local mountains, lakes, towns and rivers in a local Indigenous language (I hope to to do this with my students next week!)
  • Watch a movie or TV show in an Indigenous language
  • Listen to artists in an Indigenous language

These five suggestions remind me of the following First Peoples Principle of Learning :

http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8Zf-Id0SQ4&t=10s

module 1: post 4 – language contains thought patterns

My fourth ‘finding’ for this module is a video of Chet Bowers at the 2015 Economics of Happiness conference, held in Portland, Oregon. Since we’ve been reading Bowers, but I don’t currently have time to read his book, Let Them Eat Data, I did a quick Youtube search a few days ago and found this mind-blowing 16-minute video:

Here are the notes I made while watching/listening (anything in quotes is directly from the video, everything else is my paraphrasing and interpretation):

  • We have an anthropocentric, European, Enlightenment, abstract way of thinking…
  • This way of thinking doesn’t value the cultural commons and the traditions of local, non-monetized, inter-generational, sustainable activities…
  • “What we need is a more complex form of cultural intelligence” that “pays attention to the patterns that connect”
  • How do various forms of knowledge (ways of knowing/epistemologies) affect our behaviour?
  • It’s not either/or. Print and data are not bad. But they are limited. They don’t capture everything. We need to stop thinking that what is in print or in the form of data is objective. Print and data can’t provide or contain contextual and relational knowledge and experience.
  • Language contains thought patterns. Every language and culture has specific “root metaphors” (I had to Google what root metaphors are). Our culture has a strong root metaphor about progress.
  • “We need to look at the process of linguistic colonization of our present by our past.”

Wow. I highly recommend this video. He starts a little slow, but then it ends up being a PACKED 16 minutes.

M1 P1 Language and Indigenous Education

For this module, I looked into articles surrounding the importance of preserving Indigenous languages and how we, as educators, can encourage language retention and engagement within schools. The 5 resources I found were very interesting and provoked some important reflection! 

  1. McCarty (2003) ‘s article (https://doi.org/10.1080/03050060302556) focuses on the challenges created by conserving linguistic and cultural diversity among Indigenous groups in the United States. A lot of the challenges seen in the US can be seen here in Canada. The article presents some new approaches to Indigenous school to emphasize Indigenous language, culture and heritage as a way to confront the legacy of colonialism.
  2. Duff and Li (2009)’s article (https://doi.org/10.3138/cmlr.66.1.001) is a look into why and how Canada is committed to encouraging French in education systems, however Indigenous languages are overlooked. It presents a looks into national policies that protect Canada’s two official languages, English and French and what Canada is starting to do in terms of protecting Indigenous languages. 
  3. Report on Teaching and Learning First Nations Languages in Different Locations and Locales by the Assembly of First Nations (https://www.afn.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/AFN-Archipel_Language-Learning-Report_ENG-1.pdf) : This resource is a fantastic overview into Indigenous language retention, engagement and approaches to teaching Indigenous language in both remote, rural and urban settings. 
  4. Khawaja’s (2021) article (https://doi.org/10.3390/soc11030089) explores the consequences and solutions of Indigenous language loss in Canada. What I found particularly interesting is both the exploration into why there has been such a drastic language loss in Indigenous communities in addition to the importance of language reclamation.
  5. Haque (2014)’s article (https://doi.org/10.1080/01434632.2014.89249) is particularly revelatory exploration of language policy in Canada and the effects of racist systems of power on policy-making.