Collaborative Language Planning Project report of activities, January - May 2019

Littlebear, Richard

Miyashita, Mizuki

Penfield, Susan

English

University of Montana

University of MontanaScholarWorks at University of MontanaCollaborative Language Planning Project Linguistics8-1-2019Collaborative Language Planning Project: Report03: August 2019Mizuki MiyashitaUniversity of Montana - MissoulaSusan PenfieldUniversity of Montana - MissoulaRichard LittlebearChief Dull Knife CollegeLet us know how access to this document benefits you.Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umt.edu/clppThis Report is brought to you for free and open access by the Linguistics at ScholarWorks at University of Montana. It has been accepted for inclusionin Collaborative Language Planning Project by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks at University of Montana. For more information, pleasecontact scholarworks@mso.umt.edu.Recommended CitationMiyashita, Mizuki; Penfield, Susan; and Littlebear, Richard, "Collaborative Language Planning Project: Report 03: August 2019"(2019). Collaborative Language Planning Project. 4.https://scholarworks.umt.edu/clpp/4Collaborative Language Planning Project  CLPP Report 03: August 2019   CLPP activities report January - May 2019 Reporters: Mizuki Miyashita, Susan Penfield and Richard Littlebear   1. LSA 2019 and SAIL/AILDI 2019   Mizuki Miyashita presented results of the CLPP workshop at Chief Dull Knife College as part of CoLang Institute Development at 2019 Annual meeting of Linguistics Society of America in New York City on January 4th and 2019 Symposium of American Indian Languages/American Indian Language Development Institute Conference in Tucson, Arizona on April 12th. In these presentations, Mizuki mentioned that a key to success of CoLang 2020 is to incorporate ways to accommodate Class 7 teachers in Montana. Increasing Indigenous participation is one of the goals of the CoLang 2020 organizing committee, and the committee appreciates the collaboration among the CLPP participants for the valuable discussion and knowledge exchanges.  The Natives4Linguistics group is particularly interesting as the core organizers are linguists who are members of the Indigenous communities in North America: Wesley Leonard, Ph.D. (Miami Tribe of Oklahoma), Megan Lukaniec, Ph.D. (Wyndot), and Adrienne Tsikewa (Zuni). The goal of the group is to decolonize the linguistic science which is currently heavily influenced by the Western way of thinking. Dr. Leonard has presented many talks on language reclamation which he explains as the combination of decolonization and language revitalization. Participants of the workshop that this group hosted in 2018 included linguists who are Native, linguists who are not Native but work with Native communities, and community language workers from Native communities in North America.   Attending the SAIL/AILDI conference was important as we (CLPP) consult with AILDI for the CLPP activities and the development of CoLang. AILDI (the American Indian Language Development Institute) has been in operation for 40 years and has served language teachers and parents of Native communities in language revitalization, education and literacy. At this conference, there were poster presentations on languages in Montana. Samantha Prins, who is a graduate student of UM Linguistics Figure 1.1 LSA Natives4Linguistics Panel (left) and SAIL/AILDI conference (right) Figure 2.2 Mizuki with Kaylene by her poster at SAIL/AILDI. Collaborative Language Planning Project                     2 CLPP Report 02: End of 2018   July 25, 2019 Program, presented on Blackfoot vowel devoicing (ways that vowels in the end of words become silent). Another poster presentation on a Montana language was by Kaylene Big Knife who is a member of the Chippewa-Cree Tribe of Montana and a student of the Native American Linguistics MA program at the University of Arizona. For her thesis, she is creating teaching materials for the Cree syllabary.  Michael Turcotte, a participant in CLPP, also participated in the SAIL/AILDI conference with his nephew J. J.    2. FPCC Visit  2.1. Planning Michael Turcotte of Fort Peck Community College (FPCC) agreed to host the onsite workshop on May 2nd. Susan, Richard and Mizuki felt that this workshop should be built from the CLPP workshop given at Chief Dull Knife College, and had an online meeting on March 22nd, this time including Leora Bar-el (additional instructor), Michael Turcotte (host and instructor). Following items summarize decisions made during the online meeting and the procedure involved during the preparation period.   