Investigating the Concept of Success in the Bachelor of Education in Indigenous Language Revitalization Program in the W̱ SÁNEĆ Community and at the University of Victoria
By
Hossein Ghanbari
B.A. Payam-e-Noor University, Shahr-e-Kord, 2006
M.A. Azad University, Najaf Abad, 2011
A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction
©Hossein Ghanbari, 2021
University of Victoria
All rights reserved. This dissertation may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by photocopy or other means, without the permission of the author. Investigating the Concept of Success in the Bachelor of Education in Indigenous Language Revitalization Program in the W̱ SÁNEĆ Community and at the University of Victoria
By
Hossein Ghanbari
B.A. Payam-e-Noor University, Shahr-e-Kord, 2006
M.A. Azad University, Najaf Abad, 2011
Supervisory Committee
Dr. Theodore Riecken, Supervisor, Department of Curriculum and Instruction
Dr. Tim Anderson, Committee member, Department of Curriculum and Instruction
Dr. Carmen Rodriguez de France, Committee member, Department of Indigenous Education
ii Abstract
Indigenous languages account for many of the languages worldwide and, importantly, they help to maintain Indigenous knowledge and epistemologies. However, many of these languages will not be handed down to future generations. Given this, language revitalization programs are designed to preserve and revitalize endangered languages as well as equip language revitalizers with the capabilities to teach those languages and explore methods to marry non-Indigenous and
Indigenous knowledges. Currently, language revitalization programs are investigated for their success in providing for the linguistic and pedagogical needs of the people involved in the programs. In Canada, approaches to maintain and preserve Indigenous languages are developed via Indigenous language revitalization programs through consultation with Indigenous knowledge keepers about their languages and pedagogies. The Bachelor of Education in
Indigenous Language Revitalization (BEDILR) program is offered at the University of Victoria and the W̱ SÁNEĆ community in British Columbia, where it focuses on the W̱ SÁNEĆ epistemology and revitalizes the SENĆOŦEN language. This doctoral research examined the concept of success in the BEDILR program for the W̱ SÁNEĆ people. In doing so, the researcher conducted participatory action research (PAR) as well as semi-structured interviews to collect data from five academic and community participants in the W̱ SÁNEĆ community and the
University of Victoria. Next, the researcher followed Owen’s (1984) thematic network to analyze the data for codes and themes. Findings suggest there are four themes of Indigenous person, approach of the BEDILR program, Indigenous pedagogy, and assessment and seven sub-themes of method, approach dynamics, Indigenous pedagogy of language of instruction, content of the program, and objectives of the program, assessor from inside community and external assessor for the W̱ SÁNEĆ community participants. Also, there were four themes of Indigenous person,
iii approach, pedagogy, and assessment and six sub-themes of method, approach dynamics, content of the program, objectives of the program, assessor, and what to assess for the academic participant. Specifically, participants in this study believed the BEDILR is a successful language revitalization program because it incorporates Indigenous pedagogy and follows an approach and assessment method based on the W̱ SÁNEĆ worldviews, knowledge, epistemology, and the
SENĆOŦEN language.
Keywords: Languages loss, Indigenous language revitalization, Success, W̱ SÁNEĆ,
SENĆOŦEN, Indigenous pedagogy, Indigenous knowledge,
iv Table of Contents
Abstract……………………………………………………...……………..……………....….iii
Table of Contents……………………………………………………………………………... v List of Tables…………………….…………………………………………..……………...... x
List of Figures………………………………...………………...……………..……..…..…....xi
Acknowledgement……………………...………………..……………..……..…….…...…...xii
Dedication……………………………………...…………….………………..…….………xiii
Chapter One…………………………………...…..……...……………………..…………….1
1.1.The Rationale of the Study………….……………………………….………..…………….1
1.2. Indigenous Peoples in Canada and the US: Past, Present, and Future………..………….…3
1.3. Challenges Ahead……………………………...………………………………..….….…...6
1.4. My Positionality ………………………………...……………………...……….………....7
1.5. Focus of the Study…………………………………………..…………..…….…...…...…11
1.6. Indigenous Peoples in British Columbia………...…………………………………...……11
1.7. University of Victoria: Location and History ………………………………………..…...12
1.8. History of the W̱ SÁNEĆ People………………………………………………...………..13 1.9. History of The W̱ SÁNEĆ School Board ………………………………………………...15 1.10. Language Revitalization Practices in the W̱ SÁNEĆ Community…..………….………..16
1.10.1. Pre-School Language Nest (K–4 Immersion Program)………………………….….…16
1.10.2. ȽÁU,WELṈEW̱ (Tribal School)……………………………….…………………..….16 1.10.3. W̱ SÁNEĆ Language Department (SȾÁSEN TŦE SENĆOŦEN)………….……….….17 1.11. Research Questions………………………………………………………..……………..18
Chapter Two: Literature Review………………………………………………………...... 21
2.1. Language Loss and Language Shift…………………………………….....………..……..21
v 2.1.1. Language Loss………..………………………………………………...………..…..….21 2.1.2. Language Shift…………………………………………………….…………….…...….22 2.1.3. Indigenous Language Loss in the US and Canada……………………………………….23 2.2. Prediction About the Survival of Indigenous Languages…………………..…….…….….25 2.3. Advent of Language Revitalization……………………………...... …………….………..26 2.4. Why Does Language Maintenance Matter?...... 27 2.5. Approaches to Language Revitalization……………………...…...……………..…..……29 2.5.1. Success in Language Revitalization …………………………………………………….30
2.6. Indigenous Knowledges………………………...…………………..……..………...……31
2.7. Assessment of Indigenous Language Learning in Language Revitalization…………..…..33 2.8. Incorporating Indigenous Knowledges in Indigenous Research…………..……….…...…36 2.9. Indigenous Language Revitalization Methods……..……………………………..….…....37 2.9.1 Immersion Programs/Language Nest Schools……………………...………………..…..38 2.9.1.1. Home-Based Immersion……………………………………….………..……….....…38 2.9.1.2. School-Based Immersion Program……………………………...………………...…..38 2.9.1.3. Successful Immersion Schools in Canada………………………..……………….…..39 2.9.2. Bilingual Schools ……………………………………………………..……………..….41
2.9.2.1. Rough Rock Demonstration School……………..………………………………….…42 2.9.2.2. Hualapai Bilingual/Bicultural Program………………………………….………..…..42 2.9.2.3. Lower Kuskokwim Bilingual Programs……………...………………………….…....42 2.9.2.4. American Indian Language Development Institute…….…………………..……..…..43 2.9.2.5. Oklahoma Native American Language Development Institute…….………..……..…44 2.9.2.6. Northwest Indian Language Institute………………………………………….………44 2.9.2.7.Canadian Indigenous Language and Literature Development Institute………………..45 2.9.2.8. Indigenous Language Revitalization Programs at the University of Victoria...... 46 2.9.2.8.1. Certificate in Indigenous Language Proficiency……..……………………...... 46 2.9.2.8.2. Certificate in Indigenous Language Revitalization…..…………………….……….46 2.9.2.8.3. Diploma in Indigenous Language Revitalization……..…………………………….47 2.9.2.8.4. Bachelor of Education in Indigenous Language Revitalization….…….………..….47 2.9.2.8.5. Graduate Programs in Indigenous Language Revitalization………….……………..48
vi 2.9.3. Documentation and Materials Development…………………………..…....….…….....49 2.10. Successful Language Revitalization……………………………...……..…….……...….51 2.10.1. Successful Language Revitalization from a Community Perspective………..……..…51 2.10.1.1. Conducting Language Revitalization in the Community………………..…..…….…51 2.10.2. Successful Language Revitalization from an Academic Perspective…….…….…...... 53 2.10.2.1. Conducting Language Revitalization Programs in Academia………………..….…..55
Chapter Three: Methodology……………………………………………………………..…59
3.1. Introduction……………………………………………….…………...………..……...... 59
3.2. Acknowledging the ‘Other’…………………………………..……………..……..…..….59 3.3. The Importance of Indigenous Research Methodologies in Language Revitalization ……………………………………………………………………..…………………………..61 3.3.1. Epistemology…………………………………………………………………………....62 3.3.1.1. The W̱ SÁNEĆ Knowledge and Epistemology ……………………………………….63 3.3.1.1.1. The W̱ SÁNEĆ Reef Net Fishery or SXOLE ……………………………………….64 3.3.1.1.2. Saanich Seasonal Cycle …………………………………………………………… 65 3.3.2. Ontology……………………………..……………………….…………………………66
3.3.3. Axiology…………………………………………………...……………………...…….68
3.4. Indigenous Methodologies……………………………………..…………………………69 3.5. My Research Methodology in this Study……..…………………………………………...72 3.6. Participatory Worldview………………………..………………………………...…….…73 3.6.1. Action Research and Participatory Action Research…………………………………....73 3.6.2. Participatory Action Research in the Social Sciences……………………………..……75 3.7. Community-Based Research in an Indigenous Context ………………….…………...... 78
3.8. Theoretical Framework of the Study……………………………………….………….….79 3.9. Grounded Theory……………………………………………………………………...... 81 3.10. Thematic Analysis………………………………………………………………...……..83 3.11. Developing Codes and Themes…………………………………………………………..85
3.12. Analytical Approach of the Research…………………………………………………….88
vii Chapter Four: Data Collection and Analysis……………………...……………………….90
4.1. Participants……………………………………………………………….……….………90 4.1.1 Recruiting Participants…………………………………………………………..………90 4.1.2. Community Participants…………………………………………………………..…….92 4.1.3. Academic Participants…………………………………………………………..………93 4.2. Letters of Consent and Ethics Approval…………………………….………………...... 94 4.3. Data Collection………………………………………………………..……………...…...94 4.4. Formulating Interview Questions ……………………………………..………..………...96
4.5. Conducting and Transcribing Interviews……………………………….……………...…96 4.6. Rationale for the Research Methodology……………………………….………………...98 4.7. Code Pool………………………………………………………………..………………..98
4.7.1. Codes Identified from the Interviews…………………………………………………..100 4.7.1.1. Defining What it Means to Be Indigenous………………………..…………….……100 4.7.1.2. Components of Indigenous Pedagogy……………………………..…………...……101 4.7.1.3. Participants’ Ideas Regarding the Differences Between Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Education……………………………………………………………………………………..102 4.7.1.4. Factors to Be Included in the BEDILR Based on Participants’ Ideas……….………104 4.7.1.5. How to Maintain Indigenous Knowledges Based on Participants’ Ideas…….…...…105 4.7.1.6. Developing Curricula in the BEDILR……………………………………….………107 4.7.1.7. How to Assess the BEDILR Based on Participants’ Ideas………………….……….109 4.7.1.8. Participants’ Concept of Success in the BEDILR……………………….….………..111 4.7.1.9. Participants’ Recommendations for the Future of the BEDILR……………………..113 4.7.2. Interview Themes………………………………………………………………..…….114 4.7.2.1. Identified Themes and Sub-Themes……………………………………………...….115 4.7.2.2. Discussion on the Themes and Sub-Themes in the Study………………….……..….116 4.7.2.3. Community Participants…………………………………………………………...... 116 4.7.2.4. Academic Participants…………………………………………………………...…..122
Chapter Five: Summary and Discussion…………………………………………………..126
viii 5.1. Summary………………………………………………………………………………...126 5.2. Answers to the Research Questions in this Study……….…………..……………….….128
5.2.1. What Are the Concepts of Success in the BEDILR in the W̱ SÁNEĆ Community and the University of Victoria?...... 128 5.2.1.1. Success in the BEDILR Program in the W̱ SÁNEĆ Community…………..………..128 5.2.1.2. Success in the BEDILR at the University of Victoria……………………………….131 5.2.2. How do these concepts of success impact the design, delivery, and assessment of the BEDILR in the W̱ SÁNEĆ community?...... 132 5.2.3. How Do These Concepts of Success Impact the Design, Delivery and Assessment of the BEDILR at the University of Victoria?...... 135 5.3. Limitations of the Study……………………………………………….…………...….…136 5.4. Recommendations for Future Studies……………………………………..……………..138 5.5. Conclusion………………………………………………………………..…………...…140
References……………………………...……………………………………………………143
APPENDIX 1: INTERVIEW QUESTIONS …………..……………………..….…….….166
APPENDIX 2: LETTER OF INFORMED CONSENT………………………………….167
ix LIST OF TABLES
TABLE 1: THEMES IDENTIFIED FOR THE W̱ SÁNEĆ COMMUNITY ...... 117 TABLE 2: THEMES IDENTIFIED FOR THE UNIVERSITY OF VICTORIA ...... 121
x List of Figures
FIGURE 1: PARTICIPANTS’ DEFINITIONS OF INDIGENOUS ...... 101 FIGURE 2:COMPONENTS OF INDIGENOUS PEDAGOGY ...... 102 FIGURE 3: INDIGENOUS EDUCATION VERSUS NON-INDIGENOUS EDUCATION ...... 104 FIGURE 4: FACTORS TO BE INCLUDED IN THE BEDILR ...... 105 FIGURE 5: MAINTAIING INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGES ...... 107 FIGURE 6: DEVELOPING CURRICULAR IN THE BEDILR ...... 109 FIGURE 7: ASSESSMENT CRITERIA IN THE BEDILR ...... 111 FIGURE 8: SUCCESS IN THE BEDILR ...... 112 FIGURE 9: RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE FUTURE RESEARCH INTO THE BEDILR ...... 113
xi Acknowledgement
I acknowledge the Lekwungen peoples on whose traditional territory the University of Victoria stands, and the Songhees, Esquimalt and W̱ SÁNEĆ peoples whose historical relationships with the land continue to this day. I am equally thankful to my supervisor, Professor Theodore
Riecken, and my committee members, Dr. Carmen Rodriguez de France and Dr. Tim Anderson.
In my personal life, I am greatly indebted to all those who have helped and provided me with the opportunity to conduct this research to gain invaluable expertise and experience. I am grateful to the W̱ SÁNEĆ people and community and the participants at the University of Victoria because without their help and generous time and insights, I would not be able to conduct this research.
I am thankful to Dr. Mahdi Rahimian for his unwavering support and guidance over the last 15 years of our friendship. I would also like to express my special thanks of gratitude to Mrs. Nancy
Ami at the Centre for Academic Communication Centre at the University of Victoria for her kind, support, and encouragement, and to Mr. Ian Alexander for his support when it was most unexpected.
xii Dedication
I would like to dedicate this dissertation to my late father who strived to let me thrive. I also dedicate this dissertation to my wife, Zeinab, and our son, Nikan, who have always encouraged me through thick and thin.
xiii Chapter One
In this chapter, I discuss the rationale and the focus of the study as well as the challenges that lay ahead in keeping Indigenous and minority languages alive. Next, I discuss my positionality in this research prior to presenting a discussion on the Indigenous peoples in British
Columbia, the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ people and their knowledge. I also present a discussion on the history of the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ School Board and the language revitalization practices in the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community. Finally, a description of the University of Victoria is given before I detail my research questions.
1.1. The Rationale of the Study
Peoples of the world are different and speak diverse languages to converse with each other. According to McIvor and McCarty (2017), Indigenous peoples comprise 4.3% of the population in Canada and 17.2% of them can converse in an Indigenous language. However,
Indigenous languages are declining at a rapid rate, which has led to widespread language loss worldwide. It is estimated that from the 450 Indigenous languages and dialects spoken in Canada at the time of first contact with settlers only 70 of them continue to be spoken by Indigenous peoples (McIvor & Anisman, 2018).
Language loss is a common phenomenon insofar as 46% of the languages in the world may not be handed down to future generations by the end of the 21st century (Child Language
Research and Revitalization Working Group, 2017). According to Grenoble and Whaley (2006), language loss has been analogized with the loss that occurred during the agricultural revolution a millennium ago. To appreciate the depth of language loss, while the last speakers of endangered languages are dying, a few younger generations seem to acquire their Indigenous or minority
1 languages. In addition to Indigenous language extinction, the diverse knowledge systems that accompany those languages will vanish as a consequence (Hinton, Huss, & Roche, 2018).
Therefore, not only is it important to maintain these languages but they are vital in preserving and reviving the worldviews and epistemologies of the people who speak them (Rosborough,
2012).
Luo, Wiseman, and Wiseman (2000) argue that the language we speak, along with the culture attributed to it, shapes our personal and group identity, and Indigenous identity is a sense of personhood linked to history and traditions (Lin & Yudaw, 2016). Thus, when a language dies, it induces complex and varied reactions among its speakers or those associated with it
(Hinton et al., 2018). The pre-colonial multilingualism in Canada has changed insofar as a significant percentage of Indigenous peoples cannot communicate in their languages and have become marginalized as a result (Hornberger & Coronel-Molina, 2004). In response, McIvor and
Anisman (2018) state that Indigenous communities have been honing methods to reclaim and revitalize their Indigenous languages through Indigenous language revitalization programs.
