YNLC Activities Report, January 2003 1

The Yukon Native Language Centre had an intensely busy summer and fall in 2002, meeting the demand for language training in the Yukon and in Alaska. The work proceeded on many different fronts. Eight teacher training and literacy sessions were held at the Centre. The revised curriculum guide is nearing com-pletion. The first half of the interactive on-line Gwich’in lan-guage lessons was completed and made available world-wide through the web site. Elders and youth worked together on projects at the Centre and in the communities. New programs were initiated by instructors in their communities.

At the request of the Carcross-Tagish First Nation, YNLC assisted with the Tagish translation of the Elders’ Statement, which is part of the land claims and self government agreement. Ms. Lucy Wren, one of the last remaining speakers of Tagish, came to the Centre for two days of intensive translation work with YNLC Urban School Programs Coordinator Margaret Workman, and Linguist and Centre Director John Ritter. The full Tagish text of the Elders’ Statement was also recorded in the YNLC studio in CD quality sound for future generations.

ACTIVITIES REPORT — JANUARY 2003COVERING THE PERIOD JUNE – DECEMBER 2002

Participants in the Tukudh (Gwich’in) literacy session, October 2002

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Another highlight of the fall was the creation of two new computer story books in the Upper Tanana language by Ms. Jenny Sanford and Mr. Patrick Johnny. And Centre linguists are working on ways to improve the use of the special alphabets for Yukon languages on the computer and web site.

Native Language Teacher TrainingA Certificate Training Session was held at the Yukon Native Language Centre from

September 23 to 27, 2002. The session was attended by seventeen participants rep-resenting seven languages: Gwich’in, Hän, Northern Tutchone, Southern Tutchone, Kaska, Tlingit and Beaver. Of special interest was the attendance of Ms. Gladys Ladue and Mr. James Wolf, members of the Prophet River First Nation in Fort Nelson, B.C.

Ms. Marlene Smith gave a lesson in sounds in the Tlingit language, modeled on methods she uses in her school program in Carcross. Marlene’s six year old daughter Julie assisted her mother with a demonstration. Ms. Mary Jane Kunnizzi led another lesson in Gwich’in sounds, assisted by Mr. Richard Gage. Mrs. Gertie Tom instructed the class in hearing sounds in the Big Salmon dialect of Northern Tutchone. Mr. Percy Henry instructed the class in the Tr’ondëk dialect of the Hän Language, and Mrs. Phoebe Lewis worked with the class in the Kaska language.

The participants gave demonstration lessons, and received instruction in method-ology and professionalism.

By attending the session, participants fulfilled course requirements in the three year Certificate program accredited by Yukon College. The training sessions are just

YNLC staff members Jo-Anne Johnson, Mary Jane Kunnizzi, Margaret Workman, and newest addition, Publications Officer Sheila Maissan.

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one aspect of the program. Participants must also complete three years of classroom experience in order to receive their certificate. Graduates of the Certificate program can go on to take a two-year Diploma program, in which they refine their methodol-ogy and their linguistic skills, develop original teaching materials and document oral history and traditional narratives.

Community Instructor SessionsNineteen participants representing five languages attended a Community Instruc-

tor Training Session from October 16 to 18. Two special visitors came from BC: Mr. Willie Campbell, a Tlingit speaker from Atlin, and Ms. Loretta Sort, a Tahltan speaker from Dease Lake.

Community language instructors deliver language instruction programs to chil-dren in daycare, to preschoolers, elementary school students and young adults. As well, they instruct adults in many settings, including First Nations offices. In Haines Junction, community instructors Lena Smith-Tutin and Vera Williams give half an hour of language instruction every morning before work to First Nations office employees. Often, community instructors go on to enroll in the Certificate program.

During the October session, which focussed on methodology and language struc-ture, participants learned to identify the sounds of their languages, many of them not found in English. They played a number of different games suitable for teaching stu-dents phrases and complete sentences, on the themes of berries and fish. Ms. Linda Harvey and Ms. Bertha Moose gave a demonstration lesson in team teaching, and visitor Ms. Natcha Choosri taught fellow participants a few phrases in her native language, Thai.

YNLC and the Council for Yukon First Nations work together with YTG’s Aborigi-

Participants in the first September certificate session: Richard Gage, Earl Darbyshire, Deacon Percy Henry, Jame Wolf, and Stephen Reid.

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nal Language Services to provide training for community instructors, who in turn provide training for members of their communities. These partnerships reflect the One House of Language philosophy which guides all of YNLC’s work.

