Potawatomi Language Blog

(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.

Week two of the Potawatomi Summer Language Immersion Camp is scheduled to kick off on Monday, July 12th – and will wrap up activities on Friday, July 16th. The location for immersion throughout the second week will be at the Hannahville Potawatomi Heritage Center. Lunch and dinner will be served at the cooking pavillion nearby in the Woodland Park Gathering Grounds. Free camping is also available at the Gathering Grounds, including electricity, showers and facilities. Motel rooms are available through a block of reserved rooms (LIST) at the Evergreen Inn in Bark River, MI. Please call the motel to confirm your room as soon as possible.

We look forward to seeing the many participants from week one, along with the new faces who will be joining us during this second week of language immersion. Click HERE to download the schedule for Week Two.

Learn it. Speak it. Teach it.

This is the focus of Project Ewikkendaswat Ekenomagewat (They Will Learn to Teach), a three-year language revitalization project funded by the Administration for Native Americans (ANA) and the Hannahville Indian Community. The project is designed to provide language instructor skills training, grammar instruction, and immersive language experiences to increase language proficiency for training participants. These are individuals who have accepted the responsibility to actively teach the Potawatomi language. Training participants will also be joined this summer by members from other Potawatomi bands – and together their goal is to assure that the Potawatomi language will live long into the future.

During the summer months of each project year, three one-week summer language immersion camps are planned for training participants and others to absorb, learn and speak the language with fluent speakers/elders. Mornings will be spent with the speakers, while afternoons will be filled with activities to practice and speak language learned during the morning sessions. Many of the afternoon activities will be facilitated by language specialists. Hannahville community members are encouraged to attend the week-long language immersion sessions.

The summer immersion camps will be held at the Hannahville Gathering Grounds. If weather is inclement, sessions will be transferred to the Potawatomi Heritage Center. Free camping is available at the Gathering Grounds, with electricity and showers on site. Hotels are available nearby. Please contact us for additional information by calling 906-723-2272. Click here to download the schedule for the first week of summer immersion.

Playing Shishibe (Bingo) is a fun way to learn new Potawatomi language vocabulary. It’s also a great time to socialize with other community members and to share a meal. Join us on May 8, 2010 at the Community Center.

Game time begins at 1:00 PM – but the doors will open at 11:00 AM so you have plenty of time to fill out your vocabulary game cards. Breakfast will be served beginning at 11:30 AM - and is provided for all shishibe players.

A printed list of Potawatomi language words is available at the HIC Administration reception desk, the Potawatomi Heritage Center, or click here to print a copy right now. You may also listen to the audio pronunciation of every word online by clicking here. Take time to practice before the games. See you there!

ANA: Project Ewikkendaswat Ekenomagewat
SAVE THE DATES: SUMMER IMMERSION CAMPS

The Language Instructor Skills Training 2010 Summer Immersion Sessions
will be held at the Hannahville Gathering Grounds on the following dates:

JUNE 14 to 18
JULY 12 to 16
AUGUST 16 to 20

More information on the Summer Immersion Sessions will be posted soon.

Playing “Go Fish” is a fun way to practice numbers with your friends and family. Here is how…

You need a deck of cards and the following vocabulary…

ngot – this is an ace, it’s worth 1 point
nish – 2
nswe – 3
nyew – 4
nyanen – 5
ngotwatso – 6
noek – 7
shwatso – 8
shak – 9
mdatso – 10
jack – say jack (or gigabe) – it’s worth 10 points
queen – say queen ( or kwe) – it’s worth 10 points
king – say king (or nene) – it’s worth 10 points

play like normal but instead of saying “do you have a 2″ for example, you would say…

Nish ne gde-ton? – do you have a 2?

they can say “ehe” for yes or “ttho” for no. Also, say…

Gwedemotthgen! – Go fish!

Gwedemotthge – he/she is fishing
By adding the “n” to the end, we turned the verb into a command.

Deal out 7 or 8 cards. Spread the remaining cards in the center of the table. Lay down pairs whenever you get them. Go around the table asking for cards from one person. If someone tells you “Gwedemotthgen!” you must draw a card. The game ends when someone has no cards left. Everyone adds up the cards that they laid down and subtracts the points of the cards left in their hand.

Other vocab -

nin ashtek – my turn
gin ashtek – your turn
win ashtek – his/her turn

ttho – no
ttho wi – no (stronger)
ttho wi shena! – no (really strong)

If you want to be a smarty pants and you know someone has a particular card you can say…

mishen i nish! – Give me the 2!

Have fun!

On January 25th, 2010, we will again be offering Potawatomi courses for adult students. Community and Tribal members are strongly encouraged to join us. There is no fee, but the classes can be intensive, so be prepared to work and study!

Potawatomi Basics Part 1
This is an 18 week course that covers the basics of Potawatomi grammar. This is our beginner course that covers one topic per week on subjects such as nouns, pronouns, verbs and other grammitically structured themes. The course features stories and discussions and uses writing assignments and quizzes to assess students.

Potawatomi Basics Part 2
This course is the second part of our Potawatomi Basics courses. We strongly recommend that you attend the first course before taking this one. This course covers one topic per week on subjects such as verb conjugation, possession, and the infamous “conjunct”.

If you would like to participate in either course, please sign up with a user account on our online course system and then send an email to Eric Janofski, ejanofski@potawatomilanguage.org, to let me know of your interest.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Language Instructor Skills Training

 
Twelve participants have registered for the new ANA Potawatomi Language Instructor Skills Training at the Heritage Center. The group met for Orientation on January 8th. There is still time, however, for community members to register for this three-year instructor training. If you would like to Learn the Language as well as to Learn How to Teach the Language, please stop in to register. Trained Potawatomi Language Instructors are urgently needed for teaching in our Tribal School and to facilitate adult language learning groups in the coming years. Now is the perfect time for you to plan for a new career! This training is funded through a grant from the Administration for Native Americans. Call 723-2270 for information.

Our site now features an online Potawatomi Dictionary with over 7000 Potawatomi words and phrases. To access the dictionary, click on the “Dictionary” button in the main navigation area near the top of our site.

Recently we were given two spreadsheets of words by fluent speaker  Jim Thunder Sr. of Forest County and linguist Laura Buszard-Welcher. We were able to collate these words into one database that will be used to store these and more words to come.

Our dictionary also features conjugated verbs. You can access these words by selected “Conjugated Verbs” at the top of the dictionary. This section is a step forward in our attempt to demystify conjugated verbs. This section is still a work in progress and there may be errors, but we are sure you will find value from having these lists as you try to write and speak sentences.

There is still a lot of work left to do with the dictionary. We hope to go through the words and remove duplicates, upload audio clips, and add other features as well.

Hopefully these new features will serve as a powerful tool for learning the language.

Migwetth.

Nah Tah Wahsh Hannahville Indian School begins another year of school and the Language, Culture and History Departments is gearing up for another productive year.

The Potawatomi Basics Part 1 course began on Sept. 8th and we have a good mixture of adult students from across the nation.

We hope to be adding new resources to the website soon as well as filling out the resources that currently exist with much more content. This year is already starting off in a postive and productive direction.

Migwetth to all who are endeavering to learn their language.

Bama pi