“This paper describes a U. S. Department of Education Title VII funded language preservation program at Leupp Public School in the Navajo Nation. Funded in 1997 for five years, this school-wide project is designed to help students become proficient speakers, readers, and writers of Navajo while enhancing their English language skills and preparing them to meet state academic standards. The program com-bines Navajo immersion with ESL inclusion, literacy initiatives, sheltered English/Navajo, parental involvement, and take-home technology.
“In formulations of school improvement and change, teachers all too frequently are positioned as the passive recipients of top‑down curricular mandates. This is especially problematic in indigenous settings when school administrators are imported from outside the community. Here we describe one school change effort in which those relations are being reversed, as Navajo bilingual teachers take charge of pedagogical transformation.
“This article reviews the literature to determine the importance of immersion in language restoration (or preservation). The author argues that a new paradigm is needed to halt the decline in the number of Native Americans speaking their aboriginal tongue. The primary focus centers on displacing misperceptions related to language immersion that may inhibit an Indian community from implementing such a program.
“Jim Cummins and Merril Swain offer a coherent synthesis of recent theoretical and empirical work relating to the educational development of bilingual children from both majority and minority language backgrounds.”
“Aimed at "empowering" teachers and students in a culturally diverse society, this book suggests that schools must respect student's language and culture, encourage community participation, promote critical literacy, and institute forms of assessment in order to reverse patterns of under-achievement in pupils from varying cultures. The book shows that students who have been failed by schools predominantly come from communities whose languages, cultures and identities have been distorted and devalued in the wider society, and schools have reinforced this pattern of disempowerment.”
“This paper discusses the role of research and theory regarding language and literacy acquisition in planning for bilingual programmes involving lesser used languages. Three psycho‐educational principles are outlined: the additive bilingual enrichment principle, the interdependence principle and the sufficient communicative interaction principle. The role of these principles in the educational language planning process is discussed in the context of a procedural framework for problem‐solving in educational contexts.”
“The purpose of this literature review is to document transitions of Aboriginal persons to post-secondary education, along with the challenges they face and supports they need.”
“This article provides a research synthesis of studies that have examined language-minority students' academic achievement over a period of four or more years, for a comparison with the longitudinal findings on student academic achievement reported in the Ramirez study. One program variable is the focus of this synthesis--the use of a minority language for instructional purposes.
“The objectives of the summit were as follows: 1. to raise the public profile of First Nations, Métis, and Inuit education and to promote awareness of the need to eliminate the gaps in education outcomes between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal learners at the elementary-secondary and postsecondary levels; 2. to engage and build support for partnerships, based on dialogue and engagement strategies, with national and regional Aboriginal organizations; 3. to identify potential areas for action to meet the goals of Learn Canada 2020; 4.