Literacy Training SessionsFrom October 1 to 3, YNLC sponsored a literacy training session entitled Tukudh

(Gwich’in) Language and Liturgy, continuing a series of workshops initiated several years ago by the Anglican-Episcopal Institute of Northern Ministries. There were 22 participants from the Yukon and the Northwest Territories. The session focussed on the Ten Commandments written in the traditional Gwich’in orthography developed by Archdeacon Robert McDonald in the late 19th century. Participants read and stud-ied the texts, assisted each other in understanding the often archaic Gwich’in words in the originals, then wrote them in the modern orthography. Among the participants were Reverend Doctor Ellen Bruce of Old Crow, Rev. Deacon Percy Henry of Dawson, Ms. Joanne Snowshoe of Ft. McPherson, and Mrs. Ruth Carroll of Inuvik.

From November 18 to 23, a combined Gwich’in/Tanacross literacy session was held at YNLC, with 13 participants from the Yukon, NWT and Alaska. The Gwich’in shared their experiences of developing a long-range community language plan, and the Tanacross participants translated story materials and listening exercises. Com-

Patrick Johnny, Jenny Sanford, and Cecil Gail Sanford at the Upper Tanana Literacy Session, November 25 to 27, 2002.

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parisons of specific phrases in both languages led to a deeper appreciation of the similiarities in the two languages in spite of the different surface forms and the geo-graphical distances between them.

A literacy session in Upper Tanana was held from November 25 to 27, with Ms. Jenny Sanford, who lives in Mentasta, Alaska, and her brother Mr. Patrick Johnny, from Beaver Creek. Ms. Cecil Gail Sanford, also from Mentasta, participated as well. Ms. Sanford and Mr. Johnny created two stories in Upper Tanana, which are now available as computer book versions with the authors’ voices.

On November 29, an Elders’ literacy session in Southern Tutchone was held, attended by five elders from Haines Junction. Ms. Monica Van Bibber who works at the Yukon College campus in Haines Junction arranged for the elders to work with YNLC staff in writing the names of months and seasons for a calendar to be used in language programs. Mr. Richard Gage and Mr. Stephen Reid, two young men who are pursuing the study of their language on their own initiative, also attended this session. Stephen is learning Southern Tutchone while Richard is learning Northern Tutchone.

A literacy session in the Hän language took place at the Centre from December 3 to 5. It was attended by eleven participants from Dawson City. This session focussed on alphabet review, listening exercises, and the translation of Christmas carols from English and Tukudh into Hän.

Jenny Sanford and Patrick Johnny preparing to record the Upper Tanana versions of the computer books At Home and Drying Fish.

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Carcross-Tagish First Nation Elders’ Statement

A special Tagish language transla-tion session was held on December 12 and 16. CTFN Elder Lucy Wren, who also speaks Tlingit, English and South-ern Tutchone, provided her expertise in the Tagish language. The process of recording the translation involved Ms. Margaret Workman reading her South-ern Tutchone version to Ms. Wren, who immediately spoke a Tagish version into the microphone. The similarity of the two Athapaskan languages, and Ms. Wren’s knowledge of Tutchone, make this translation work possible.

School VisitsIn September, Urban Programs

Coordinator Margaret Workman vis-ited teacher Linda Harvey’s class at Hidden Valley School. Ms. Harvey’s lesson focussed on basic conversation using berries as the theme. This is her second year at Hidden Valley. She grad-uated from the Certificate program last June.

At Elijah Smith Elementary School, also in September, Ms. Workman helped teacher Vera Brown to develop listening exercises for older students, involving more complicated sentence structures.

In October, Ms. Workman visited Ms. Bertha Moose in her classroom at Takhini Elementary School, and found that the students there were working very well and exhibited great potential. From Takhini Elementary, students move on to Porter Creek Secondary School, where Ms. Lorraine Allen and Ms. Dorothy Bellerose are the Southern Tutchone language teachers. Ms. Allen and Ms. Bellerose also teach South-ern Tutchone at F.H. Collins Secondary School. Ms. Workman visited the program at the Porter Creek Junior High School in November. Some of the discussion sur-rounded the requirements needed for Ms. Bellerose to complete her Native Language Instructor Diploma in 2004.

From October 7 to 9, Rural Programs Coordinator Jo-Anne Johnson visited new teacher Phoebe Lewis at Johnson Elementary School in Watson Lake. Ms. Lewis has been teaching Kaska in grades four to seven since March of 2002. Ms. Johnson worked with Ms. Lewis on developing methodology. They squeezed as much work as possible into the two-day session.

Carcross-Tagish First Nation elder Lucy Wren in the YNLC recording studio, December 16, 2002, during a break while recording the Elders’ Statement.

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On October 23, Urban Programs Coordinator Margaret Workman and Ms. Linda Harvey visited Haines Junction to observe Ms. Lena Smith-Tutin and Ms. Vera Wil-liams giving language lessons to staff at the Champagne/Aishihik First Nations Office. Teaching sessions take place for half an hour every morning at 8:30, the start of the work day. Ms. Workman found that the program was working very well, with regular and enthusiastic participation of the First Nations Office employees.