Workshop will last for six hours so that Class 7 teachers can receive six CEU credits.  Thomas Brown, the CEU coordinator at FPCC, assisted us with preparing for CEU packets for the workshop participants.  Starting time is 10AM to accommodate participants driving from Canada in the morning  Instructors Richard, Susan, Leora, Michael, and Mizuki prepared for designated sessions (see workshop section).  UM members prepared evaluation form  2.2. The visit UM members (Susan, Leora and Mizuki) left Missoula on May 1st and arrived at Wolf Point in the late afternoon. Richard left Lame Deer also on May 1st. All stayed at Sherman Inn the hotel recommended by Michael which was located near the college’s building. Instructors arrived at the college around at 9am to prepare for the meeting. Michael, J.J. and other staff members at FPCC prepared refreshments and lunch - meal, coffee, room, etc. - thank you for the great team play!   2.3. The workshop The workshop started at 10AM with a prayer given by Michael. There are about eight students and a several other students coming in and out.  The workshop consisted of 6 sessions:   1 Knowing our students: How do my students learn language?  - MIZUKI MIYASHITA 2 Solving puzzles: How do we discover language patterns? - LEORA BAR-EL 3 Total Physical Response: What is it like to be a student in a language class? - RICHARD LITTLEBEAR 4 Learning goals: What do my students need to do/know? - SUSAN PENFIELD 5 Lesson plans: What should a lesson plan look like? - MIZUKI MIYASHITA 6 Language: Computer and document advantages. - MICHAEL TURCOTTE   Figure 2.1. Instructors at the FPCC workshop: Susan Penfield, Leora Bar-el, Mike Turcotte, Richard Littlebear, and Mizuki Miyashita  Collaborative Language Planning Project                     3 CLPP Report 02: End of 2018   July 25, 2019           2.4. Evaluation Report 15 people attended, and 9 evaluation forms were returned. (Those who left the classroom early did not complete the evaluation form.) Participants evaluated the entire session and individual sessions in five scale: 5 - extremely useful, 4 – very useful, 3 – somewhat useful, 2 – not so much, and 1 – not useful at   all. For the general question, “was the overall workshop useful?” out of the 9 respondents, 7 people responded “extremely useful”, 1 “very useful”, 1 “somewhat useful.” For the individual sessions, 5-6 participants felt these were extremely helpful, and 3-4 participants felt very or somewhat useful.      7 6 5 5 6 6 5 5 1 3 2 1 3 1 3 4 1 1 3 3 1 Overalla. Knowingour studentsb. Solvingpuzzles c. TPRd. Learninggoalse. Lessonplans f. Computer recommend?5 Extremely 4 Very 3 Somewhat 2 Not so much 1 Not at allFigure 2.3. Evaluation on Workshop at FPCC  Figure 2.2. Snapshots from sessions during the workshop: Richard’s TPR (upper left); Mike’s Computer and document languages (upper right); Rebecca Little Sun and Victoria Bear Comes Out (Class 7 teachers in N. Cheyenne – lower left); Nakoda teachers developing a dialog for teaching in Lesson Plan session (Lower right)  Collaborative Language Planning Project                     4 CLPP Report 02: End of 2018   July 25, 2019 We also asked which of the sessions they wanted to lean more about. The sessions on knowing our students, solving problems, and TPR were marked by one participant, and the sessions on learning goals, lesson plans, and computer document and advantage were marked by three participants. Additionally, we asked which one of the following skills they are interested to in exploring in future workshops. The number in parenthesis indicates how many out of the 9 responders who showed their interests:  I want to know how my language works. (8) I want to learn how to record speakers’ speech. (6) I want to find out what my students’ pronunciation weaknesses are. (8) I want to learn how to digitize tape recordings. (6) I want to raise my younger family in our ancestral language. (7)  Finally, we asked for any additional comments, and here are the responses:   Please come and do this workshop an our reservation - summer time  Good workshop  pinamaya, A ̜́ba wašté yuha  pinamayaya  Amazing, lots of info that we can utilize within our community  Wonderful to have different strategies to learn and apply  níína da ̜́yǎ  2.5. Debriefing Richard, Susan, Leora, Mike and Mizuki met after the workshop. Here are selected topics raised during the meeting.  - 50 minute long format worked well - 6 hour long workshop was fine, but perhaps no longer than 6 hours - Technology can be useful and we should also understand that it is people who revitalize the language - Ideas conveyed through the workshop was good for the participants who had no formal teaching education - Workshop for parents: there are things going on in communities (Fort Peck & N. Cheyenne)  - The Maori model which requires planning ahead is a good model – but “planning ahead” is missing from a lot of communities - Sharing materials from workshop online?  3. Second Missoula Meeting The second meeting at UM was held on May 23rd and 24th.  This year, we extended the invitation to several others. Our meeting consisted of series of presentations with some discussion and breakout sessions. Topics included the following: Session 1: Introductions and Activity Summaries Session 2: Report on CLPP Workshops 2018-2019 Session 3: Class 7 Session 4: Language Teaching Methods Session 5: Gathering Community Language Resources Collaborative Language Planning Project                     5 CLPP Report 02: End of 2018   July 25, 2019 Session 6: UM Student Presentation  Session 7: UM Student Presentation Session 8: Language Reclamation Session 9: Language Activism Session 10: CoLang 2020 and Beyond Session 11: Grant Writing Session 12: Evaluation and Next CEU Workshop Planning  3.1 Special Sessions For the Language Reclamation session, Dr. Wesley Leonard (University of California – Riverside) gave a presentation on the topic. The talk and the Q&A session enhanced the participants’ awareness and further ideas about their language activities. We also invited Jeanie Castillo, director of the English Language Institute to give us an overview of language teaching methods.               3.2 UM students’ presentation Naatosi Fish, a graduate student in business who studied linguistics during his undergraduate years, currently teaches Blackfoot at the University of Montana. He gave a presentation on his work on Pitch Art – visual guide for learning Blackfoot pitch movement. He showed the audience an online tool that is being developed by a group of linguist, musicologist and computer scientists that helps create Pitch Art and several participant members were interested in pursuing pedagogy of prosodic system of their languages. Aspen Decker, an incoming student of UM Linguistics MA program, is a Salish speaker. She went to Nkwsum language immersion school where she acquired her language skill. She has four children and currently using Salish to raise her children. She gave a talk on a journey of her life with the language including some episodes of her children using Salish at home. Participants were impressed as her experience would be inspiring to young members in their own tribes.        3.3 Evaluation Figure 2.4 Wesley Leonard (left); Wesley’s presentation (middle); Jeanie Castillo’s presentation Figure 2.5 Aspen Decker (left); Naatosi Fish (right) Collaborative Language Planning Project                     6 CLPP Report 02: End of 2018   July 25, 2019 10 evaluation sheets were returned. Strength of the meeting included “variety of topics and communities represented.” Suggestions for the futures included “more hands-on activities.” The collection of the comments will be presented in a separate document. In addition, we also collected survey on Class 7 and language activism. We plan to review these and think of a way to present the results in the near future.   4. Next Step The next activities are to take at least one more onsite trip before CoLang 2020. Places that came up as candidates were ANC and BCC, and a proposed timeline is September. Though CLPP is funded by NSF only for two years, many of the participants hope this will continue and become an annual event. We (PIs) submitted a request for supplemental funds to support participants’ travel costs for next year, and the request was accepted.   

Collaborative Language Planning Project: Report 03: August 2019

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Collaborative Language Planning Project: Report 03: August 2019

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