The history and causes of language loss have concerned many scholars and triggered diverse preservation and revitalization movements. Thus, before one effectively preserves and revitalizes endangered languages and their embedded worldviews, it is helpful to explore the factors that lead to their loss. As a result, language revitalization programs have been designed and implemented to revive and preserve endangered languages. Language revitalization is an interdisciplinary field of study influenced by applied linguistics, linguistics, psychology, education, and linguistic anthropology (Hinton et al., 2018; McIvor, 2020). It is a personal and political endeavour (Hermes, Bang, & Marin, 2012) that appeals to Indigenous researchers because it revives and reverses language shift (Fishman, 1991). According to the study done by
2 Battiste (2000), language revitalization equips language revitalizers in Indigenous communities with the skills to teach their Indigenous knowledge and languages and explore methods to marry their Indigenous and Eurocentric perspectives. In addition, McCarty et al. (2005) state that language revitalization demonstrates an Indigenous resistance toward enforced assimilation and opposes hegemonic state forces.
With their implementation, these language revitalization programs need to be investigated individually to determine how successfully they have provided for the needs of the people involved, and whether appropriate Indigenous factors are embedded in their curricula. For that, language revitalizers are advised to set realistic goals and explore macro- and micro-level issues when designing their programs (Grenoble & Whaley, 2006). For example, based on Smith
(2012), researchers are advised to follow a decolonized research methodology and avoid over- generalizing among Indigenous peoples because although there are similarities among them, there exist differences between them as well (Rice, 2005). Thus, it is safe to argue that one language revitalization program will not meet the needs of different peoples, and scholars should investigate what a successful language revitalization program is for individual communities.
1.2. Indigenous Peoples in Canada and the US: Past, Present, and Future
Philips (2011) reports that before European arrival in the Americas, many distinct languages were present in this part of the world. In Canada, several scholars (e.g., McIvor &
McCarty, 2017), have reported on the pre-colonial multilingualism, with many Indigenous languages were spoken by distinct peoples. Having appreciated the existing multilingualism at the time, Europeans often learned Indigenous languages to communicate with the locals and accomplish the church and state’s colonizing goals (Coronel-Molina & McCarty, 2016).
However, it was not long before circumstances began to change—and not in favor of Indigenous
3 peoples in the way that only in the last century ten of the Indigenous languages in Canada became extinct (McIvor & Anisman, 2018). Additionally, the Indian Act of 1876 and the British
North American Act of 1867 gave authority to the government to forcibly remove Indigenous peoples from their lands, send them to reserves, and establish residential schools (Coronel-
Molina & McCarty, 2016), which played a significant part in inducing language loss among the
Indigenous peoples.
To manage what they considered the problem of the Indigenous peoples and their languages, the US Government authorised the use of force against Indigenous peoples, who were now regarded as inferior—a sentiment embodied revealingly in the establishment of residential schools. The residential school concept was modelled after American industrial schools in which agriculture, religion, and basic learnings were taught to Indigenous students as their primary education subjects (Coronel-Molina & McCarty, 2016). Following the establishment of the first residential school in the US in 1879 (Coronel-Molina & McCarty, 2016), many schools were modeled after it to replace Indigenous languages with English and to assimilate Indigenous peoples to the new dominant language and culture (Lomawaima, 2015).
Residential schools had a detrimental effect on Indigenous languages. For example, based on Lajimodiere (2014), 100,000 Indigenous children were removed from their families and sent to residential schools where teachers and school officials showed no tolerance for any
Indigenous languages. That is because they considered tradition “the Enemy of Progress”
(Reyhner & Eder, 2004, p. 18). Consequently, the Indigenous children who inadvertently or willingly spoke or were heard speaking their Indigenous language would be severely punished.
In a study by Fontaine (2010), one of his participants, an Ojibway man, pointed out:
I inadvertently said something in Ojibway. She’d assumed I was referring to her when a
4 couple of boys laughed at my comment. She yelled and [she] washed my mouth with
soap […] I was shoved into a closet behind her chair. It was under the stairs leading to
the second floor and was used to store brooms and other cleaning material. I don’t
remember how long I was in there, but it seemed like an eternity […] Eventually she let
me out. Her first word was ‘Tiens! (Take that!)’ followed by a warning not to speak my
‘savage’ language. (pp. 106–7)
According to Galla (2018), Canadian residential schools were strongly influenced by the
American system and were first established in the mid-1880s and continued for more than a century. She furthers that the first residential school in Canada was the Mohawk Institute, which was built in 1831 in Brantford, Ontario. Canadian residential schools were modelled after those in America, and the First Nations peoples of Canada and their languages were no better off compared with their counterparts in the US. Similar to the US residential schools, if an
Indigenous student was found speaking their mother tongue, they were punished (Fontaine,
2017). However, it was thought that change was on the way in Canada when the Pierre Trudeau
Government (1968–1972) developed its policy of multiculturalism (Ghosh & Abdi, 2004).
Additionally, in 1969, Jean Chrétien, Minister for Indian and Northern Affairs in the Trudeau
Government, indicated that changes would be made to the management of Indigenous affairs in
Canada. He argued that Canada should put an end to treaty rights, to the Department of Indian
Affairs, and to the Indian Act, and instead bestow rights to Indigenous peoples to manage their own affairs (Haque & Patrick, 2015). However, Coronel-Molina and McCarty (2016) report that, much to Indigenous peoples’ surprise—the Canadian multiculturalism policy that resulted adopted only a French-English framework and Indigenous peoples, their languages, and customs
5 continued to be disregarded.
Indigenous peoples in Canada have continually asserted the need to educate themselves based on their Indigenous knowledge and education. Given this, the Indian Control of Indian
Education policy was the first Indigenous-authored treatise on education for Indigenous peoples and children (National Indian Brotherhood, 1972). The Canadian Multiculturalism Act and
Statement of Reconciliation were passed in 1987 and 1998, respectively, to promote Indigenous languages and cultures and to acknowledge the abuse perpetrated in residential schools.
However, the former Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, apologized and condemned such an assimilation policy and stated that such a policy was no longer in place in Canada. In addition, in 2016, current Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, announced the introduction of Indigenous
Languages Act (McIvor & Anisman, 2018) to act according to the Truth and Reconciliation
Commission of Canada (TRC) which include Calls to Action 10 and 14 that focus on language maintenance and revitalization. TRC was established on June 1, 2008, to provide the opportunity for the Indigenous peoples of Canada to share their experience and document the lasting impacts of the Canadian Residential Schools on Indigenous students and their families. McIvor and Ball
(2019) argue that despite these efforts, very little has been done to raise awareness and create demand for learning an Indigenous language either as a subject of study or medium of instruction, and limited support exists to implement Indigenous language-medium immersion or bilingual programs in Canada with the exception of that provided in the Yukon and Nunavut.
1.3. Challenges Ahead
The long journey toward Indigenous peoples becoming responsible for their education and revitalizing their Indigenous languages has just begun. According to Article 14.1 of the
United Nations (2007), Indigenous peoples are entitled to take control of their education and to
6 do so in a manner consistent with their Indigenous cultures and languages. Additionally, the national policy on Indigenous languages was passed to acknowledge the First Nations languages in Canada (Coronel-Molina & McCarty, 2016). However, not many Indigenous peoples in
Canada can communicate in their Indigenous languages except for the 86% of Indigenous students in Nunavut who are involved in bilingual programming (McIvor & Ball, 2019). The currently high enrollment of students in Nunavut in bilingual programming is due to to the passing of the Official Languages Act in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut in 1990 and
2008, respectively, that recognizes English, French, Inuktitut, and Inuinnaqtun as official languages in the Nunavut (Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages, 2018). On the other hand, although Indigenous peoples have always been concerned about the preservation of their culture and languages, there are other, perhaps more urgent, factors that require consideration. MacDonald and Wilson (2013) refer to recent scholarship and argue that half of the status First Nations children in Canada live in poverty, rendering that language reclamation
“is profoundly linked to issues of educational equity, Indigenous self-determination, and the
(re)construction of community well-being via culturally distinctive worldviews, identities, and life orientations” (McCarty & Nicholas, 2014, p. 2).
1.4. My Positionality
It is customary among Indigenous peoples to introduce themselves when they address others. My given name is Hossein Ghanbari; however, I go by Odivi to revitalize a part of my family name. I am a male, married, and originate from Bakhtiari, Haft Lang, a tribe from
Iran. I speak Bakhtiari as my mother tongue and Persian (the term I prefer to use for the language, also known as Farsi) as my second language. I was born during the eight-year Iran-
Iraq War (1980–1988) into a crowded family of nine children in Ahvaz, a city in Iran’s
7 southwest a few hours from the Iran-Iraq border. I have the utmost respect for all those who have nurtured and educated me toward achieving my goals. Regarding my teachers, I am morally bound to pay voluminous respect to Professor Ted Riecken, my mentor and supervisor, with whom I would delve into critical subjects and seek refuge in the world of philosophy, one of my passions. I am equally indebted to Dr. Carmen Rodriguez de France for the insightful discussions we had in our Indigenous Epistemologies class and for her acceptance of a position on my Ph.D. committee. Finally, I wholeheartedly adore Dr. Tim Anderson and am indebted to him for his help and academic guidance.
I was born in a traditional nomadic Bakhtiari family and have found myself exposed to the numerous cultural and linguistic aspects of living nomadically. My late father was deeply interested in living on our lands, where he could look after his sheep and migrate between our ancestral lands (Garmesir and Sardesir) in the pursuit of fresh pasture for his sheep. Even so, he had to migrate to Ahvaz to provide education for his nine children. I always understood he longed for his old life on the plains and, consequently, before I came of age, we would spend our summers in Kohrang, Charmahal and Bakhtiari province only to return to Ahvaz at the beginning of the school year. After spending the first 12 years of my childhood in Ahvaz, we moved to
Esfahan—half of the world, as it is known—where I managed to complete my high school education. It is rather painful to admit I was not the best student in high school. As I approached my late teenage years, however, I fortunately became an avid reader, turning to the Persian poets
Mawlānā (known as Rumi in the West), Khayyam, Sa’di and Hafez, with all of whom I am deeply enamoured. I am also deeply passionate about learning Iranian languages.
Importantly, I would consider my compulsory military service a turning point in my life.
As I came of age, I was required to complete my compulsory service. Consequently, I spent 21
8 months in a military garrison in Tehran. It was an eye-opening experience for me, where I had to live far from my family for a period of approximately two years. Although I knew money would be an issue going forward, it was during this service I decided to study at university and become an academic. As I have always been interested in the English language, meeting new people and in the way one thinks and learns I became an English teacher. I enrolled in a Bachelor of Arts with a major in English translation studies and, as I was profoundly interested in becoming a teacher, I became a part-time teacher and full-time undergraduate student. I completed my BA and then pursued a master’s degree in Applied Linguistics in 2009. As an English teacher, I found myself busy with living, reading and working. Yet, there continued to be something in my life that obstructed feelings of happiness. In 2011, I enrolled in a Ph.D. program in Applied
Linguistics at Azad University of Shiraz branch only to drop out after the first year because I was no longer interested. It was then I sought a new life in the neighbouring country of Turkey.
Living as an Iranian ex-pat in Istanbul was replete with vicissitudes. Having settled in beautiful Istanbul, I would spend my days teaching English to Turkish and international students and reading books at night. It was then I realized my son was predominantly speaking Turkish and not my mother tongue, Bakhtiari. It was a strange experience to see my son speak Turkish with his friends. I longed to hear him speak my mother tongue. Although my wife, Zeinab, is
Bakhtiari, she cannot speak the language as fluently as I can, and since she is not sufficiently proficient in our language, there was limited opportunity for my son to also learn it. It seemed I had found a new goal to pursue. As I witnessed the language loss and shift in my own family, I grew to appreciate such phenomena more and feel its impact on a personal level.
As a native speaker of Bakhtiari, I have been concerned about the gradual loss of and shift in of the Bakhtiari language along with the cultural elements it houses. Although language
9 loss does not occur overnight, I believe the current trend may mean Indigenous and minority languages in Iran will exist only in history unless they are maintained, promoted or revitalized.
On a personal level, and in my Bakhtiari community, I have witnessed a gradual language shift toward the lingua franca, Persian, and have decided to bring attention to this before it is too late.
For various reasons, I have seen many of my family members refrain from speaking Bakhtiari.
Moreover, many younger generations do not seem to value speaking the Bakhtiari language, listening to Bakhtiari music, performing Bakhtiari dances, or revealing their Indigenous background. Indeed, they often act as if they do not know our Indigenous language at all! Unless proper action is taken to address this gradual language loss, I argue many of the elements of
Bakhtiari language and culture will be replaced with non-Bakhtiari cultural and linguistic representations.
I believe countries’ national languages will gradually push Indigenous or minority languages aside, leading to the fall of these languages from use or their absorption by national languages insofar as they will no longer be considered Indigenous. For example, although I believe an Indigenous language can remain so as long as its associated Indigeneity, cultural values and beliefs are maintained, Bakhtiari has been referred to as a dialect of Persian, even by linguists who have a Bakhtiari background. As an Iranian researcher, I am deeply concerned about language loss in my home country as well as in the world more generally. Thus, I decided to do my doctoral research on language revitalization and equip myself with the expertise to help preserve and revitalize minority languages worldwide. Indigenous and minority language revitalization programs are concerned with the linguistic and cultural aspects of Indigenous languages and strive to overcome the reasons that have engendered language loss. In so doing, and as the main purpose of language revitalization efforts, effective methods—those congruent
10 with Indigenous epistemologies and ontologies—are developed to help Indigenous learners become proficient in the communication and production of their Indigenous languages
(Czaykowska-Higgins, Burton, McIvor, & Marinakis, 2017).
In appreciating the similarities and differences among Indigenous peoples (Rice, 2005), it is useful to develop methodologies in Indigenous language revitalization programs that are based on idiosyncratic cultural and linguistic features of the Indigenous languages and communities involved. Importantly, language revitalizers seek academic advice along with consultation from Indigenous communities and elders to incorporate these elements into their programs. Therefore, in this research, I aim to investigate the concept of success in the Bachelor of Education in Indigenous Language Revitalization (BEDILR) program for the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ people from the perspectives presented by the academy and the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community to assess and develop its praxis.
1.5. Focus of the Study
As Indigenous language revitalization programs have been launched in Canada to maintain and revive endangered Indigenous languages, it is reasonable to investigate the extent to which these programs revitalize Indigenous languages and meet the needs of the people in the programs. The Bachelor of Education in Indigenous Language Revitalization (BEDILR) is one such program and has been offered at the University of Victoria in partnership with the
W̱ ŚÁNEĆ people in Victoria. In my doctoral research, and with the blessing of the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ people, I aimed to investigate the notion of success in the BEDILR in revitalizing the
SENĆOŦEN language from an academic and community perspective.
1.6. Indigenous Peoples in British Columbia
British Columbia (BC) is rich with a diverse range of Indigenous languages. According to
11 First Peoples’ Cultural Council (FPCC) (2014), there are 203 Indigenous communities in BC who speak 60% of all the Indigenous languages in Canada. Gessner et al. (2018) report that there are 34 Indigenous languages spoken in at least 93 distinct dialects in BC which belong to seven different languages families: Wakashan, Salish, Tsimshian, Dene, Algonquian, Haida and
Ktunaxa. Additionally, Michif, the language of the Métis people, is spoken in BC, and Chinuk
Wawa used to be spoken in here. Out of all the Indigenous languages in BC, 32 of them, apart from Cree and Anishnaubemowin, have fewer than 1000 speakers, and some are reported to have fewer than 100 speakers (Gessner et al., 2018). However, since 2010, there has been a significant increase in the number of Indigenous communities in BC who have recordings of their languages
(FPCC, 2014) which, according to McIvor and Ball (2019), means that the status of the
Indigenous languages in BC is recovering although more work needs to be done.
1.7. University of Victoria: Location and History
The University of Victoria is located seven kilometres north of downtown Victoria on the territory of the Songhees, Esquimalt, and the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ nations in Greater Victoria, BC. As the first post-secondary academic institution in British Columbia, it was launched in 1903 under the name “Victoria College” and as an affiliation of McGill University. According to Rodriguez de France (2013), the faculty of Education at the University of Victoria launched its first program on education for Indigenous peoples in Prince Rupert, Terrace, and Hazelton in 1974.
Ever since, the University of Victoria has provided education for Indigenous peoples and has been focusing on language revitalization strategies through different programs. McIvor et al.
