Language Revitalization TREATY SIX EDUCATION COUNCIL Determining Success In Language Revitalization TREATY SIX EDUCATION COUNCIL Sylvia Weenie –TLC COORDINATOR Sarah Thompson – COMPUTER TECH Bernadine Graham –TLC COORDINATOR First Nations Language Keepers Conference 2018

Teaching Sacred Language Curriculum Piloting the curriculum with 11 Treaty Six Education Council (TSEC) Schools. TSEC - part of the Language Team Created for all Indigenous Languages in Saskatchewan Plains Cree Swampy Cree Woodland Cree Saulteaux Nakoda Dakota Lakota Dene

prior to involvement with curriculum development TSEC prior to involvement with curriculum development -Concern with results from data (decline in language growth) -Research methods for success -TPR (Total Physical Response) -ASLA (Accelerated Second Language Acquisition) -Training Curriculum -combined strategies TPR and ASLA

Curriculum also creates many different opportunities for implementing other strategies for language learning, e.g. - Learning Centres - Elder’s Mentorship Programs - Use of Technology - Assessment Methods, etc

FOCUS ON THE PRE AND POST ONLINE ASSESSMENTS This method: - assists the teachers to identify areas of attention when delivering language instruction. - ensures the success in our efforts for language revitalization in our TSEC schools. - identifies the language growth from the assessment data. - supports and reinforces the teachers’ confidence when seeing the results.

- Helps the students’ self-confidence - Measures the success on a monthly basis through the use of the pre and post assessment tool - Helps the students’ self-confidence - Makes the students eager to engage in language learning when they receive immediate results

This assessment tool was developed by the Treaty Six Education Council team to align with the Saskatchewan Indigenous Cultural College (SICC), Teaching Sacred Language Curriculum.

The Assessment Page Students’ information entry -Name -Grade -Pre or post assessment

Page 1 to 20 assessment pages -5 questions - monthly theme words -5 questions - verbs / action word (TPR) -10 phrases/sentences (ASLA) No audio – to respect all communities Upon completion - Submit

The Response Page Once submitted the responses go directly to the TEACHER’S response sheet with: - the student name - mark -and their responses

SAMPLE -Pre-test At a glance the teacher knows immediately areas of difficulty

All responses are then entered into Open Admin SAMPLE – Post-test All responses are then entered into Open Admin

Sarah Thompson - Demonstration Open Admin entries provides us with: -student’s average -class average -school average This information becomes very important in assisting the teachers: - for planning - meeting smart goals in their LIP (Learning Improvement Plans) for TLC Sarah Thompson - Demonstration

TREATY SIX EDUCATION COUNCIL North Battleford, Saskatchewan sylvia.weenie@tsec.ca sarah.thompson@tsec.ca bernadine.graham@tsec.ca