1,800 Hours to create Intermediate Speakers

The Syilx  Language House builds upon years of grassroots revitalization work and creates a unique collaboration between Syilx Nation governments, partner organizations, and community members to support a language house for young adult learners. The activities in the language house are two-fold, addressing the two greatest language needs in our Nation: training new speakers; and documenting and archiving our remaining speakers.

Immersion Methods

Nsyilxcn Curriculum is taught to an adult class, two days a week for FOUR years. The Nsyilxcn Curriculum is developed by Paul Creek (also known as the Salish School of Spokane) and has a proven track record of creating speakers.

The Bands recruited highly motivated young adult learners, supported by Bands and workplaces.

Our partner organization, the Salish School of Spokane, is the inspiration for our efforts. They currently have twenty advanced Nsyilxcn learners and teachers and operate a full-time immersion school to 75 children, a hub of adult fluency, and a community of new speakers and families. 

Research

Sʔímlaʔxʷ has generated several peer reviewed research articles throughout this work. Her PhD thesis is linked here. 

Filmed assessments were posted during the Chopaka Language House project, 2011, and the Tlingit revitalization project (video #1, video #2).

Elder Involvement

Elder recordings are listened to each day and Elders visit and provide immersion each month. 

As a component of in-class learning and homework, students learn to edit transcriptions. 

Resource Development

We generate advanced literature and documentation with Elder speakers. Documentation meets a critical need to record our remaining Elders who are precious resources. 

Five hours (50 stories) of stories are recorded, transcribed and shared each year. Books and CDs are shared with Bands, students, libraries, schools, on this website, and the Sncәwips Museum site. 

Program delivery
We deliver a four year, 1,800 hour, program using proven curriculum, cutting edge methods and intensive immersion. Our first cohort of 15 adults started in September 2015 and will graduate in June 2019. Students are supported by Bands and employers to attend classes two days a week for FOUR years. We deliver the Nsyilxcn Curriculum developed by the Salish School of Spokane (Paul Creek), and learn by recording and transcribing Elders. The learning is transformational. Beginners are transforming into intermediate speakers and a new generation of teachers. 

We record Elders, publish advanced language materials, raise awareness, and lobby for larger cohorts of successful programs across our Syilx Nation.  ​​

Assessments

​Speaking assessments are filmed each year and will be shared on YouTube. After 200 hours students transformed from low-beginner to mid-beginner speech; after 1,000 hours they achieved high-beginner/low-intermediate. ​

Envisioning a Future of Speakers

Imagine a meeting in one of our member communities four years from now —there is an ongoing land title discussion in the court system. Someone is needed who can speak to the land-based messages embedded in our captíkʷł story system in order to prove rights and title within unceded Syilx territory. A young, well-dressed, articulate woman steps up, a recent graduate of the Syilx Language House. She is 25 years old and completed her Bachelor’s degree in Indigenous governance and law while studying in the language house.
​She says, “I am able to do this.”

During her time in the Language House she learned to speak Nsyilxcn at a mid-intermediate level, record and transcribe Elders, archive materials, become a language advocate and spokesperson, intimately connected with Syilx story systems and deeply embedded language-based truths.

kʷu  kłsqiʔs. We have a dream.

​It is our dream that this story will be brought to life with the language tools being taught to our students today.