Potawatomi News, Updates, and Language!
The following links will bring you to recent articles posted in
our language blog. This blog gives us a good way to present Potawatomi language and news updates. It also allows you to have a voice and comment on our articles!
Project Ewikkendaswat Ekenomagewat
(They Will Learn To Teach)
Language Teacher Training
The Hannahville Indian Community has recently learned that we are the recipient of another three-year federal language grant award from the ACF Administration for Native Americans (ANA). Out of more than 350 applicants this year, only 10 or 11 language projects were funded. We are fortunate that this new grant follows on the heels of our three-year ANA Digital Connections language grant. Now we can move ahead with the new grant to fill a gap in school and community language programs by providing much needed training for Potawatomi language instructors.
The purpose of the new grant is to establish Project Ewikkendaswat Ekenomagewat, a language teacher training initiative. This multi-level language teacher training project will provide current and prospective Potawatomi instructors with essential language teaching skills and hands-on classroom experiences to help create productive and engaging language learning environments in our K-12 tribal school. Companion language content sessions in grammar comprehension and language immersion sessions is intended to help increase conversational fluency and promote authentic classroom lessons. While the primary objective is to provide essential teacher training for language instructors, the project’s overall purpose is to assure successful transmission of the Potawatomi language to students in our tribal school and ultimately throughout the entire community.
Objectives for the three-year Project Ewikkendaswat Ekenomagewat include:
- Years 1, 2 and 3 - A multi-level teacher training project will be launched with learning content areas focused upon (a) understanding essential educational psychology and effective classroom strategies, (b) grammar comprehension, (c) language immersion learning and experience during the nine-month school year, and (d) three weeks of language immersion training sessions during each summer throughout the grant period.
- Years 2 and 3 - Inter-generational events will be organized with culture-based language immersion activities to increase active participation of community members of all ages in productive language learning experiences, and to provide teacher training participants a practical hands-on forum in which to practice, showcase and celebrate emergent language teaching skills.
Community Members who would like to Learn the Language as well as to Learn How to Teach the Language are encouraged to participate in this three-year teacher training project. Trained Potawatomi Language Instructors are urgently needed for teaching in our Tribal School in the coming years. Now is the perfect time for you to plan for a new career! Certificates of Successful Completion will be awarded at the end of the three-year period. Individuals who work within the community may be able to use education hours to attend the full-day class sessions twice a month during the school year.
Contact us today to register for the Language Teacher Training Project! Call 723-2270 for more information or stop into the Potawatomi Heritage Center. Registrations will be accepted during the months of November and December 2009.
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Storybook is an interesting and fun online resource that contains fully translated Potawatomi stories with rich understandable language concepts for Potawatomi students.
This language resource includes video lectures, a word-clickable feature that allows users to click on any word to find out what that word means, and vocabulary games to practice words.
Check it out now!...
Welcome to the Future
This may not be exactly what our Elders had in mind when they said that it is our responsibility to orally hand down to the next generation the things that we learn so that those coming behind us would have what we have and more.
We were always reminded to think ahead for seven generations remembering that what we do and how we live will serve as a foundation for those yet to come. As we pick up those things that were left for us and use them to the best of our ability, it is our intent through the electronic world to preserve and pass it on to all future generations. More...
— Earl Meshigaud, Hannahville