New Staff Member HiredThe Yukon Native Language Centre is pleased to welcome publications officer

Sheila Maissan to the team. Ms. Maissan is in charge of production of all the Centre’s print publications, ranging from teaching materials to reports on training sessions. She oversees the entire process, and does everything from editing to proof reading to working with printers and the National Library of Canada.

New MaterialsA major revision of the K-12 Curriculum Guide is nearly finished. Ms. Jo-Anne

Johnson, linguist Doug Hitch, and Ms. Anne Cullen (recently retired), have worked on this project since March of 2002. This second edition of the Guide will feature updated methodology and techniques, as well as a substantial amount of new materi-als and activities.

Mr. Doug Hitch has been researching better ways of working with Native Lan-guage letters on computers. He wants to make it possible for anybody, anywhere to work with Yukon Native Languages on their own computer, and to be able to see cor-rectly spelled text on the web in any of the languages. This will make a large improve-ment in the Centre’s ability to provide native language materials on the web.

The Gwich’in on-line language lessons project was about half complete in the fall of 2002. People who log on to the Yukon Native Language Centre’s web site (www.yukoncollege.yk.ca/ynlc) to listen to the Gwich’in language instruction will hear excellent reproduction of sounds in that language, spoken by YNLC’s own Ms. Mary Jane Kunnizzi. Work has begun on a Southern Tutchone version of the on-line lessons.

Two new computer books were added to the Centre’s repertoire this fall, versions of At Home and Drying Fish by Ms. Jenny Sanford and Mr. Patrick Johnny, both speakers of Upper Tanana.

Four booklets of curriculum and reference materials compiled in the autumn lit-eracy sessions were printed and distributed: Tukudh (Gwich’in), October 1-3; Tan-across and Gwich’in, November 18-22; Upper Tanana, November 25-28; and Hän, December 3-5. All titles are available to the public at nominal charge.

Requests for YNLC Information, Translations, and TrainingThe Centre received many requests for assistance during the summer and fall

of 2002. Particularly noteworthy are translation requests by Yukon MP Larry Bag-nell (for a speech he gave at the Gwich’in Gathering in Old Crow on July 8), by the Yukon Department of Education (for help in translating the new Mayo School dedica-tion plaque unveiled on September 12), and by CHON Radio (for territorial election

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announcements in native languages). We also had the pleasure of helping a number of students who participated in the Yukon College Japanese Exchange Program in their first exploration of the Yukon Native cultures and languages. Yukon College stu-dents, community members, and visitors to the Yukon access the Centre’s resources, especially the YNLC reference library, on a regular basis. There is much interest in Yukon aboriginal languages, and YNLC personnel provide assistance and specific information as requested.

Planning for Spring 2003The Yukon Native Language Centre and individual teachers are working to plan

presentations and training sessions for 2003. These include:

January: • Southern Tutchone Traditional Stories, for the Women’s Studies Pro-gram at Yukon College,

• Tutchone and Tlingit Genealogical Research, for the Yukon Native Teacher Education Program at Yukon College,

February: • Orientation to Yukon Aboriginal Languages (2 sessions), for students in Developmental Studies at Yukon College,

• Athabaskan Literacy Session at the University of Alaska Fairbanks in collaboration with the Alaska Native Language Center,

• Northern Tutchone Literacy Session for Na-Cho Nyak Dun First Nation,

• Northern Tutchone Literacy and Dictionary Session for the Selkirk First Nation,

March: • Tlingit Literacy Session, • Hän Place-names Session for the Tr’öndëk Hwech’in First Nation, • Northern Tutchone Literacy Session for the White River First

Nation, • Certificate Training Session for Native Language Instructors.

Yukon Teachers Association ConferenceThe YTA Conference will be held in Whitehorse on May 1 and 2, and will include

workshops and sessions of special interest to native language teachers. Ms. Marga-ret Workman will give a session on teaching methods for high school students, and Ms. Linda Harvey will give one on teaching methods for elementary school students. There will also be sharing sessions, in which teachers can exchange success stories and problem-solve together. The conference is in the planning stage now, so native language teachers throughout the territory are encouraged to come forward with ideas for sessions and workshops.

How To Reach UsIf you would like more information on the Centre’s programs or publications,

please write us at Yukon Native Language Centre, Yukon College, Box 2799, White-horse, Yukon, Y1A 5K4. We can also be reached by telephone at (867) 668-8820, toll free 1-877-414-9652, fax (867)668-8825, and e-mail at ynlc@yukoncollege.yk.ca.