(2018) report that a one-year certificate was launched in 2000s focusing on language revitalization strategies and a three-year pilot program pivoted around the teaching of Indigenous languages. Marinakis and McIvor (2015) state that in 2008, a course was created for all teacher
12 education programs at the University of Victoria, which was the first of its kind in Canada.
Additionally, in 2009, the University of Victoria changed the name “Aboriginal Education” to
“Indigenous Education” to reflect and acknowledge the international scope of its members and its commitment toward the shared responsibility of decolonizing education. Since 2011, an undergraduate Diploma, the Bachelor of Education in Indigenous language revitalization
(BEDILR), Graduate Certificate and Master’s Degree in Indigenous language revitalization programs have been developed and delivered in partnership with the University’s Department of
Linguistics in the University of Victoria (Marinakis & McIvor, 2015).
As the focus of this research is to investigate the notion of success of the BEDILR program for the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ people, in the following sections I present the history of the
W̱ ŚÁNEĆ people, W̱ ŚÁNEĆ knowledges, the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ School Board, and the language revitalization practices in the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community.
1.8. History of the W̱ SÁNEĆ People
The W̱ ŚÁNEĆ people are of the Salish language family and the Coast Salish sub-family
(FPCC, 2014), whose homelands used to be rich and plentiful in natural resources and whose
SENĆOŦEN language flourished (Swallow, 2005). The W̱ ŚÁNEĆ are the Strait Salish People— also known as saltwater people—and chose this place and have based their life on its ocean and land for thousands of years. The W̱ ŚÁNEĆ people speak SENĆOŦEN Indigenous language, an oral language transmitted inter-generationally. Following the arrival of European settlers, the
W̱ ŚÁNEĆ was anglicized to “Saanich,” and they were forced to live on four small reservations
(firstvoices.com, 2019). David Elliott Sr. (1990), from the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community, states:
Our people [W̱ SÁNEĆ] lived as part of everything. We were so much a part of nature;
we were just like the birds, the animals, the fish. We were like the mountains. Our people
13 lived that way. We knew there was an intelligence, a strength, a power, far beyond
ourselves. We knew that everything here didn't just happen by accident. We believed
there was a reason for it being here. There was a force, a strength, a power somewhere
that was responsible for it. That is the way our people lived. They lived according to that
belief, according to that knowledge. The universe lies before you. (p. 75)
According to Jim (2016), the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ, translated by Elliott Sr. (1990) as “the land which is raised up” or “emerging people”, comprises four communities: BO,ḰE,ĆEN,
W̱ JOȽEȽP, SȾÁUTW̱ and W̱ SÍḴEM (Tseycum). Among all these communities, W̱ JOȽEȽP
(Tsartlip) and SȾÁUTW̱ (Tsawout) are the largest, followed by BO,ḰE,ĆEN (Pauquachin), and then W̱ SÍḴEM, which is the smallest community both demographically and geographically. Jim
(2016) states that BO,ḰE,ĆEN politically emancipated themselves because they claimed to be a separate people who came to live permanently among the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ people. The W̱ ŚÁNEĆ people summer in the Gulf Islands and San Juan Islands and winter on the Saanich Peninsula in
Victoria. To the south, their territory stretches to PKOLS (Mount Douglas), to the west to
SELE₭TEȽ (Goldstream Provincial Park), to the east through the San Juan Islands, and to the northeast across Georgia Strait to Boundary Bay (Elliott Sr., 1990; Jim, 2016). This was at a time when the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ territories stretched throughout the Saanich Peninsula—along with many of the surrounding islands—to Washington State. In 1846, however, and after the Oregon treaty, the
W̱ ŚÁNEĆ peoples were divided based on Canadian or American territory (Horne, 2012). There are approximately 1,750 people in the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community who have connected their environment with their social activities, ceremonies and everyday learning (FPCC, 2014). They used to spend most of the year fishing, hunting, and gathering their catch in their temporary
14 homes (Jim, 2016).
The First Peoples Cultural Council (FPCC) (2014) reports that the number of semi- speakers of an Indigenous language is increasing. Dunlop et al. (2018) define semi-speakers as those who “can speak and understand their language to the degree that they self-identify or are identified by fellow community members as having the ability to converse and understand with no use of English” (p. 9). Having realized the threat to his SENĆOŦEN language, the late David
Elliott Sr. (who was from WJ̱ OȽEȽP) devised the SENĆOŦEN writing system in 1978 and made it accessible to the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ people. The alphabet was adopted by the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ School
Board to help preserve SENĆOŦEN language learning at the ȽÁU,WEL,ṈEW̱ Tribal school
(Jim, 2016).
1.9. History of The W̱ SÁNEĆ School Board
The W̱ ŚÁNEĆ School Board is located fifteen kilometers from Victoria and was established to save and revitalize the SENĆOŦEN language and provide an opportunity for the
W̱ ŚÁNEĆ people to regain control of their education based on their Indigeneity. It was built on the W̱ JOȽEȽP land and offers educational programs to the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community members and has an ongoing working partnership with Camosun College and the University of Victoria (Jim,
2016). Before the new school was built, the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ children attended a one-room school, which was later replaced with a five-room school. Both schools were run by Christian nuns.
However, according to Claxton (2015), the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ people formed the Saanich Indian School
Board because they were dissatisfied with the way the school did not include them and their teachings in the curriculum. Unfortunately, the school was burned down by a fire in 1976, but with the establishment of the new school and the Saanich Indian School Board, the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ children were taught in portable units from 1976–1989. This eventually led to the establishment
15
of the ȽÁU,WEL,ṈEW̱ Tribal School, which is named after the sacred mountain
ȽÁU,WEL,ṈEW̱ , a mountain known for saving the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ people from the Great Flood. Jim
(2016) states that according to the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ stories, when XALS, the Creator, saw the
W̱ ŚÁNEĆ people were not living within their teachings, XALS came down to them in the form of a man to warn them about a flood to come. However, some of the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ people did not pay attention and perished when the flood came. Those who had prepared “tied themselves and their canoes to an Arbutus Tree with the cedar woven rope at the top of ȽÁU,WEL,ṈEW̱ mountain, named as the place of escape, healing and refuge” (Jim, 2016, p. 50).
1.10. Language Revitalization Practices in the W̱ SÁNEĆ Community
1.10.1. Pre-School Language Nest (K–4 Immersion Program)
There is a successful SENĆOŦEN immersion experience (i.e., EWENE W̱ ENITEM ḴEN
SḰÁL, where no English Language is spoken) that offers K–4 classes to children to learn the
SENĆOŦEN language through circle time, outdoor play in playgrounds and in the forest located around the school (McIvor & Anisman, 2018). Teachers teach SENĆOŦEN in this program and meet the Ministry Prescribed Learning Outcomes of the Kindergarten Curriculum. The
W̱ ŚÁNEĆ children spend 3.5 hours in the classroom learning what is outlined in the
Kindergarten Provincial Curriculum through a SENĆOŦEN medium and spend 2.5 hours in the playgrounds and forests around the school or in the neighbourhood to foster a connection with nature. At this level, children can enter the LE,NOṈET immersion stream after a year of the
LE,NOṈET immersion stream.
1.10.2. ȽÁU,WELṈEW̱ (Tribal School)
ȽÁU,WELṈEW̱ Tribal School is located alongside the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ School Board. In
16 1989, the four W̱ ŚÁNEĆ communities, W̱ SÍḴEM, W̱ JOȽEȽP, BOḴEĆEN, and SȾÁUTW̱ created the Saanich Indian School and the ȽÁU,WELṈEW̱ Tribal School that continue to support the Saanich Indian School politically and financially. Jim (2016) states that the school is named ȽÁU,WELṈEW̱ (Mount Newton) and acts as a spiritual place for the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ people, when they took refuge in it in the Great Flood.
1.10.3. W̱ SÁNEĆ Language Department (SȾÁSEN TŦE SENĆOŦEN)
The W̱ ŚÁNEĆ Language Department is part of the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ School Board and is called SȾÁSEN TŦE SENĆOŦEN. As the SENĆOŦEN-speaking elders in the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community were decreasing, the elders and the community felt the need to maintain their
Indigenous language. In 2009, therefore, a language apprenticeship program was delivered to focus on SENĆOŦEN-language teaching and positioning teachers under the name of the
SȾÁSEN TŦE SENĆOŦEN (the Mentor-Apprentice Method) (PENÁĆ, 2017). In this method, an elder (a fluent first-language speaker) is paired with an apprentice a new language learner to expose them with language (Hinton et al., 2018). It is through this method that SENĆOŦEN learners practice their Indigenous language by listening to archived audio-recordings as well as attending gatherings to practice their language, translate their stories, and record new information
(Jim, 2016).
There have been a series of second-language instruction methods in the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community: total physical response (TPR), sign language, and the Greymorning method, all of which offer second-language instruction (FPCC, 2014). Total Physical Response is a language teaching method through the use of physical movements, and sign language advocates the use of visual and manual modalities to teach language. The Greymorning method advocates the learning of a second language the way a person learns their first language. The community
17 educators and language revitalizers develop curriculum and resources, hold meetings with the
W̱ ŚÁNEĆ elders, and assist teachers in their classrooms. These efforts led to the establishment of LE,NOṈET SCUL,ÁUTW̱ (the language immersion/language survival school) and the
SENĆOŦEN W̱ UĆISTENEḴ (language teachers) in 2012. The W,SENĆOŦEN IST: Diploma in Indigenous Language Revitalization (DILR) is delivered in community-based contexts and offered through the University of Victoria. This is a 20-month or two-year program that supports learners who want to build on their Indigenous language proficiency, basic language-teaching skills to better understand the contexts in which they teach, and their ability to teach Indigenous languages. According to PENÁĆ (2017), the DILR provides a ladder into the
Bachelor of Education in Indigenous Language Revitalization (BEDILR), which has been offered in the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community and University of Victoria since 2012.
1.11. Research Questions
Based on Huaman and Stokes (2011), the primary goal in language revitalization programs is often geared toward producing speakers, where fluency in the Indigenous language is a major aim and project funders do not entertain proposals outside of these goals. However, although there is a close connection between Indigenous languages, environments, cultures, and epistemologies (Alfred & Corntassel, 2005), Indigenous peoples differ from each other idiosyncratically (Rice, 2005). One of the Indigenous language revitalization programs offered at the University of Victoria is the Bachelor of Education in Indigenous Language Revitalization program (BEDILR). According to McIvor et al. (2018), the BEDILR has been designed around four characteristics: 1) The program components ladder into each other, providing successful exit opportunities for students at multiple key points throughout the program, 2) The programs provide an opportunity to learn about how to revitalize language, as well as the opportunity to
18 increase language proficiency through coursework, 3) The programs are designed for delivery in a community setting, in full or in part, and 4) The programs result in language skills and professional teacher certification that will prepare graduates to teach in immersion language schools. (p. 6)
However, to what extent the BEDILR has successfully provided for the linguistic and pedagogical needs of the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ people plays a critical role in this research. In other words, this dissertation examines the notion of success of the BEDILR program for the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ people from an academic and community perspective. It is hoped the results of this study will provide insight toward improving the BEDILR for the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community in the future.
Therefore, this research seeks to answer the following research questions:
1) What are the concepts of success in the BEDILR program in the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ
community and the University of Victoria?
2) How do these concepts of success impact the design, delivery and assessment of the
BEDILR in the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community?
3) How do these concepts of success impact the design, delivery and assessment of the
BEDILR in the University of Victoria?
In summary, I discussed the rationale and focus of the study as well as the challenges that lie ahead for Indigenous peoples with regard to revitalizing their Indigenous languages. I then discussed my positionality in this research before I presented a discussion on the Indigenous peoples in British Columbia, specifically the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ people and their knowledge. Next, I discussed the history of the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ School Board, and the language revitalization practices of the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community. A description of the University of Victoria was given before a history
19 of The W̱ ŚÁNEĆ and their knowledge, and the language revitalization practices in the
W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community and the research questions in this project.
20 Chapter Two
Literature Review
The importance of language revitalization programs cannot be fully appreciated without a discussion on the history of language loss and shift. In the following section, I present a discussion on language loss and shift, along with an account on the advent and importance of language revitalization. As it is effective to design Indigenous language revitalization programs based on the Indigeneity of the stakeholders, I explore the importance of Indigenous knowledges in Indigenous language revitalization programs. Finally, I end this chapter with a description of several Indigenous language schools in which Indigenous languages are maintained and revitalized.
2.1. Language Loss and Language Shift
2.1.1. Language Loss
Evans (2010) defines language loss as the gradual loss of a language, where the speakers of a dominated language eventually lose their language proficiency, knowledge systems, and cultures. Hinton (2008) argues that this is due to their proximity to a dominant language and unequal power relations between the dominant and dominated languages and occurs as a result of both external and internal factors. Scholars attribute language loss to different reasons and argue that it can result from such external factors as colonization and death (Hinton et al., 2018); assimilation policies and residential schools (Bell & Napoleon, 2008; FPCC, 2014); disease, genocide, and forced relocation (McIvor & Anisman, 2018); world economic growth (Amano et al., 2014); and globalization (Grenoble & Whaley, 2006). Based on the study done by
Lomawaima and McCarty (2006), language loss occurs when required education is offered in a dominant language with encoded cultural knowledge, where its social and linguistic domination
21 over the weaker language(s) leads to a decrease in the number of speakers and contexts of the weaker language (Shaul, 2014). More specifically, it occurs when a language loses its use within a community, is under pressure from one or more competitor languages, or because of the vast migration of the native speech society that affects the whole speech community (Hinton, 2010;
Swiggers, 2007).
While studying the Indigenous language of the Sami people of Sweden, Nutti (2018) blames their language loss on several factors. She believes the Swedish education system, Sami parents, and Sami teachers are responsible for the language loss among the Sami people.
Specifically, she believes Sami teachers did not receive any cultural training to teach in their
Indigenous language and Sami parents were not confident their children would benefit from learning the Sami language as their children would have to compete in national examinations in the Swedish language. Internal factors can also be blamed for language loss. I believe language loss occurs when individuals arrive at the belief that their language is not worth speaking or handing down to future generations, and consider their language as having low prestige because they fear being ridiculed by the speakers of the dominant language. As a consequence, they will willingly step away from their mother tongue and favor the dominant language, which they believe to be more prestigious.
2.1.2. Language Shift
Huaman and Stokes (2011) state that there is a reciprocal relationship between language loss and shift, and further that while the former is a reduction in the linguistic abilities of an individual, the latter is a collective or communal process. Namei (2012) argues that language shift happens when economical, psychological, and social factors induce minority language speakers to favor a dominant language. In this sense, language shift is a speaker’s own choice
22 (Hinton et al., 2018) because they do not use their language themselves and, as a result, will not pass it to the next generation. It is the gradual shift in a language that eventually leads to the death of that particular language.
Despite this favor shown as a result of a speaker’s own choice, Sarivaara, Uusiautti, and
Määttä (2013) believe that language shift is more precisely a consequence of the unequal treatment of minority and Indigenous languages by non-Indigenous societies. For example, as schools and their medium of instruction emphasize standardization in the development of literacy, they induce language shift, and their language classes do not seem to be very effective in producing minority or Indigenous language speakers (Cru, 2017). Additionally, Indigenous and minority youths are encouraged to leave their communities in the pursuit of higher education and adopt the dominant language in their societies (Huaman & Stokes, 2011). Thus, when a dominant language replaces another one for political and social reasons, it encourages monolingualism under the pretext of the common good for everyone (Hinton, 2010). In this case, language shift occurs because the speakers of a minority language shift toward the (dominant) language with more social power to gain a grounding in that society.
2.1.3. Indigenous Language Loss in the US and Canada
After European settlement in the Americas, Indigenous peoples were introduced to a new way of living and thinking that disregarded their Indigenous epistemologies (Regan, 2010). Due to assimilation among Indigenous peoples to Europeans’ ways of livings, their Indigenous languages were (and continue to be) imperiled, where only 70 out of the 450 Indigenous languages in Canada are being spoken (McIvor & Anisman, 2018). Consequently, Indigenous peoples in the US and Canada became concerned with preserving their languages and knowledges, as is represented by the establishment of the American Indian Movement and
23 Canadian Indian Brotherhood (Smith, 2012).
Based on the study done by Coronel-Molina and McCarty (2016), the abovementioned language loss can be divided into three stages, as follows. The first stage lasted until the late 19th century and is referred to as the period of guns, germs, and steel. During this stage, Indigenous peoples were introduced to new diseases, massacred, displaced from their lands, mandated to live on reservations away from their native territories, and assimilated into European and American ways of living. In the US, this led to the foundation of the first boarding school in 1879 in
Philadelphia to assimilate Indigenous peoples to the dominant culture and drag them out of their
Indigeneity. In the second stage, known as Relocation, Indigenous peoples were offered jobs away from their communities in cities in distant locales. They were forcibly assimilated to fulfill
Termination, the redistribution of reservation land to non-Indigenous individuals. Stage three is known as the period of language loss in Canada and the US and has continued to date through increasing non-Indigenous population growth, developing economic opportunities, and other modes of technology and discrimination against Indigenous peoples.
