There is a tendency to think that the solution to save Native American languages is somehow different than just doing CI. But the young children of the Lakota and other indigenous peoples don’t need some kind of special instructional experience that is different than students of modern languages receive.
The solution is not different because it’s a dying language. The failures have been in the way CI is implemented in all language learning situations.
Children must first listen for thousands of hours. This is research. But what they hear has to be interesting to them, or they will tune it out. To repeat: Children must first listen for thousands of hours. This is research. But what they hear has to be interesting to them, or they will tune it out.
So then the solution is simple. It is to get the children to listen because they want to. When the children, native American or not, want to learn, then the elders will be able to grab and keep the interest of the young ones.
The main task is to get them focused on interesting stories from the Lakota, etc. tradition – that’s the goal. But that can’t happen until a preliminary step has been taken. The step takes two years. It prepares the children for story listening. Then it can happen, then the language can be revitalized.
To repeat: the children must have had their hands held across the bridge into story listening first. If you start with story listening, it is too incomprehensible for them. Crossing the bridge into story listening will take two years, and the bridge has to be built first, and it has to be built from the right materials.
After the two years, the children will listen to the stories of old because they can. With the bridge firmly built between the elders and the youth, the change will happen. This is not about the children attending enough “language classes” but of crossing a new bridge to the elders.
The good news is that the bridge is easy to build. The bad news is that the elders don’t know how to build it.
Who speaks the dying language? The elders. They therefore must be the ones speaking as much as possible each day. They must speak and the youth must endlessly listen, for thousands of hours, because they want to, because they want to. There are no short cuts, no neat teaching techniques, no wonderful trainers, who can do it.
Revitalizing the languages is about putting the time in. Far more time than people think is required. It’s almost like in each tribe there must be a squad of about 50 intense kids who are willing to spend half their day just listening, getting to the storytelling place with each step over the two year long bridge.
Listening must do it. People don’t have to attend more and more and more workshops and spend more and more and more money for trainings that have not proven effective for most of the people who attend those workshops.
What will build the bridge? Focusing on (a) listening and (b) community building will right the ship.
To repeat:
No one can speak until they have had those thousands of hours of pure listening. This is Beniko Mason’s and Stephen Krashen’s research. Forced output too early has failed. Grading should not be a part of it. Studying the grammar should not be a part of it. Targeted instruction should not be a part of it. Massed reps of targets should not be a part of it. Heavy circling should not be a part of it. Reading novels that are “challenging” (i.e. engages the conscious mind) should not be a part of it. Formally establishing meaning is not even necessary if we are teaching slowly enough and the context is interesting. Establishing meaning is cute but how effective is it? Students having to supply cute answers in class should not be a part of it (puts stress on them, conflicts with everything Beniko Mason says). Lengthy undisciplined stories more than 25 minutes long should not be a part of it. Class reading of novels should not be a part of it; reading time should be spent individually.
The students must be taught so that they are not even aware of the words, as they focus only on the meaning. Forced output destroys language programs everywhere, on indigenous land and in American schools both.
The elders hold the key but they can do nothing without the bridge. Show them how to build the bridge and the children will cross it in the first two years and then in the third year the story listening can begin, and there will be real hope.
P.S. Having worked directly with the Cherokee, Kalispell and Sack and Fox and other tribes over the past ten years, I have seen that, in exactly the same way that teachers in secondary schools across the country sometimes only “see what they want to see” in new ideas, a huge problem is to disburden teachers of old ideas they have come to accept about language learning.
The old floorboards, the old joists, the old carpeting – all of it has to be completely removed before the new ideas can be implemented successfully. Few programs – on native lands or in typical American schools – are willing to do that.