Language Revitalization & Education by Magdalena Brzoska https://padlet.com/magdalena_brzoska/zw0lgdtuc0yq PADLET MADE WITH REFERENCES TO: Revitalising Indigenous Languages in Homogenising Times (Written by: TERESA L. McCARTY) en-us 2018-07-05 18:46:06 UTC 2025-10-01 04:33:41 UTC hello@padlet.com magdalena_brzoska https://padlet.com/magdalena_brzoska/zw0lgdtuc0yq/wish/269504753
  • Indigenous people have nowhere to turn by their own communities to replenish their language
  • Elders primarily speak native tongues
  • Language shift in North American caused by colonization (forced transformation to assimilate into White culture) 
  • English only schooling promotes language loss
  • Language immersion provides all or most of students instruction in the target heritage language is the most popular pedagogy of choice amon Indigenous communities seeking to retain their language and create a new generation of fluent Native language speakers 
  • the most powerful predictor of academic success’ (p. 39) was schooling for at least four to seven years in the native/heritage language and this held true for children who entered school with no English background, children raised bilingually from birth, and ‘children dominant in English who [were] losing their heritage language’
  • Time and exposure to comprehensible second language input in intellectually challenging and socially significant activity are necessary for second language learners to ‘close the gap’
  • Hence, even though more Indigenous students speak English as a first language, they are likely to be stigmatised as ‘limited English proficient’ and to be ‘foreordained for failure by being labeled at risk’
  • the cases presented here, and early data from the Native Language Shift/Retention Project, suggest that immersion schooling can serve the dual roles of promoting students’ school success and revitalising endangered  Indigenous languages. (pg. 159)
  • Can Indigenous cultural and linguistic distinctiveness be maintained in the face of these homogenising yet stratifying forces? I believe the answer is a qualified but optimistic ‘yes’. Achieving this will require sustained community-based consciousness-raising, much like that described for the immersion programmes examined here, and committed efforts by those 160 T. L. McCarty who, like the Navajo parents at Fort Defiance, are determined to ‘buck the tide’ of linguistic and cultural repression (pg. 159) 

    • ]]>     2018-07-05 20:45:42 UTC https://padlet.com/magdalena_brzoska/zw0lgdtuc0yq/wish/269504753     magdalena_brzoska https://padlet.com/magdalena_brzoska/zw0lgdtuc0yq/wish/269504818 -Organised instruction around cooperative learning centres and culturally relevant themes. As per the article having parents and elders actively involved in "these pedagogical changes, assisting in students’ field-based research projects, serving as language models and instructors, and providing cultural demonstrations"in both inside and outside of schools

    -These processes can be described as ‘bottom-up’ language planning: emanating from within Indigenous communities, these initiatives created a means of empowerment for Native teachers, children and communities. (pg. 151) 

    -Indigenous language immersion programmes provide all or most instruction in the endangered language. ‘There is no doubt that this is the best way to jump-start the production of a new generation of fluent speakers. (pg. 152) 

    -We had to convince the community, number one, that we were experiencing major language shift, and two, that there is something we can do about it (pg. 157)

    - The focus in both programmes is on strengthening oral skills rather than literacy (pg. 158) 

    The main take-aways I have from the article is that globalization (cultural, economic, and political forces) is what is causing local languages to disappear. 


    ]]>     2018-07-05 20:46:54 UTC https://padlet.com/magdalena_brzoska/zw0lgdtuc0yq/wish/269504818     magdalena_brzoska https://padlet.com/magdalena_brzoska/zw0lgdtuc0yq/wish/269504849 “Indigenous language reclamation efforts must not only confront a legacy of colonialism, but also mounting pressures for standardization and English monolingualism.” (pg. 147) 

    “In the transnational flow of wealth, technology and information, the currency of ‘world’ languages is enormously inflated, while that of local languages is flattened and devalued.” (pg. 148) 

    “When an indigenous group stops speaking its language, the language disappears from the face of the earth.” (pg. 148) Why is that scary and essentially bad? The world, the country, the city or the village you live in, loses human knowledge from that language/culture. 

    “Indigenous people have nowhere to turn but their own communities
    to replenish the pool of heritage language speakers.” (pg. 148) 

    “Research in the fields of education, linguistics, anthropology and cognitive psychology is unequivocal on one point: students who enter school with a primary language other than the national or dominant language perform significantly better on academic tasks when they receive consistent and cumulative academic support in the native/heritage language.” (pg.  149) 


    ]]>     2018-07-05 20:47:21 UTC https://padlet.com/magdalena_brzoska/zw0lgdtuc0yq/wish/269504849     magdalena_brzoska https://padlet.com/magdalena_brzoska/zw0lgdtuc0yq/wish/269505127 1. Our school could use cooperative learning centres and continue to use culturally relevant themes essential to Anishinaabe culture in Pikangikum First Nations. 
    2. We could increase the amount of time with Anishinaabemowin being the major language of instruction. 
    3. Focus on oral skills rather than literacy because I've personally noticed it is easier to speak languages than it is to read or write them. 
    4. Encourage co-operative teaching with both an English and Ojibwe speaking teacher so that instruction is either equally spread out in both languages or more prevalent in Ojibwe. When students are able to interact in their native tongue it is amazing how different their personality is and the confidence that they exhibit. ]]>     2018-07-05 20:51:50 UTC https://padlet.com/magdalena_brzoska/zw0lgdtuc0yq/wish/269505127