Looking into Indigenous language loss in Canada, Fontaine (2017) argues that Canada’s policy to extinguish Indigenous languages and culture began in the British North American Act of 1867. Based on this, politicians began to devise policies for assimilation and provided the federal government with the jurisdiction to legislate on issues related to Indians (I avoid the use of the term “Indian” unless it is included in a quote or I am paraphrasing, as is the case when referring to the abovementioned Act). This, based on McIvor and McCarty (2017), provided the federal government with legal and political authority over Indigenous peoples—a power that ultimately meant practical control over the daily activities of Indigenous peoples (Coronel-
Molina & McCarty, 2016) with a deliberate course of removal, genocide, and linguicide.
24 As a consequence of this legislation, Indigenous children were taken away from their families to be taught English or French as their primary means of communication, and to undergo a process of acculturation to the ways of the white man (Fontaine, 2017) until all
Indigenous peoples in Canada were assimilated to the dominant society (Milloy, 1999). In other words, eradication of Indigenous languages was emphasized because they embed Indigenous cultures and identities.
2.2. Prediction About the Survival of Indigenous Languages
The reality that Indigenous peoples and communities continue even today to lose their language and traditions (Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, 2015) has caused scholars to speculate about the survival of languages, and Indigenous languages in particular.
Given this, knowing that many of the world’s Indigenous languages do not have many speakers
(Walsh, 2005) could be an indicator that the number of speakers of a language is not a reliable factor in predicting the survival of a language (McIvor & Anisman, 2018). Thus, scholars look for different methods to determine the health and survival of a language. Grenoble (2016) reports that linguists have used the Language Endangerment Index (LEI) to determine language vitality through four criteria: intergenerational transmission, number of speakers, increasing or decreasing number of speakers, and domains of language use. Additionally, while Barrena et al.
(2007) argue the health of a language is determined by its intergenerational transmission and the number of the children who are learning it, Ball and McIvor (2013) believe that is done through the role of the government policies targeting that language. In the same line of argument,
Fontaine (2017) believes the health of a language is determined through the status of that language in the education system. Accordingly, Galla and Goodwill (2017) state that the Cree,
Ojibway, and Inuktitut languages are still learned by the younger generations of these peoples,
25 and therefore, it could be argued that they are in a good health.
2.3. Advent of Language Revitalization
Language revitalization is a practical way to devise methods to revive endangered languages and preserve those that are current. Sarivaara et al. (2013) argue that language revitalization focuses on increasing the number of language speakers and expanding the domain of a language. Diverse definitions of language revitalization have circulated. For example,
Hinton et al. (2018) refer to Joshua Fishman as the father of language revitalization and define language revitalization as the rejuvenation of a language that has fallen out or has been decreasing in use. Costa (2016) argues language revitalization is the linguistic emancipation of a language that reinforces the structure and use of that language and the position of its speakers.
Additionally, Sarivaara et al. (2013) argue that language revitalization is performed through creating a fair societal structure and equal opportunities for participation toward widening linguistic rights so that people use their language. Thus, it is a multidimensional and complex process that requires both societal and individual action (Pietikäinen et al., 2010). At a societal level, language revitalization is connected to the national and international legislation and cultural policy whereas, at an individual level, it is affected by attitudes, cultural heritage and the circumstances in which the speakers of the language live (Pietikäinen et al., 2010).
With regard to the incentive of language revitalization, various ideas have been proposed.
Hinton et al. (2018) believe although research on language revitalization goes back to research done on language loss and shift by Weinreich (1953), it was Fishman’s (1966) study on the support among immigrant groups for language maintenance that foretold the language revitalization movement. Thus, upon realizing the threat of losing their languages and cultures, minority and Indigenous communities attempted to preserve and revive their languages toward
26 active use. In other words, language revitalization can be traced in Indigenous peoples’ desires and efforts to revive their languages and to provide generations with the opportunity to learn and use their mother tongue appropriately, both orally and in written form (Sarivaara et al., 2013).
There have been historical attempts to save languages. To begin with, Costa (2016) argues since the second half of the 16th century, antiquarians in Western Europe compiled dialect words, and Dorian’s (1981) Language Endangerment focuses on endangered languages and explores the sociological and economic reasons for language shift. In a similar vein, Dauzat’s
(1938) Dialects are Fast Disappearing investigates the state of dialects, and Swadesh (1948) focuses on language obsolescence and disappearing languages, who argues that the knowledge that one gains from how a language disappears enables them to picture the events in the past, leading to the death of languages. Finally, Indigenous communities passionately began to seek methods to maintain their Indigenous languages. With regard to language documentation as one of the methods of language revitalization, Ken Hale aroused linguists to document endangered languages (Hinton et al., 2018). However, regardless of its origins, Muehlmann (2008) argues language revitalization produces expertise and power for different people, and Hermes et al.
(2012) believe it is an effective practice that appeals to Indigenous researchers as a personal, political and passionate endeavour and has encouraged scholars in various disciplines (e.g., cultural activism) to preserve and revive Indigenous languages.
2.4. Why Does Language Maintenance Matter?
Spolsky (1995) states that language revitalization was inspired by the revitalization of
Hebrew, when Jewish people, as a small population, were determined to revive their language and strengthen their Jewish identity. Hinton et al. (2018) argue that language revitalization contributes to the study of the relationship between language and identity because, when a
27 language dies, it induces complex and diverse feelings and reactions because language is an essential part of one’s identity. Additionally, as argued by Rosborough (2012), one’s identity is shaped by their surroundings and by the language in which they communicate with others. In other words, one’s identity is shaped by their culture and how one associates and attributes themselves to that culture.
Luo et al. (2000) state that one seeks connection with others based on their shared language as it is an important attribute toward becoming a member of an ethnic group and being categorized ethnically by that language. Furthermore, an individual’s belonging draws them nearer to their native language, traditions, homelands, and history (Lin & Yudaw, 2016). Thus,
Indigenous languages are living species that should be maintained to enliven their embedded
Indigenous epistemologies (Hermes et al., 2012). For example, the rich repertoire of grammar and vocabulary in Kalaallisut, the Indigenous language of Greenland (which is closely related to the Inuit languages of eastern Canada), enables its speakers to relate spatial knowledge with environmental knowledge and culturally specific ontologies (Grenoble et al., 2019).
There are terms in Kalaallisut (i.e., qaqqaq, qaarsoq, and ujarak) that enables speakers to relate spatial knowledge with environmental and culturally specific ontologies. For instance, there are three terms in Kalaallisut that refer to the rocky convex and natural shapes that characterize the landscape of Greenland. In Kalaallisut, qaqqaq is the term that refers to the convexities that lie in the rocky landscapes. Although one may think the word “mountain” in
English is a close translation for Qaqqaq, they should know Qaqqaq refers to all sizes of rocky convexities and hills. Also, the term Qaqqaq and its derivatives, such as qaqqaaraq (little mountain) and qaqqarsuaq (big mountain), refer to Greenland’s curved landscape, which has some vegetation and snow for much of the year. Ujarak is a rocky landscape that is not attached
28 to the land. It is a more direct match for the English word “rock,” which can be picked up if not too heavy. However, the most difficult word to translate is Qaarsoq because it is a rounded rock landform with a flat top surface that people can sit on (Grenoble et al., 2019).
2.5. Approaches to Language Revitalization
In the following section, a few language revitalization programs are presented to discuss the need to design and implement appropriate language revitalization programs as an appreciation for Indigenous and minority languages and knowledges and to reverse language shift and death. One must explore the intellectual fields that impact revitalization attempts as they provide the guidelines that help find what has been lost. With reference to that, Hinton et al.
(2018) argue that linguistics, applied linguistics, psychology, education, and linguistic anthropology can positively affect language revitalization. Additionally, Hinton (2010) investigates the role of academic institutions in revitalizing Indigenous languages and argues that academic institutions can help revitalize minority or Indigenous languages through immersion programs, as they are the most effective programs for increasing the number of Indigenous language speakers. On top of that, the Master-Apprentice Language Learning Program (MALLP) is a highly effective language revitalization method because it pairs an Indigenous elder (a fluent speaker) with an apprentice (a learner) to provide a natural immersion with the authentic exposure of an Indigenous language (Hinton et al., 2018).
In contrast to the approaches outlined above, Hermes et al. (2012) argue that Indigenous language revitalization programs conducted within academic institutions offer only a partial solution to language endangerment. Also, Hinton (2010) states it became clear that the bilingual education at academic institutions, where Indigenous peoples were taught in bilingual classes with their Indigenous language and the lingua franca of that society, was an insufficient tool for
29 saving languages. This is because universities are grounds of contention (Alfred, 2004), hierarchical institutions that shape the dominant worldviews toward knowledge (Heath Justice,
2004), and could be places of colonialism (Smith, 2012). Such insufficiency is also noticeable insofar as teaching non-Indigenous languages is different from teaching Indigenous and minority languages and academic institutions have not de-colonized their ways of knowledge production, which are firmly rooted in colonial epistemologies (Heleta, 2016).
2.5.1. Success in Language Revitalization
Due to the existing differences among Indigenous peoples (Rice, 2005), there is little chance for one language revitalization program to meet the needs of all Indigenous communities and peoples. Thus, language revitalizers explore the concept of success for each Indigenous community and base their programs on the Indigeneity of the specific Indigenous community in the program to avoid over-generalization among Indigenous peoples. This stems from the notion that success is defined differently (Hinton, 2015). For example, based on Hinton (2010) language revitalization programs should help Indigenous community members become language revitalizers and maintain their Indigenous languages. She further argues that success is creating oral fluency in speakers through “the focus on orality, language immersion, and situational learning use of language, and community control of the language” (Hinton, 2010, p. 3). In addition, success could only mean reviving some Indigenous words, as in the case of a group of
Mexican rappers who insert Mayan words in their Spanish music to revitalize their Indigenous language (Cru, 2017).
Given the above arguments, creating successful language revitalization programs depends in part on determining the attitudes that Indigenous language speakers hold about their language.
In other words, if a language is not favored by its speakers, language revitalization is likely not
30 going to be as effective as it should be. Thus, as Indigenous peoples may have minimal knowledge of their language, a language revitalization program can develop programs and materials to support the Indigenous people involved in that program (Hinton, 2011). In addition to that, technological advances such as email, chat, and audio-recording functions provide opportunities for Indigenous communities to revitalize their Indigenous languages as well as document, preserve, and revitalize their cultural knowledge (Galla, 2016). For this, language revitalizers consider the available sources and let the community decide whether they wish to accept the technology as an appropriate resource in the revitalization of its language. According to Galla (2018), digital technology was used to revitalize the Hawaiian language in the way that it is learned and heard along with English and other languages in Hawaii. Galla (2016) continues that the Technacy framework creates technate Indigenous scholars to appreciate the close relationship between contextual factors and preserve their Indigenous knowledges by providing the holistic skills needed in their culture (Seemann & Talbot, 1995). It was through Technacy that researchers began to understand the capability of technology to recognize the holistic engagement of human technological practices with the world (Seemann, 2009).
To determine the appropriate technology used in language revitalization, Galla (2016) argues, language revitalizers explore the linguistic, cultural, social, technological, environmental and economic factors of their Indigenous communities. This is because there are effective aspects of using technologies in Indigenous language revitalization programs and communities.
Nevertheless, the use of technology is not favored by everyone because it is a new form of colonization that endorses Western knowledge systems and worldviews (Hermes et al., 2012).
2.6. Indigenous Knowledges
Before exploring Indigenous knowledges, a definition of Indigenous peoples is necessary.
31 Ali (2017) defines Indigenous peoples as those who were living in a region before the arrival of
Europeans, and Walsh (2005) argues they are the native people of a place. The UN (2007) grants the right to Indigenous peoples to establish, develop and use their educational systems in their pedagogies. Article 14.1 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous peoples
(United Nations [UN], 2007) states that Indigenous peoples “have the right to establish and control their educational systems and institutions… in a manner appropriate to their cultural methods of teaching and learning” (p. 5). Consequently, region-based knowledge centers have been established to provide for Indigenous peoples’ needs and help them revive their educational systems. For example, although the Aboriginal Learning Knowledge Center (ABLKC) no longer exists, it was founded by the Canadian Council on Learning to recognize Indigenous peoples’ relationship to the education system and develop their social, cultural and political affairs (Little
Bear, 2009). Therefore, Indigenous centers revive Indigenous pedagogies and languages and help
Indigenous peoples self-determine the way of their communities and decolonize themselves from the ways of non-Indigenous. This self-determination is performed through an understanding of the way research has become institutionalized in a non-Indigenous setting. Thus, decolonizing perspectives in Indigenous knowledges preserve Indigenous peoples’ cultural identities and languages (Munroe et al., 2013).
When defining Indigenous knowledges, Sefa Dei (2000) states they are the knowledges accrued as a result of a long-term residence in a certain place that a group (not necessarily
Indigenous) accumulates in an environment. Indigenous knowledges are interconnected and do not align with decontextualized education advocated in non-Indigenous teachings (Munroe et al.,
2013) and are learned in childhood and shared by communities, and show Indigenous peoples’ relationships with the creator (Owiny et al., 2008). Furthermore, as they emanate from
32 Indigenous lands, environment and contexts, they emancipate Indigenous peoples from non-
Indigenous educational issues (Atleo, 2009) and emphasize learners’ self-confidence, spirituality and wellbeing (Harrison & Papa, 2005). Additionally, Kovach (2015) argues that Indigenous knowledges include the spirit and holistic implications and relationships among all entities and are handed down from teachers to learners in the community. They are known by a community and are a part of the collective understanding of a people (Little Bear, 2009) and are learned through relationship with the world (Wilson, 2008). Indigenous knowledges and languages have been used in education because they embed insights and knowledges different from those of
Indo-European languages. According to Smith (2012), as decolonization deals with imperialism and colonialism at different levels, Indigenous knowledges treat the effects of colonization through addressing it directly (Munroe et al., 2013).
2.7. Assessment of Indigenous Language Learning in Language Revitalization
As the focus of this research is to investigate the concept of success in the BEDILR program conducted at the University of Victoria and in the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community, in the following section, a brief discussion on assessment is presented along with a few Indigenous assessment frameworks to help the researcher explore that concept from an Indigenous perspective. I believe this is a critical discussion because it helps me grasp this notion more effectively with regard to the points that participants in this study make. Assessment is a significant part of education that investigates the success of educational programs and people.
McCarty and Nicholas (2014) state that tests distinguish the performance of children who are developing their skills from those who have already developed them. However, Pearce and
Williams (2013) argue that tests diminish education and exclude those who do not belong to the mainstream and find the experience less familiar. Thus, the unsatisfactory academic performance
33 of many First Nations youths can be attributed to non-Indigenous education systems and their assessment criteria used in Indigenous contexts (Coronel-Molina & McCarty, 2016). To avoid that and to meet academic standards and preserve the culture, language, and tribal values of the
Indigenous communities, Indigenous scholars advocate Indigenous Assessment as it develops culturally responsive (Pill, 2016) and context-specific assessment criteria (Abdul Raof, 2011).
Lafrance and Nichols (2010) state that Indigenous assessment follows an Indigenous method and encompasses cultural protocols such as having an opening prayer, respectful language, and community values. Thus, scholars can design a culturally responsive assessment to evaluate how effectively an Indigenous language revitalization program reverses language loss and shift (O’Grady, 2017). For that, the Indigenous peoples involved in an educational program are consulted to design assessment criteria based on their culture and Indigeneity. In other words, as Indigenous peoples are different from each other, they can design assessment criteria akin to their own Indigeneity. With regard to that, there are Indigenous assessment frameworks suggested by scholars. Erdősy (2009) advocates the use of verbal protocols, and Smith (2012) argues that Indigenous learners are evaluated based on such Indigenous criteria as, “Is her spirit clear? Does he [or she] have a good heart? What other baggage are they carrying? Are they useful to us?” (p. 10).
