How might we increase the number of opportunities that students may see, hear, and use their Indigenous Heritage Language in their classrooms and school environments?
Based on research that students hearing and using language daily will help to increase student’s perception and vitality of their language. I started to look at ways to bring IHL into core-classrooms in which the environment includes speakers in various proficiencies of their IHL, teachers who may not be Indigenous, and the language of instruction is English.
Iterations considered included: creating spaces on worksheets, visual materials, student-led teaching experiences for teachers to learn basic IHL for use in classrooms.
INDIGEXPRESS uses the existing infrastructure of a “Daily Bulletin” broadcasted via YouTube that is played in classrooms daily. The MVP of the project was created using a popular and humorous SuperBowl ad (which are well researched for their impact and repeatability) and dubbed with an IHL.
The short-ad was “provocative” in the sense it would draw out questions about what it was about, with speakers of the language being able to talk about the ad with non-speakers.
The theory of action is that if students hear their or another IHL with a catchphrase, it will help to increase the use of that catchphrase, thereby helping to foster the vitality of IHL by it’s observable use in classrooms and in school environment.
