At iFLT in Chattanooga and hopefully in Agen as well, there will be a teacher of Cherokee language from Oklahoma. His name is Wade Blevins. I bring him up so that people know that they can learn some Cherokee this summer, but that’s not the only reason I bring his name up.
Wade is a gifted TPRS language teacher and in two days in MN last year became adept at story telling. I remember the entire process. He did not need a lot of group sessions on circling, etc. He just started making himself comprehensible. Those who were there in that room last summer remember the magic.
I bring this up because I was just thinking about that long and protracted discussion here last month about coaching and training. I don’t buy the commonly accepted idea that training someone in this work has to be complicated. I know that Wade is gifted, but he also jumped in with no fear and just started doing it. All he needed was a few suggestions.
Thus, I state my belief that we make the process of training new teachers much too complicated. We always make simple things complicated. What’s up with that?
I will email Wade now to see if he is being successful in his efforts to obtain funding for Agen and report back to the group. Learning a Native American dialect is a different kind of language learning experience. Read the related blog from years ago for an insight into why:
https://benslavic.com/blog/drawn-by-an-echo/