Additionally, “Cultural Advantage” was designed and developed as a significantly valuable structure to remedy social injustices that Indigenous peoples have experienced through colonization (Kana‘iaupuni, Ledward, & Malone, 2017). It is through “cultural advantage” that scholars can “reexamine the structures, paradigms, and practices of effective education”
(Kana‘iaupuni, Ledward, & Malone, 2017, p. 1). In the study done at the University of Victoria by McGregor and Claxton (2014), when Indigenous participants in the BEDILR courses were
34 asked about assessment, they responded students could “record themselves at different stages”
(p. 26), run a self-assessment method or a personal portfolio, engage in self-reflection learning, and set educational goals for themselves. In another study done by Keskitalo, Määttä, and
Uusiautti (2014) about Indigenous assessment, they argued that schools should embed
Indigenous educators and culturally-sensitive materials in their curriculum.
According to Reyhner and Eder (2004), the American Indian Higher Education
Consortium (AIHEC) was designed to help develop educational frameworks for Indigenous communities and evaluate tribal concerns. It promotes the Indigenous epistemologies and knowledges in designing programs and meeting the needs of Indigenous peoples’ educational goals and their delivery and assessment. Based on this framework, the required knowledge to develop an evaluative framework is found within Indigenous communities, stories, songs, ceremonies, and ways of living (Lafrance & Nichols, 2010). The other Indigenous assessment framework is the American Indian Language Development Institute (AILDI) that modifies regional and local educational practices and materials and advocates a bilingual and bicultural education, holistic assessment, collaborative learning, and supports the development of
Indigenous materials based on Indigenous peoples’ local needs (Hinton et al., 2018).
The last Indigenous assessment framework discussed in here is designed by a group of
Native Hawaiian researchers and language experts from the Kū-A- Kanaka Indigenous Institute for Language and Culture. Based on Kahakalau (2017), The ANA‘ŌLELO is an innovative and culturally driven language tool that uses qualitative and quantitative data and is based on
Indigenous and heuristic action research, and Ma’awe Ponor, a non-linear Hawaiian methodology for data collection, analysis and production. It is designed to assess Hawaiian learners’ language proficiencies, prevent Hawaiian language death, and increase its use and
35 learning and is based on a Hawaiian perspective to reinforce Hawaiian native culture that assess the linguistic abilities of learners of Hawaiian as an additional language (Kahakalau, 2017).
2.8. Incorporating Indigenous Knowledges in Indigenous Research
In the following section, I explore the reasons for incorporating pertinent Indigenous knowledges in Indigenous research and language revitalization programs. Ray (2012) states that
Indigenous research is based on the worldviews and knowledges of the people involved, and it ensures relevance to the researcher and the Indigenous partners. Indigenous knowledges are an essential part of Indigenous research because they are adaptable, experiential, reciprocal, specific to locations and people, and different from conventional knowledge (Wilson, 2008). Indigenous knowledges are incorporated within Indigenous research—in language revitalization programs in particular—because they liberate Indigenous peoples and keep them safe from the harms of non-
Indigeneity and the impacts of colonization (Gerlach, Browne, & Suto, 2018). In doing so, the role of elders is highlighted in Indigenous research because they have emphasized that
Indigenous knowledges meet the needs of Indigenous communities and peoples (Munroe et al.,
2013) and teach lifelong responsibilities to Indigenous peoples (Battiste & Henderson, 2009).
As argued by Gilbert and Tillman (2017), Indigenous elders and knowledge keepers are consulted and incorporated into Indigenous research and education to provide a culturally responsive context. Jacob (2017) states that Indigenous Elders argue the real purpose of education is to prepare Indigenous learners as real human beings. To remind Yakama Indigenous peoples about the importance of education and language loss, Yakama elder Toxemias Virginal
Beaver (as cited in Hinton et al., 2018) stated:
My message to the Yakama people is that learning to read and write your own language
is very important. It is the only way to save your native language and culture for the
36 future generation. We are losing our elders every day as they depart to a better place . . .
encourage the younger generation to pursue an education, learn the language, teach their
children to speak, read and write Sahaptin, and do their part to help preserve the native
language and culture of the Sahaptin people. (p. xvii)
However, to embed these knowledges in Indigenous research and specifically in language revitalization programs, they need to be defined in terms of their contents and the processes through which they are gained. Little Bear (2009) states that content is whatever constitutes
Indigenous knowledges, such as language, land, ceremonies, rituals, songs and ways of knowing of a people, and process is the ways learners are prepared to know, accept and apply their
Indigenous knowledges. Moreover, the inclusion of Indigenous knowledges in research depends on the restoration and maintenance of the relationship that Indigenous peoples have with their culture (songs, ceremonies), symbols and artworks (Little Bear, 2009). As a consequence, as
Indigenous research restores and preserves Indigenous peoples’ traditions, lands, and religious practices and nurtures Indigenous economy and society (Gilbert & Tilman, 2017), researchers center their research on the needs of Indigenous peoples.
2.9. Indigenous Language Revitalization Methods
Indigenous language revitalization programs are developed to address language loss and maintain and revitalize Indigenous languages at home and in the academy. Aside from incorporating and creating new Indigenous words to capture the attention of young people
(Coronel-Molina & McCarty, 2016), these methods highlight the importance of teacher-training initiatives and help develop policies to revitalize and maintain Indigenous languages (McIvor &
Anisman, 2018). In the following section, I discuss language revitalization methods that I have categorized into immersion programs or language nest schools, bilingual schools, and
37 documentation and materials development.
2.9.1 Immersion Programs/Language Nest Schools
2.9.1.1. Home-Based Immersion. Collins (2004) argues that from Indigenous perspectives decontextualized teaching and learning do not comply with Indigenous holistic pedagogies. Thus, Indigenous learners are better educated holistically and in culturally and linguistically appropriate contexts that meet their needs (Munroe et al., 2013). Accordingly, the most effective place for language revitalization is at home and through a bottom-up process
(Nettle & Romaine, 2000), through immersion programs (Hinton, 2011), and home-based immersion programs (Hermes, 2007; McIvor & Anisman, 2018). Also, the most common home- based methods are the Master-Apprentice method, Mohawk Adult Immersion, and Accelerated
Second Language Acquisition (Hinton et al., 2018; McIvor & Anisman, 2018).
In the Master-Apprentice method, there is a master—a fluent speaker—and one or more apprentices who live, work and engage in everyday activities together over a long period of time
(Tsunoda, 2006). The master and apprentice spend a considerable amount of time together to expose learners to the Indigenous language. One of the philosophies behind the Master-
Apprentice method is that young women make the most effective learners/apprentices because they spend most of their time with their children at home and, thus, are an asset to inter- generational transmission (Reyhner et al., 1999). Although the Master-Apprentice method are effective in creating fluent speakers (Reyhner & Lockard, 2009) and in maintaining and revitalizing Indigenous languages with few speakers, it requires a great amount of money and human resources to be implemented (Hinton, 2012).
2.9.1.2. School-Based Immersion Program. Educational institutions can play a successful role in the improvement and revitalization of Indigenous languages. For instance, the
38 Maoris and Hawaiians launched the first school-based and K–12 immersion programs and after- school classes as two successful practices of school-based immersion programs (Hinton, 2012).
In these programs, learners attend school and learn different sciences in their Indigenous languages as the medium of instruction. However, based on Reyhner and Eder (2004), to improve the success of these school-based programs, researchers pay attention to the principles of effective teaching, emphasize communication over grammar, use real and realistic contexts, use content of high-interest to Indigenous learners, pace language instruction based on students’ progress, and use modeling to correct students’ mistakes.
2.9.1.3. Successful Immersion Schools in Canada. There are a few Immersion schools in Canada that have helped revitalize and maintain Indigenous languages. The first Indigenous language immersion school in Canada was launched in the 1970s in the Mohawk of Kahnawakè, in which an Indigenous teacher accelerated the revitalization of Kanien’keha (the Mohawk language) at the University of Québec. Later, school decision-makers at Kahnawakè Education
Center launched a K–6 immersion school—Karonhianonhnha Tsi Ionterihwaiensthakwa—and a
Grade 7–11 Kahnawakè Survival School to teach the Mohawk language, history, and culture to their students. Additionally, an adult Indigenous immersion program is run in conjunction with
Mohawk immersion preschools to produce a new generation of Mohawk people who speak their
Indigenous language (Hinton et al., 2018).
There is an immersion Mi’kmaq language program at Eskasoni Elementary and Middle
School in Nova Scotia that offers K–2 classes before Mi’kmaq students are transitioned to the
English-medium program. Additionally, there is Kina’matnewey, another Mi’kmaq school, that offers classes in the Indigenous Mi’kmaq language all year round. It has been reported that students in these programs have strong Mi’kmaq and English language skills (Usborne et al.,
39 2011). The largest Indigenous language in Canada is Cree, which is spoken from Québec to the
Rocky Mountains in British Columbia. According to Bell et al. (2004), the two famous Cree immersion schools are the Atikameg Sovereign School at Whitefish Lake First Nation in northern Alberta, which offers a K–2 program with the highest percentage of proficiency in the community, and the Onion Lake Cree Nation Kihew Waciston School in Saskatchewan, which offers Cree language classes to 65 students in full-immersion classes.
As traditional hunters and gatherers whose economy was disturbed by the introduction of the cash economy, Cree people are the largest Indigenous peoples in Canada, who have maintained their Indigenous language and Indigeneity. As reported by McIvor and McCarty
(2017), the first Indigenous-medium school was founded in eastern Cree territories, which led to the launch of a syllabic-based Cree-medium education for the first time. Cree Way Immersion
School was founded in 1973 on the eastern shore of James Bay in Quebec and develops materials in the language and Indigeneity of Cree people. Although the Cree have had a writing system for over a century, to save the Cree traditional way of living and to link it with that of Euro-
Canadians, they successfully created the Cree Way Project (Reyhner, 2006). Furthermore, to prevent Cree language loss, a pre-school immersion program was opened in 1988 followed by a
Cree high school, where half of all teaching staff are Indigenous Cree educators (Coronel-Molina
& McCarty, 2016). In this school, Cree learners learn their Indigenous language through cultural experiences across four bush camping experiences that provide opportunities for students to learn the Cree way of hunting, ceremonies, cooking, beading, trapping, construction, and hide-tanning
(Reyhner, 2006).
Michel (2012) states that the Chief Atahm School in B.C. is a very successful Indigenous immersion school in which Secwepemc is spoken. It was founded by a small number of
40 Indigenous mothers and elders to develop an immersion program for Indigenous children to learn the Secwepemc language. The Chief Atahm School offers a language nest, K–3 immersion, and
Grades 4–7 bilingual education (McIvor & Parker, 2016; Michel, 2012). The staff at the Chief
Atahm School are adult second language learners who are highly proficient in the Secwepemc language and can develop curriculum in their language. Furthermore, there are summer immersion programs offered for language teachers and other communities (McIvor & McCarty,
2017).
2.9.2. Bilingual Schools
Raising a bilingual child is a serious matter for many families because it means either the education system has done a great job, or the child happens to be in a situation where they can acquire the language. Thus, it is safe to argue that bilingual schools contribute greatly to
Indigenous language revitalization practices in First Nations communities (McIvor & McCarty,
2017). However, Hinton and Hale (2013) argue that parents who raise bilingual children often make the mistake of communicating with the child in the dominant language and only using the
Indigenous language when teaching it. In this case, they further, the child’s language may be limited to knowing numbers, colours, and the names of a few animals, which has led to critics doubting the effectiveness of bilingual schools (Hinton & Hale, 2013). Although a well- implemented bilingual program can lead to positive outcomes (McCarty, 2002), Indigenous learners are advised against bilingual schools because, if the program is not administered appropriately, these schools are likely to promote full-English language development among learners (Kipp, 2000). To appreciate this language revitalization method, and to discuss some of the language revitalization programs that have successfully met the Indigenous language revitalization needs of their stakeholders, in the next section, I present several full bilingual
41 schools in the US and Canada.
2.9.2.1. Rough Rock Demonstration School. Rough Rock Demonstration School
(RRDS) school was established by Roessel, a Navajo scholar, and her husband, and is the first
Navajo community school (Lee, 2006) to help Navajo people revitalize their Indigenous language and improve their wellbeing, self-image and culture (Reyhner, 2006). As the first
Indigenous school in the US to combat poverty (Reyhner & Eder, 2004), RRDS was established in 1966 and administered by Indigenous peoples to produce books in Navajo (McCarty, 2002). It began with 220 students and most stayed in the dormitory on school grounds. This school became a successful example for other Navajo and Indigenous schools in the US that aimed to provide Indigenous education, training to Indigenous teachers, and the production of materials for Indigenous students and schools.
2.9.2.2. Hualapai Bilingual/Bicultural Program. Founded in 1975, Hualapai School serves the Hualapai Indigenous people in the US by offering a K–12 public school in Peach
Spring, Arizona (McCarty & Watahomigie, 1998). In this school, teachers, materials, the writing system, and instructional methods are developed based on the Indigeneity of the Hualapai people. Hinton and Kale (2013) report that Hualapai Bilingual school was nationally recognized as a successful effort in Indigenous curriculum development, native-language literacy, interactive instructional technology, and co-operation between local community members and academic linguists. This occurred because the staff in this program developed grammar, a dictionary, children’s literature, and thematic language for their Indigenous people to learn their language more effectively. Furthermore, this school provided a technology teaching component that involved students in videography and computer publishing (McCarty et al., 2010).
2.9.2.3. Lower Kuskokwim Bilingual Programs. Since its introduction in the 1970s,
42 Lower Kuskokwim bilingual programs (LKSD) has continued in Bethel, Alaska, and offers bilingual K–12 classes in the Yup’ik-Cup’ig Indigenous language and other regional languages for the Yup’ik-Cup’ig people. Students are taught by Yup’ik-Cup’ig elders—qanruyutait—in their Indigenous language for the first three years, followed by optional language courses when
English takes over as the medium of instruction (Wyman et al., 2010). LKSD incorporates immersion and dual language programs, and promotes “additive bilingualism, foster[s] positive attitudes toward the minority language and result[s] in high levels of proficiency in both language and academic achievement” (Siekmann et al., 2017, p. 4). It is argued by Charles
(2005) that successful learning of the Yup’ik language at the university level improves participants’ language mastery over writing grammar and empowers them as educators and confident professionals.
2.9.2.4. American Indian Language Development Institute. The American Indian
Language Development Institute (AILDI) was founded in the 1970s by Lucille Watahomigie,
Leanne Hinton, and John Rouillard to find appropriate training for Indigenous peoples who felt the need to incorporate their Indigenous language into their school. AILDI is based on Cummins’
(1992) empowerment framework, which calls for an additive approach to bilingual-bicultural schooling, local control, interactive language learning, and advocacy-oriented language assessment. AILDI has been replicated for many Indigenous languages in Canada and the US
(McCarty, Watahomigie, Yamamoto, & Zepeda, 2001) and has incorporated Indigenous linguistic and cultural knowledges into school curricula. Hinton et al. (2018) argue that this program is focused on Native American language and linguistics, and curriculum and materials development; and has asserted Indigenous students’ identity, language, and cultures; and, finally, has supported students’ academic performance (McCarty et al., 2001).
43 2.9.2.5. Oklahoma Native American Language Development Institute. Coronel-
Molina and McCarty (2016) state that the Oklahoma Native American Language Development
Institute (ONALDI) and the Oklahoma Native Language Association Workshops were modelled after AILDI and founded in 1992 by Akira Yamamoto and Carl Downing Jr. to create and conduct workshops on specific language-related topics such as linguistics, description, literature, and innovative teaching approaches. In this program, courses are designed on the theories of language teaching and on developing student-centered and culturally relevant materials based on
Indigenous languages. Participants learn how languages are structured and acquired by children, how to write grammatical reports about their favorite languages, how to design plans for a bilingual-bicultural curriculum, and how to develop context-appropriate language teaching materials to be delivered by Indigenous instructors (Hinton & Hale, 2013).
In ONALDI, a Native Language Use Conference is held to allow collaboration between community members and practitioners and promotes the exchange of language-learning success stories toward improving language revitalization programs. Hinton (2015) argues that ONALDI has been a successful program in terms of preparing and helping language teachers refine their
Indigenous-based curricula and design new teaching materials based on Indigenous knowledges.
Hinton and Hale (2013) state that in the ONALDI program, participants can use their own experiences to begin new programs or enhance existing programs. In the evaluation of ONALDI, it is recommended that language teachers, community members and academic linguists engage in continued learning opportunities.
2.9.2.6. Northwest Indian Language Institute. The Northwest Indian Language
Institute (NILI) was founded in 1997 and followed AILDI at the University of Oregon. The NILI runs programs around cultural and place-based teachings to meet the needs of the Indigenous
44 peoples of Oregon and Washington. Hinton et al. (2018) state that the NILI trains teachers; develops and assesses Indigenous curricula through workshops and projects; and, finally, provides a context for Indigenous learners in academia to learn their Indigenous language and converse in them in groups and Indigenous language classes. Additionally, the NILI helps revitalize endangered Indigenous languages by launching language revitalization programs at the local, regional, and state level. With its six learning levels defined in terms of speakers’ conversational ability on certain topics (O’Grady, 2017), the NILI concentrates on the Pacific
Northwest of the United States and promotes a central tenet of identity through learning that focuses on culture-place-based learning to help learners revitalize their worldviews and lifestyles
(Hinton et al., 2018).
2.9.2.7. Canadian Indigenous Language and Literature Development Institute. The
Canadian Indigenous Language and Literature Development Institute (CILLDI) was founded in 2000 by the University of Alberta to prepare Indigenous community members to document, describe and teach the endangered Indigenous languages of Canada across intensive summer classes spanning 15 days. According to Coronel-Molina and McCarty (2016), CILLDI offers a holistic approach through which Indigenous cultures are intertwined with Indigenous languages at the Institute to create an atmosphere where participants can feel at home. At
CILIDI, education, linguistics, training with recording equipment and data management software are offered to Indigenous peoples. Additionally, Indigenous participants are granted a
Community Linguist Certificate or Aboriginal Language Instructor Certificate that helps them initiate language revitalization programs into the future (Coronel-Molina & McCarty, 2016).
These are successful in developing communicative approaches; immersion techniques; culturally significant thematic, place-based curricula; language teaching materials; and, finally, literature.
45 Apart from all these programs, undergraduate and graduate degrees and certification programs have been designed and developed by linguists and their partner Indigenous communities to revitalize Indigenous languages.
2.9.2.8. Indigenous Language Revitalization Programs at the University of Victoria.
Five language revitalization programs have been designed and delivered at the University of Victoria. Out of these five, three are undergraduate programs that focus on the 34 Indigenous languages of First Nations in B.C.
2.9.2.8.1. Certificate in Indigenous Language Proficiency. The Certificate in Indigenous
Language Proficiency (CILP) is developed in partnership with the En'owkin Centre in British
Columbia, the Linguistics Department, and the Division of Continuing Studies at the University of Victoria. The CILP is a first-year credential in the larger Bachelor of Education in Indigenous
Language Revitalization (BEDILR) that offers a 15-unit certificate and focuses on building language proficiency in a specific Indigenous language. There is one year of full-time coursework on one required language course and two electives that focus on providing an understanding of language loss, maintenance and recovery. The CILP program draws on local expertise and language speakers, focuses on building oral proficiency, utilizes language mentorship methodologies, and is co-constructed with Indigenous community partners.
2.9.2.8.2. Certificate in Indigenous Language Revitalization. As an off-campus program, the Certificate in Indigenous Language Revitalization (CILR) was developed in collaboration and partnership with the Department of Linguistics, the En’owkin Centre of the
Okanagan Nation and the Cultural Resource management programs at the University of
Victoria’s Division of Continuing Studies. CILR supports Indigenous communities to take on language revitalization initiatives and honours Indigenous knowledges and practices through
46 studying language loss and strategies to develop successful programs. It provides the foundation for language learning, community language programming, linguistics, education and related areas.
2.9.2.8.3. Diploma in Indigenous Language Revitalization. The Diploma in Indigenous
Language Revitalization (DILR) is a community-based partnership program that supports those who want to build on their Indigenous language skills, better understand the contexts in which
Indigenous languages are successfully taught and gain some basic teaching skills. DILR is a two- year program that supports Indigenous communities and creates new speakers through accelerated language learning as well as builds proficiency and language competency in the target Indigenous language. Communities who have completed the CILP or CILR may consider a second year of programming focused on language learning to complete the DILR. Rodriguez de France (2013) reports that this program is for those who aim to obtain a teaching credential toward teaching an Indigenous language or those who wish to pursue their education through the
BEDILR program.
2.9.2.8.4. Bachelor of Education in Indigenous Language Revitalization. The Bachelor of Education in Indigenous Language Revitalization (BEDILR) is a community-based program that is designed for Indigenous community members in BC who aim to learn their Indigenous language and become teachers in their Indigenous communities. Those students who wish to participate in this program need to first complete a DILR program in their own Indigenous community and then pursue their goal at the University of Victoria for another three years before they graduate with a Bachelor of Education and teaching certification. According to McIvor et al.
(2018), the BEDILR was launched in 2010 at the University of Victoria and in two different communities to help Indigenous learners learn their language and gain skills and training to
47 become professionally certified teachers. The BEDILR works with and in Indigenous communities and uses Indigenous knowledges and instructors in its academic language revitalization program. The BEDILR has been delivered in W̱ ŚÁNEĆ and Kwakwaka’wakw and aims to revitalize the two Indigenous languages, SEN´COŦEN and Kwak’wala (McIvor et al.,
2018).
The BEDILR offers a flexible program in which Indigenous communities can focus on their specific language revitalization goals. In the first year, community partners can choose either option A, which leads to the CILR, or option B, which leads to the CILP. The BEDILR program offers courses in language shift and loss and its impacts on Indigenous families, communities and individuals. In the second year, Indigenous learners are introduced to language teaching contexts that can lead to the Bachelor of Education or can focus on building stronger speakers. The final three years focus on completing the coursework for the BEDILR and professional BC teaching certificate. This program was evaluated and analysed to determine the processes or contexts that influence its successful praxis. It was concluded that the BEDILR program is highly impacted by historical and value-based contexts and that proficient speakers learn from language immersion experiences and those who are less proficient learn more from instructor-initiated vocabulary and word-phrase recognition activities (McGregor & Claxton,
2014).
2.9.2.8.5. Graduate Programs in Indigenous Language Revitalization. The graduate programs in Indigenous Language Revitalization are the Graduate Certificate in Indigenous
Language Revitalization (designed to be completed over two terms), the Master of Arts in
Indigenous Language Revitalization, and the Master of Education in Indigenous Language
Revitalization. The graduate programs are offered jointly between the Faculty of Education,
48 Department of Indigenous Education, the Faculty of Humanities, and the Department of
Linguistics at the University of Victoria. They are developed to fulfill the academic and research needs of language communities and are “designed to bring together language champions [...] from diverse language backgrounds and communities across Canada to build strength in language advocacy and revitalisation strategies, Indigenous research methodologies, curriculum development and language acquisition expertise” (Czaykowska-Higgins et al., 2017, p. 7).
2.9.3. Documentation and Materials Development
In the case of languages with very few native speakers, documenting Indigenous languages is an important and effective method toward maintaining and revitalizing them. Austin
(2013) defines documentation as providing archivable copies of a language about its context, and
Hinton et al. (2018) argue that it is a systematically recorded representation of a language
(whether written or spoken) in an appropriate sociocultural context to provide a complete record of the linguistic characteristics of a language in a community. Hermes et al. (2012) argue that documentation practices and initiatives give more control to Indigenous communities to document their languages. In this method, a linguist accompanies Indigenous elders or people to record how they live and communicate with each other (Hinton, 2011) and gather data from many different contexts such as songs and poetry (Fitzgerald & Linn, 2013).
According to Hinton et al. (2018), documenting an endangered Indigenous language is performed through creating a written form of that endangered language using either the Roman alphabet or a novel one. One such case is the “Cherokee Syllabary”, which was devised in a critical period in American History to present Cherokee Indigenous peoples as compatible with mainstream American society. However, in terms of languages with no speakers, reconstitution
(i.e., inferring the language from what information exists) is used as a means of language
49 revitalization. For example, Esselen, an Indigenous language in California, and Acjachemem from the Uto-Aztecan language family, were documented through reconstitution due to the scarce documentation that had been conducted on them (Hinton & Hale, 2013). There are new methods at the disposal of language revitalizers to document and archive their Indigenous languages. Some of the new methods used include the use of new technologies; applications and websites (McIvor & Anisman, 2018) such as Dene languages apps for the Northwest Territories in Canada (Government of the Northwest Territories, 2012); audiotaping (Austin, 2013); and, finally, CDs, microfilms and movies (Morrison & Peterson, 2003).
Costa (2016) believes the importance of documentation should not be understated because if we fail to document endangered Indigenous languages, our future generations will look upon us with contempt. According to Walsh (2005) documentation should preside over revitalization because revitalization is an extremely time-consuming and expensive process and only anti-linguists and anti-research groups disdain documentation. However, Different scholars hold different stances toward documentation. For example, Woodbury (2003) believes documentation should be discourse-centered and Hill (2006) purports it should comprise language ideology and argues it is an enduring process of recording a language for multiple reasons. Schwartz and Dobrin (2016) argue that documentaiton and revitalization have emanated from linguistics to preserve endangered languages. Despite that, Hinton et al. (2018) argue that documentation of endangered languages used to be a kind of salvage linguistics and the linguist would not actively involve the participants in the research. That has changed and now participants are usually incorporated within research as the researcher would sometimes end up misrepresenting that speaker and community (Reyhner & Eder, 2004).
Regardless of those different views on documentation, its content varies based on the
50 accepted definition of a language. Grenoble and Furbee (2010) state that the relationship a linguist or researcher develops with community members is a vital part of the documentation process because community and documentation go hand in hand (Hill, 2006). Therefore, to collaboratively document a language with a community, a linguist or language revitalizer creates intermediate models, with the native speakers of the language, available both for linguists and the community in case they wish to revise them (Grenoble & Furbee, 2010).
2.10. Successful Language Revitalization
Language revitalization is being devised and implemented among Indigenous and/or minority communities. In this section, I explore what success means from the perspective of some Indigenous communities.
2.10.1. Successful Language Revitalization from a Community Perspective
As argued by Reyhner and Lockard (2009), language revitalization programs begin from within different Indigenous communities and are established around realistic goals (Grenoble &
Whaley, 2006). Thus, their success is interpreted differently and relies on the Indigeneity of the peoples in the program. For example, Hinton (2015) believes success is a matter of small steps and requires not only passion and dedication from inside the community but needs tribal recognition from outside the community.
2.10.1.1. Conducting Language Revitalization in the Community. Rau (2008) argues that upon the arrival of European settlers, Indigenous peoples (along with their languages and
Pedagogies) began to be regarded as inferior compared with the settlers. One result of such disregard was a mandate that enforced Indigenous families to send their children to residential schools to be educated in European languages and sciences, which was executed with total avoidance of students’ Indigenous knowledges and languages (Truth and Reconciliation
51 Commission of Canada [TRC], 2015). As the official language policy in Canada and the US is full of colonization legacies (Hermes et al., 2012), Indigenous peoples were excluded from their communities and decontextualized non-Indigenous knowledges were imposed on them.
However, Task Force on Indigenous Languages and Cultures (2005) emphasizes the importance of Indigenous peoples’ voices being heard, their various Indigenous languages highlighted, and their communities incorporated into language revitalization programs (Norris, 2006).
Therefore, according to Loewen and Suhonen (2018), Indigenous language revitalization program is successful when it develops and implements Indigenous curricula to decolonize
Indigenous communities, and exposes Indigenous learners to their Indigenous holistic pedagogy
(Fontaine, 2017). That way, it successfully focuses on the ethical concerns of Indigenous worldviews, the components of Indigenous behaviour, and the needs of a given community
(Lafrance & Nichols, 2010). Additionally, it focuses on learning an Indigenous language (Luo et al., 2000) and enables language revitalizers to shed light on and remove the incorrect presuppositions regarding Indigenous peoples (McCarty et al., 2005). Thus, language revitalization developers incorporate Indigenous knowledges, methodologies, communities, and elders in their curricula to create speakers who are not only fluent (Reyhner & Lockard, 2009) but well-informed about their Indigeneity and can hand down their languages along with their epistemologies and ontologies to their next generations (Gerlach et al., 2018).
This is because the community is a haven that provides enough exposure for Indigenous learners, exposes Indigenous peoples to their holistic education and enables them to communicate with their Indigenous language (McGregor & Claxton, 2014). The importance of community in the success of language revitalization can be witnessed in the revival of Hebrew in
Israel. As a dead language for a long period of time, Hebrew was successfully revived only when
52 it had become the home and community language of millions of Jewish people (Schwartz &
Dobrin, 2016).
An Indigenous language revitalization program is successful when it connects learners to their Indigenous cultural backgrounds, life experiences and community members’ ways of living.
Also, it is designed holistically to revitalize the Indigeneity of the people through implementing
Indigenous stories (Archibald, 2001), environmental topics (Hunter, 2005), and songs and traditions (Battiste & Henderson, 2009). For example, in Sweden, Nutti (2018) implements a language revitalization program on Sami’s grouse hunting theme of trap making, snow-depth measurement, and traditional body measurement. Also, in their language program in Arizona,
Hopi children learn their Hopi language, identity and Indigenous values through qatsitwi, or
Hopi cultural practices and ceremonies (McCarty & Nicholas, 2014). Furthermore, an
Indigenous language revitalization program is successful when its developers and language revitalizers provide opportunities to learn from Indigenous elders and incorporate them into language revitalization programs (Gilbert & Tillman, 2017). That way, Indigenous learners spend time with elders to learn their Indigenous rituals, practices and ceremonies and learn to become a real human being (Jacob, 2017). Consequently, it is critical for language revitalization developers to incorporate their elders, communities, rituals, and identity in their programs.
2.10.2. Successful Language Revitalization from an Academic Perspective
Fishman (1991) argues that the best place to maintain and revive Indigenous languages is in the community, as this ensures intergenerational transmission of these languages occurs.
However, it is effective to investigate the possibility of administering Indigenous language revitalization programs at school and whether universities can be change agents in revitalizing
Indigenous languages. In that sense, based on Gaudry and Lorenze (2018), Canadian universities
53 have made great progress toward Indigenization, the inclusion of Indigenous peoples, and communities, which was done through hiring Indigenous academics and valuing Indigenous knowledges. Given this, the current literature on the academic performance of Indigenous peoples needs to be delineated.
Pidgeon (2016) sates that 8% of First Nations students in Canada attain post-secondary education. That could be attributed to education systems as they are “extensions of settler colonial logics and power structures” (Jacob, 2017, p. 2). Thus, it is safe to argue that a successful language revitalization program should shed light on the fact that Indigenous knowledges and non-Indigenous knowledge come from different sources (Owiny et al., 2014).
Additionally, an education system is successful when it acknowledges the current education systems are interwoven with racism and social inequalities (Collins, 2004), as well as when it incorporates Indigenous peoples and their knowledges into curricula. In contrast to this view,
Rau (2008) criticizes those who attribute the under-achievement of Indigenous students in non-
Indigenous education systems to the inherent deficiencies of Indigenous peoples. This has been proven to be an unsubstantiated proposition because Navajo-speaking children who are taught in their mother tongue and English outperform those who are taught only in the dominant language of their society (Lee & McLaughlin, 2001). Thus, successful langauge revitalization will make should incorporate Indigenous peoples and their languages within the curricula so that
Indigenous peoples find it more akin to their Indigeneities and pedagogies.
Moreover, the findings from a study in Hawai’i indicate that learners thrive in a culture- based education as it revives the Indigenous languages and knowledges that were lost by colonization (Kana‘iaupuni et al., 2017). There exists a positive relationship between speaking
Indigenous languages and having good health (Hinton et al., 2018), and between Indigenous land
54 and culture along with the general wellbeing of Indigenous speakers (McIvor, Napoleon, &
Dickie, 2009; Oster, Grier, Lightning, Mayan, & Toth, 2014). Furthermore, there is a reduced level of diabetes (Oster et al., 2014) and suicide (Hallett et al., 2007) among the First Nations of
Canada who can speak their Indigenous language. Jenni et al. (2017) report that cultural and spiritual healing, gaining positions of leadership in an Indigenous community, and using the language as a coping mechanism can have positive effects on the wellbeing of Indigenous learners. On top of the arguments so far outlined, is the notion that successful Indigenous language revitalization programs in academia build effective relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous knowledges. However, Loewen and Suhonen (2018) state that more research should be done to combine Indigenous knowledges and Western knowledge in a formalized way.
Therefore, an Indigenous language revitalization program is successful in academia when it provides a framework to incorporate the role that Indigenous peoples and their Indigeneity play in academic contexts (Glenn, 2015).
2.10.2.1. Conducting Language Revitalization Programs in Academia. Although
Indigenous languages have been lost or are currently severely endangered, Indigenous peoples have resisted the linguistic genocide of their languages (McCarty et al., 2005; Skutnabb-Kangas,
& Dunbar, 2010) through developing language revitalization programs. These programs benefit from the Indigeneity of the Indigenous communities and their cultures (McCarty, 2002) and provide answers to their problems. Along with that, academic institutions have moved towards decolonizing Indigenous education from non-Indigenous knowledges and incorporating real-life contexts and pedagogies (Munroe et al., 2013) that help universities and Indigenous communities co-operate with each other to meet the needs of the parties involved. One of those ways is designing and delivering Indigenous language revitalization programs because there is a
55 relationship between Indigenous language revitalization and decolonization (Alfred &
Corntassel, 2005).
It is through the said relationship that universities provide opportunities for Indigenous peoples to protect and teach their languages and knowledges and better govern themselves
(Gaudry & Lorenz, 2018). Regarding that, in the 1960s, and with the establishment of Native
Education and Native Studies programs, Indigenous higher education began in Canadian universities, and, since the 1970s, the participation of Indigenous peoples in Canadian higher education has been improving (Pidgeon, 2016). This, for example, is seen in the increasing number of Indigenous language revitalization programs in Canada. However, based on
Kuokkanen (2008), Indigenization in research commenced from the early 2000s to contribute to academic knowledge through Indigenous inclusion, decolonial Indigenization, and reconciliation
Indigenization.
Indigenous inclusion is defined by Gaudry and Lorenz (2018) as increasing the number of Indigenous students, faculty, staff, and adopting elders and knowledge keepers into Canadian academic institutions. They further that reconciliation is finding a common ground for
Indigenous and Canadian ideals to re-describe the concept of knowledge and the relationship between academia and Indigenous communities to reconcile Indigenous and non-Indigenous knowledges. Finally, they add that it is through decolonial Indigenization that the academy turns into a progressive environment whereby non-European knowledges based on a balanced power relationship among Indigenous peoples and Canadians can be produced. Decolonial
Indigenization includes treaty-based and resurgence-based decolonial Indigenization that recognizes Indigenous political independence and acknowledges the sovereignty of both
Canadians and the First Nations of Canada in Canadian academic institutions (Gaudry & Lorenz,
56 2018).
This leads to more successful Indigenous language revitalization programs in academic institutions as they include Indigenous materials and incorporate Indigenous elders and educators in their curricula (McGregor, 2012). Academic institutions adopt resurgence-based decolonial
Indigenization to design language revitalization programs, re-build Indigenous cultures and reconnect Indigenous peoples to their worlds and languages (Matsunaga, 2016), and provide opportunities to embed Indigenous cultural values and languages in their curricula (Tsunoda,
2006). For example, in Alaska, a curriculum is designed and implemented in which Indigenous parents and educators collaborate in teaching mathematics through Indigenous cultural values
(Hinton et al., 2018). Therefore, based on Keskitalo et al. (2014), successful Indigenous language revitalization programs in academic institutions explore Indigenous cultural values and epistemologies, bridge school and Indigenous communities, use Indigenous educators, and assess the program using a culturally sensitive methodology. Additionally, Flores Farfán (2012) argue that Indigenous language revitalization programs are mindful of the differences among
Indigenous peoples and develop materials to trigger Indigenous peoples’ passive language.
However, there are limitations that, if removed, would contribute to more effective development of future language revitalization in academic institutions. For example,
Czaykowska-Higgins et al. (2017) state that the existing academic regulations constrain the employment opportunities of Indigenous instructors, and financial problems and distance from the community challenge the design and delivery of the program. As the inclusion of Indigenous knowledges in academia may not be favored by everyone, it is effective to design locally developed mixed curricula that encompass Indigenous teachings and provides opportunities for
Indigenous and non-Indigenous people to mutually learn from each other. Therefore, when
57 designing the Indigenous language revitalization programs at the University of Victoria,
Czaykowska-Higgins et al. (2017) argue that modifications are done to re-design the program to be a more flexible one that offers practical workshops and incorporates Indigenous mentors and educators more.
In conclusion, in this chapter I presented a summary of language loss and shift and the advent of language revitalization programs. I then discussed assessment, and Indigenous assessment criteria in particular. Diverse methods of language revitalization were presented in this chapter, and the concept of success in Indigenous language revitalization programs in academia and the community was discussed, along with a discussion of the language revitalization programs at the University of Victoria. In the next chapter, I present a discussion on the methodology in my doctoral dissertation, accompanied by some Indigenous research methodologies.
58 Chapter Three
Methodology
3.1. Introduction In this chapter, I discuss the acknowledgment of “others” in research followed by a discussion on Indigenous research methodologies in language revitalization and definitions of epistemology, ontology, and axiology. I also discuss the importance of conducting research based on the Indigeneity of the participants involved in it. I present why participatory action research (PAR) and community-based participatory research (CBPR) are the most effective research methodologies in my doctoral research. The final sections of the chapter outline the theoretical framework, analytical approach, and the grounded theory adopted in my research.
3.2. Acknowledging the ‘Other’
Research methodologies are representations of schools of thought through which our ways of thinking are revealed. However, academic research methodologies derive from Western ways of knowing and have molded Western researchers’ ways of thinking, which have ultimately excluded non-Western points of view. In his seminal book, Orientalism, Edward Said (1978) asserts the Orient has been undermined through imaginative construction of ideas formulated by the non-Orient and that this needs to be changed through acknowledging “the Other”. Within the same context, the need to delve into peoples’ worldviews is well justified as a more appropriate perspective toward conducting research and developing appropriate research methodologies within them. Thus, I argue that as the current methodologies do not necessarily represent all peoples’ worldviews, they should be replaced with methodologies that derive from the very
59 people involved in the research.
Smith (2012) argues the research conducted in Indigenous contexts has contributed to the colonization of the Indigenous peoples and has induced enormous cultural and linguistic losses.
Some of the research among Indigenous peoples has been conducted by researchers of non-
Indigenous background. This has occurred through rejecting and “othering” peoples whose ways of knowing are considered inferior. However, according to Brant Castellano (2004), research purposes were unknown for Indigenous peoples and researchers conducted it without their consent (Mosby, 2013). As a result of this, some researchers ended up misrepresenting
Indigenous peoples and their communities (Reyhner & Eder, 2004). This could happen in situations in which different people co-exist with each other and one group or individual has the will to understand (or dominate) the other (Said, 1978). In the same line of argument, it is safe to argue that Indigenous peoples were considered ‘other’ due to their idiosyncratic worldviews, ontologies and knowledges, and were excluded from research.
At the same time, Rodriguez de France (2013) states that Indigenous peoples have asserted the need to provide an appropriate education for their children who have been challenged by non-Indigenous ways of knowing. Thus, if one wishes to know about Indigenous cultures and ways of knowing, one needs to see the world through that Indigenous lens. This, otherwise, leads to devaluing the worldviews of the people in question. Accordingly, it is recommended by Rosborough and Rorick (2017) that researchers introduce themselves when they are about to commence their research in an Indigenous context. Thus, I did so to encourage my participants’ relationship from the outset and base the methodology of my doctoral research on the Indigeneity of the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community. Additionally, I did that to obtain a knowledge that is, as argued by Absolon (2011), Indigenous in nature and different from the positivist
60 presumptions in Euro-western research.
3.3. The Importance of Indigenous Research Methodologies in Language Revitalization
However, Wilson (2008) argues researchers have increasingly acknowledged the necessity of Indigenous peoples’ involvement in research, and Singh and Major (2017) have emphasized that researchers not to adopt research methodologies that perpetuate the colonization of Indigenous peoples. That is achieved through involving Indigenous peoples in research as partners to generate knowledge that affects their culture, identity, and health (Brant Castellano,
2004). With that regard, Indigenous scholars in Canada and the United States explore key
Indigenous terminologies and capture the Indigeneity of the people involved in the research which help build genuine trust between researchers and Indigenous participants (Kovach, 2015).
According to Brant Castellano (2004), Indigenous scholars indicate the integrity of research must be validated by Indigenous peoples as they have different approaches to knowledge creation and information gathering. Indigenous scholars use their own Indigenous methodologies, methods, and cultural values as they emanate from a relational accountability or ways through which relationships with the world are achieved (Wilson, 2008). Furthermore,
Kovach (2015) indicates that Indigenizing methodologies go beyond placing the term
“Indigenous” in front of Western concepts. I believe researchers should spend a significant amount of time with the Indigenous people involved in their research and rely on their worldviews and Indigeneity, lived experiences, and interests. However, Martin (2003) argues this does not imply rejecting or opposing Western research frameworks, but Indigenous and non-
Indigenous methodologies can be woven into Indigenous knowledges to help Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers alike—or, indeed, anyone who chooses to incorporate them in their research (Wilson, 2007). This is because Indigenous methodologies advocate empathy, respect,
61 and the ethical treatment of participants (Kovach, 2015). Therefore, and relying on my own
Indigeneity as a Bakhtiari, I believe researchers should base their research on the way a people live and situate themselves in the world. In this sense, I argue to conduct Indigenous research calls for a discussion on its building concepts, ontology, epistemology, axiology, methodology and knowledges, which open the door to a more informed appreciation of Indigenous pedagogies and Indigenous peoples as “others” (Said, 1978). Given that, in the following section, I will discuss epistemology, ontology, and axiology from an Indigenous stance.
3.3.1. Epistemology
There is an epistemology underlying every research worldview. Foucault (1972) believes epistemology is a cultural archive where people are differentiated, and Little Bear (2009) states it is the theory of knowledge in philosophies. Martin (2017) argues that epistemology is the way one comes to know something through the interconnections between the world, spirit, and inanimate beings, and Somekh and Lewin (2005) argue that epistemology encompasses the philosophical questions regarding the nature of knowledge and truth. Similarly, Thayer-Bacon
(2003) argues that Indigenous epistemology is a relational epistemology that focuses on relational knowledge while Wilson (2008) believes it is systems of knowledge and the relationships between them. Thus, Indigenous research follows cultural teachings that emerge from traditional languages, dreams, visions and intuition (Hart, 2010). For me, the following anecdote from my Persian culture captures the meaning of epistemology well:
There lived a Dervish with many devout students who would take every opportunity to
learn from their guru by following him around the city. In Ramadan, when Muslims fast
from dawn to dusk, the Dervish in question was passing through a neighborhood where
people with leprosy were ghettoed so as not to inflict their disease on the rest of the city.
62 As the Dervish was passing through and providing the poor and hungry with some food, a
person with leprosy invited him over to eat with them. The Dervish willingly accepted
and ate with his host. At dusk, when fasting Muslims break their fast, the Dervish prayed
to his God and begged Him to accept his fasting on that day! One of his students raged
and accused him of hypocrisy because he had seen him eat earlier that day! The Dervish
calmly replied, “that it is something between my God and me! I did not eat that poor
leprotic person’s food because of hunger; I ate with him because my God has forbidden
breaking His folks’ heart. Had I not eaten with that leprotic person; he would have
thought I was being egotistical.”
The Dervish in question had built a relationship with his God that meant even though he had eaten with the person, he knew his God would still accept his fasting in Ramadan. Thus, there was a relational knowledge this Dervish had developed with his Creator. Such relational epistemology is the knowledge that a people acquire through experience and living in the world and as argued by Getty (2010), is represented in their language, rituals, traditions and myths.
Underwood (2017) states that based on W̱ SÁNEĆ epistemology, life and actions are considered holistic, and one’s epistemology is the knowledge one acquires through living in a cultural context: speaking a language and living in an environment that enables a person to know something. The following is a maxim in Persian that analogizes epistemology to the knowledge an Elder holds in relation to those who lack it: “Sometimes an elder sees something vividly in a brick that a young person cannot see in a mirror.” In other words, something an elder sees in a brick is their epistemology or how they know the things they know.
3.3.1.1. The W̱ ŚÁNEĆ Knowledge and Epistemology Swallow (2005) investigates the
63 W̱ ŚÁNEĆ knowledge and reports that the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ people need to maintain their relationship with their elders as they hold the Indigenous knowledge system that signifies their history and sense of belonging and responsibility. He continues that this knowledge provides spiritual teachings that help the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ people understand their resources and interactions with places.
The importance of the SENĆOŦEN language is highlighted for the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ people because it carries the knowledge of place names with culturally significant meaning. It enlightens the
W̱ ŚÁNEĆ people with respect to their history, teachings, ceremonies, values, stories, and identity. As with other peoples, the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ people benefit from learning their language because it is positively linked with the general health and wellbeing of Indigenous peoples and communities (Jenni, Anisman, McIvor, & Jacobs, 2017). In the same line of argument, Claxton
(2015) states the importance of the SENĆOŦEN language is seen in its inclusive vocabulary— such as CELANEN, which connotates family, history, belonging, and teaching with place—and its specific meanings to given locations and environments. For example, the word for “Mt.
Tolmie” in SENĆOŦEN can approximately be translated as “of snow” because it is usually a snow-covered mountain.
3.3.1.1.1. The W̱ SÁNEĆ Reef Net Fishery or SXOLE. According to Claxton (2015), the
W̱ SÁNEĆ Reef Net Fishery is more than just a fishing method; it is a representation of the
W̱ SÁNEĆ people’s worldview, epistemology, and identity and is founded on deeply spiritual respect for the salmon they fish. Additionally, the Reef Net Fishery includes the W̱ SÁNEĆ knowledge of the SENĆOŦEN language and is used to decolonize the W̱ SÁNEĆ people and teachings from that of non-W̱ SÁNEĆ. As an environmentalist people, the W̱ SÁNEĆ and their knowledge are deeply connected to the place, land, and sea around them, and the W̱ SÁNEĆ Reef
Net Fishery is a foundational component of the W̱ SÁNEĆ education as it allows the W̱ SÁNEĆ
64 people to live harmoniously in their marine and terrestrial environments. One of the features of the W̱ SÁNEĆ Reef Net Fishery is in its design of halibut hooks, which are capable of catching only a halibut of a certain size or larger and would not hook or catch if the halibut is smaller than this size.
3.3.1.1.2. Saanich Seasonal Cycle. The seasonal cycle for the W̱ S̱ ÁNEĆ people was outlined by Dave Elliott Sr. (1990) and is vital in understanding the W̱ SÁNEĆ epistemology, pedagogy, and lifestyle. The first month of the spring season is WEXES (frog) and it was the time when frogs came to life and herring came to the W̱ S̱ ÁNEĆ territory. In the past, when the first herring came, the elders would not allow anyone to hunt them as they believed those early herrings were scouts. Instead, they encouraged everybody to wait for the mature herring, which would stay for a month or even longer. The W̱ S̱ ÁNEĆ people would put the herring on cedar branches, save them for the winter and then use them to make kippers or smoked gutted herring.
In this month, the W̱ S̱ ÁNEĆ people would hunt ducks using their duck nests to gather their feathers for mattresses, bedding and insulation.
The next month is SXANEL (April), which is also known as bullhead. It is the time when birds arrive and the winter storms have passed. It was also the time the W̱ S̱ ÁNEĆ people would go to their houses in what is today the state of Washington. During SXANEL and PEXSISEN
(May), W̱ S̱ ÁNEĆ men would go hunting deer and elk and would prepare for their porpoise hunts. By the end of PEXSISEN, the W̱ S̱ ÁNEĆ people would go further inside their territory to stay longer on the island. Next is PENAWEN, the harvest time. This was a time when the
W̱ S̱ ÁNEĆ people ate eggs and picked LEKES (seaweed) and spread it out in the sun to dry. At the end of the harvest period, the W̱ S̱ ÁNEĆ people would prepare for the hot summer days to come and think of the salmon that would be there by late June. They would then save the salmon
65 and store it for the winter. During the summer, the men would hunt, and the women would pick berries and find bulrush to make mats for tents or to sit and sleep on. They would also gather cedar bark to make baskets and ropes. The whole summer period is known as CENQALES, a time of heat.
Mid-summer was called CENHENEN, and it was the time when the humpback whales arrived and when the W̱ S̱ ÁNEĆ people would go hunting salmon and seal. To hunt seal, the
W̱ S̱ ÁNEĆ mimicked the animal’s sound to attract them and then, when they were close enough, they would harpoon them. Around September, the W̱ S̱ ÁNEĆ people would harvest the TAWEN
(the Coho) with Reef Net Fishery and would expect the arrival of the QOLEW (dog or chum).
When it came, it was the time of PEKELANEW, and by then, the salmon had arrived. The next month is known as WESELANEW (shaker of the leaves), which was the month that witnessed the changing colours of the leaves and their fall to the ground. The next month is known as
SJELCASEN, and this is when the W̱ S̱ ÁNEĆ people would settle down and prepare for the winter period. It was a time when no one could travel; a time when the W̱ S̱ ÁNEĆ people stayed at home because of the horrible weather. During this time, the W̱ S̱ ÁNEĆ women would make baskets, mats, and blankets, and the W̱ S̱ ÁNEĆ men would work on their canoes, make lumber, and carve or make other tools. SISET (the old one) refers to the long winter month. During this time, the W̱ S̱ ÁNEĆ elders would tell stories, legends and their family histories. The last month is known as NINENE (the offspring or young ones) and this was a period when the tides changed from night until day, indicating to the people that a new beginning was dawning.
3.3.2. Ontology
Wilson (2008) argues that people worldwide are different, and those differences comprise different realities, relationships, and beliefs concerning spirituality and reciprocity. Based on
66 Indigenous ontologies not only are there multiple realities, but these realities are embodied in the relationship one has with their truth. Hart (2010) defines ontology as what one regards as the reality of the world or the relationship one develops with something or somebody. It is the philosophical questions that one poses in relation to the essence of being and the purpose of existence in everyday conversations, or in the meaning of life (Somekh & Lewin, 2005). For
Indigenous peoples, ontology is an appreciation of the relationships among all things. Africans in
Southern Africa believe in ubuntu ontology, or the “relations among people and with the living, relations with the living and the non-living, and a spiritual existence that promotes love and harmony among peoples and communities” (Chilisa, 2012, pp. 108–109). For Blackfoot
Indigenous people, Little Bear (2009) argues, reality is about relationships and the meaning of life is established on the relationships grounded in “the sacred relationships of alliances” (p. 10).
For me as a Persian and Bakhtiari person, a short anecdote from my background may help me more effectively to delineate the matter of ontology:
There was a Sufi who wandered around the city in the pursuit of food only to find himself
talking with a sanctimonious, yet parsimonious shopkeeper. The Sufi addressed the
shopkeeper in the name of God and implored him for a coin only to be ignored by the
stingy shopkeeper. Having repeated his request and been ignored every time, the Sufi re-
addressed the shopkeeper for one last time and said, “how would you die and abandon all
your possessions behind knowing that you are unwilling to give away an infinitesimal
amount now?” The sanctimonious shopkeeper retorted by saying, “we would all die the
same.” The Sufi looked at him and said, “would you die like me?” Then, he laid down on
the street, put his wooden bowl under his head and passed away on the spot.
67 Thus, to the Sufi, the meaning of life was not the materialistic aspect of it but something more meaningful and spiritual; it is the way a person is related to others, helps others and seeks unity with the universe.
Martin (2017) asserts there is no single form of ontology; rather, there is an interconnection between all objects. Simpson (2000) believes Indigenous knowledge is holistic and depends on all relationships and connections to living and non-living things in the world.
Simpson (2000) furthers that there is no single truth, but truths depend on one’s experiences in and with the world; everything in the world is alive and has a soul; everything is equal to other things and there is no superiority among things in the world; the land from which one comes is sacred and should be revered; among all things in the world, humans are the least important ones; and, finally, the way humans and the world are related should be regarded as important.
3.3.3. Axiology
Axiology represents all the tools and means through which somebody understands the world they live in as well as the values and knowledges one pursues in life, based on which they differ from other people. Wilson (2001) argues that axiology is a collection of morals and ethics that help identify which knowledge is worth pursuing. Additionally, Indigenous axiology is defined by Chilisa (2012) as “the principles of accountable responsibility, respectful representation, reciprocal appropriation, and rights and regulations” (p. 117). From these principles, a framework emerges that emphasizes the accountable responsibilities between researchers and those researched.
Having explained all the above-mentioned terminologies, that one may encounter in research, it is time to discuss what methodology is and why it is essential to use Indigenous methodologies in research pertaining to Indigenous peoples. The importance of having an
68 Indigenous framework has been highlighted by Smith (2012), who advocates that research questions be designed with regard to the research participants. Being mindful of this, the participants in this research were consulted to help formulate the interview questions to analyze the concept of success in language revitalization programs. However, as it was necessary for me to develop an understanding of the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ Community and people, I attended the BEDILR classes at the Saanich Adult Education Centre, as will be explained later in this dissertation.
3.4. Indigenous Methodologies
According to Porsanger (2004), methodology is a collection of approaches, rules and methods implemented by researchers and a paradigm that delineates how the research is carried out based on an appropriate worldview. Little Bear (2009) argues that Indigenous methodology is a validation process and the way an Indigenous person asserts their knowledge of something and draws back on their established beliefs. When referring to the methodology that he used in his thesis on the W̱ SÁNEĆ people, Underwood (2017), states his W̱ SÁNEĆ methodology involves him and everything else in life.
Indigenous methodology is multiple ways of knowing where the assumptions about the nature of reality, knowledge, theory, and practice on a topic intersect (Chilisa, 2012), and is a relational accountability through which relationships with the world are achieved (Wilson,
2001). Through this relationality, one is reassured that research is not neutral and researchers are aware of the impact their understandings, values, and beliefs have on their data collection, interpretation, analysis, and communication with participants (Patton, 2002). Indigenous methodologies are traditional and contemporary Indigenous knowledges that are handed down from one generation to another, value community, and act as a basis for understanding the world.
They allow Indigenous researchers to be who they are while actively engaging in their research.
69 Thus, based on Porsanger (2004) and Wilson (2008), Indigenous peoples should use their own
Indigenous methodologies, methods, and cultural values to decolonize their societies and capture their cultural knowledge and tap into their Indigeneity.
With reference to Galla and Goodwill (2017), researchers, and Indigenous researchers in particular, follow the principles of Respect, Relationality, Relevance, Responsibility, and
Reciprocity when conducting research in an Indigenous context. Simpson (2007) adds Refusal and argues that Indigenous methodology embodies “the goals and aspirations of those we talk to inform the methods and the shape of our theorizing and analysis” (p. 68). Respect is defined as taking care of others and treating them well and is established via cultural awareness, valuing, understanding, and promoting social justice outcomes relevant to participants (Singh & Major,
2017). Reciprocity is “the belief that… we receive from others” (Hart, 2010, p. 7), and
Responsibility is the ways that a researcher relates and acts within a community and shares and presents ideas to help that community. Following these principles, I approached the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community and my participants in this research by valuing and respecting their cultures by showing respect and asking questions about the appropriate ways of communicating with them.
In addition, I accepted it as my responsibility to act appropriately while I was in the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community to observe and collect data for this research. For instance, I would strike conversations with PENÁĆ, the instructor, and his students in the Saanich Adult Education
Centre so that I would learn their way of learning. Moreover, I would accompany the class on their field trips and gain hands-on experience whenever they were out in nature and in their land.
That gave me valuable insights on how to approach the community members to ask them questions and seek information from them for my research. Also, by engaging in group activities while I was in the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community, I showed my respect and interest to know more about
70 the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ indigeneity.
Based on Smith (2012), Indigenous methodologies are drawn from the philosophical and theoretical Indigenous paradigms that emphasize the understandings of Indigenous peoples within their social, political, and historical contexts, and help to answer questions about
Indigenous peoples and reclaim their Indigenous knowledges (Chilisa, 2012). For example, when conducting research within a Cree context, Hart (2010) uses the potential influences of his own spirituality, ceremonies, elders, and participants because Indigenous methodologies emanate from Indigenous perspectives to liberate Indigenous peoples from non-Indigenous epistemologies (Wilson, 2008).
When referring to Indigenous research, Kovach (2015) argues it is about conducting research in an Indigenous context as well as building appropriate Indigenous ethical protocols and genuine trust through relationships between researchers, the Indigenous participants, and the community. Thus, according to Brown and Strega (2005), it helps decolonize communities, secures Indigenous ways of being, and heals Indigenous peoples from non-Indigenous methodologies to build ways toward an Indigenous life and wellbeing. Thus, Absolon (2011) states when conducting research in Indigenous contexts, non-Indigenous researchers should be honest about the wrongdoings of non-Indigenous peoples/researchers and conduct their research from a deficit- and damage-centered stance to instill hope and belief in the capabilities of the
Indigenous peoples (Chilisa, 2012). They should do so by drawing attention to epistemic violence and posing a counter-narrative to Western research. In this way, Indigenous research is reflexive, with collaborative practices embedded in its data collection and analysis; it is about relationships and responsibilities in the service of the community; and, finally, it is guided or administered by an Indigenous community (Absolon, 2011).
71 Building on what is outlined above, and according to Kovach (2009), relationality is considered in Indigenous research and accounts for the impact that understandings and beliefs have on how Indigenous researchers conduct research and collect and analyse data. Thus, researchers are advised to hold themselves accountable for Indigenous participants (Chilisa,
2012), base their research on the Indigeneity of the communities (Hill & May, 2013), and acknowledge self and all participants, community, land and ancestors (Wilson, 2008).
Furthermore, Chevalier and Buckles (2013) argue that to conduct appropriate Indigenous research, post-colonial Indigenous methodologies can borrow usefully from appreciative inquiry
(AI) perspective as it advocates a positive attitude toward Indigenous peoples and different organizations that benefit Indigenous peoples through mutually healthy relationships, consultations and a reciprocal consensus with non-Indigenous researchers. Chevalier and
Buckles (2013) state:
AI starts with the assumption that organizational change towards enhanced performance
hinges on people’s ability to change gears from a problem finding and solving mindset to
reflection on group life that emphasizes stories of success, positive experiences and
dreams, relations of trust, existing assets and opportunities for effective change. (p. 38)
As a result of all these ideas mentioned above, it was important to me to attend the BEDILR class at the Saanich Adult Education Centre and approach the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community and people to expose myself to their way of living and learning so that I conduct my research based on their epistemology and ontology.
3.5. My Research Methodology in this Study
Based on Reason and Bradbury (2008), the spread of European colonization led to the
72 destruction of the cultural and social structures of Indigenous societies and induced critical criticism of European social theory and practice. There have been occasions when researchers entered a community with humanitarian aid but took advantage of that community’s hospitality and ultimately misrepresented it (Reyhner & Eder, 2004). Thus, I believe research theoretical and methodological frameworks should be developed, based on the Indigeneity of the peoples involved in the research, to seek solutions to their problems. Such frameworks provide guidelines on how to develop and assess a particular study while it is administered by a researcher and helped by their participants. As a consequence, I aimed to assess the BEDILR program and develop a framework that is embedded in the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ epistemology and ontology, as discussed earlier in this dissertation. To do that, I followed qualitative methodology principles, participatory action research (PAR), and grounded theory, as these approaches provide reliable means to conduct my research in that manner. Additionally, due to the importance of community in Indigenous research, I followed the principles of community based participatory research (CBPR). For a better understanding of these paradigms and methods, I explained them individually in the following sections.
3.6. Participatory Worldview
A participatory worldview endorses reforms in participants’ life in a recursive and dialectical fashion and raises participants’ consciousness, intertwined with politics and political agendas. It involves participants in designing questions, collecting data and analyzing information so that they unshackle themselves from relationships and irrational structures
(Creswell, 2009). Using a participatory worldview, inappropriate principles are traced in the non-
Indigenous pedagogies and worldviews to be excluded from research in Indigenous contexts. To trace those inappropriate principles, the researcher works collaboratively with the involved
73 participants so as not to marginalize those participants as a result of their research. Additionally, participatory worldview involves marginalized participants, for instance Indigenous peoples, in the designing research questions, data collection, and data analysis. It gives them a voice to express themselves and advance an agenda that seeks reform in the lives of the participants and the institutions that these marginalized people work in (Creswell, 2009). Hence, upon generating my interview questions, I consulted with my participants to help me formulate them in such a way that the interview questions explored the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ epistemologies and pedagogies in a culturally appropriate manner. I inductively analyzed the collected data in this research and provided an environment so that my participants stated what success in the BEDILR is for them.
3.6.1. Action Research and Participatory Action Research
According to Ulvik, Riese, and Roness (2018), action research is a complex, challenging and time-consuming research methodology that induces social justice, finds technical solutions to practical problems, and transforms individuals and structures (Walker & Loots, 2018). Also, it is a continuous process of planning, acting, observing, and reflecting that improves or develops a practice, or an aspect of a practice by connecting the different aspects to action research
(McNiffe & Whitehead, 2002).
Reason and Bradbury (2008) state that action research is a spectrum of the orientation of inquiry and values and helps marginalized participants develop their voices in research to transform education (Walker & Loots, 2018). Participatory action research (PAR) values the individual experiences of the peoples involved in Indigenous research because the process and manner used toward how we acquire knowledge in Indigenous communities are just as important as what we find in the research itself (Thorburn, 2016). Such learning is done, via a cyclical process that emphasizes a partnership through dialogue to change the colonial relationship of
74 researchers and the participants in Indigenous communities (Kovach, 2009). This part was true for me as I emphasized on dialogue before I formulated my interview questions, and when I was analyzing the data in this research to discover codes and themes of success in the BEDILR program at the University of Victoria and the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community.
As trust is a critical aspect of research in Indigenous contexts, following PAR in an
Indigenous context encourages relationships and trust with the community through drawing upon the strengths and wisdom held by the participants themselves (Riecken, Scott, & Tanaka, 2006).
Thus, researchers are responsible for their research and should respect their participants while they avoid causing harm among them. Consequently, as I appreciate the importance of establishing trust with the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community, I drew on the opinions of the participants in this research to show my respect and avoid asserting my views to provide them with the opportunity to express their opinions about how to design, develop and assess the BEDILR program in the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community and at the University of Victoria. However, in academia, action research has concerned scholars because as argued by Kinsler (2010), small scale projects may not lead to broader institutional changes.
3.6.2. Participatory Action Research in the Social Sciences
Participatory Action Research is a form of inquiry in cross-cultural contexts when it is intended those improvements will be made. It is rooted in social sciences, adult education, and international development, and enables poor and underprivileged communities to grow in understanding about the grassroot causes of their oppression (Baum, MacDougall, & Smith,
2006). It advocates certain methodological procedures that follow not only an epistemological turn, which is found in objective knowledge, but an everyday knowledge that people bring into research. Notable thinkers such as Habermas (1971) have endorsed this methodology because, as
75 argued by Chevalier and Buckles (2013), it explores the nature of knowledge toward finding out how knowledge demonstrates the interests of those in power.
Chilisa (2012) states that through continuous practice, reflection and tapping into participants’ real lives, PAR helps marginalized people engage in self-emancipatory efforts to become more involved in society. Thus, it allows Indigenous participants to come together and increase their thinking ability to offer solutions to their problems, which, as argued by Reason and Bradbury (2008), is a remarkable principle in conducting research among Indigenous peoples. Furthermore, PAR highlights experience as a valid source of knowledge to provide participants the opportunity to understand the world through collective and self-reflective inquiry that empowers and grants participants opportunities to practice research based on their
Indigeneity to cope with professional and/or non-Indigenous dominance (Baum et al., 2006).
Therefore, I applied the principles of PAR in my research in the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community and at the
University of Victoria. By doing that, I involved my participants in this research to empower them because according to Foucault (1980), power is the result of interactions among people, the practices of institutions, and the exercise of different forms of knowledge. Thus, by involving the
W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community in this research they were empowered to design and implement culturally appropriate language revitalization programs for themselves.
The importance of establishing relationships is regarded highly among Indigenous peoples as it is a necessary component of creating a community. Thus, Indigenous peoples develop a good relationship with each other and relate themselves to whatever exists in nature.
Reason and Bradbury (2008) argue that this relational knowledge, or the knowledge that comes from relationships among Indigenous peoples, is emphasized in PAR because it differs from the factual knowledge that one has of a fact or theory and has a lot in common with participation in
76 human research. They furthered that “Relationship is made up of communicative exchanges occasioned by the speakers' display of their subjective experiences whose claims to sincerity are subject to justificatory argumentation” (Reason & Bradbury, 2008. p. 123). The theory of relational knowledge in conversations is investigated by Habermas (1971), who argues that, upon interaction with people, one has the right to speak, intends to be understood, aims to convey messages, and establishes relationships with others. This relational knowledge is expressed in words and actions and ranges from telling stories to talking with people.
Additionally, Reason and Bradbury (2008) state that reflective knowledge is action- oriented, descriptive, emancipatory and emphasizes social and practical relationships. The relationship between knowledge and action is revealed when people discover what their problems are, attempt to resolve them and assess their relationship to find out whether the efforts have had the desired results. Alluding to the research by Battiste and Henderson (2009),
Indigenous knowledges are a part of the collective understanding of a community and are learned through a life-long relationship with the world. PAR helps researchers explore this relationship and establish a supportive and respectful relationship with Indigenous participants. As a result, over the period I attended the BEDILR classes at the Saanich Adult education Centre, I established a friendly relationship with students, staff, and the instructor in the class, and engaged in activities and group learning with them.
Regarding the emancipatory nature of PAR and the importance of decolonizing
Indigenous education, I found PAR an effective methodology to be applied in my doctoral research because it democratically incorporates the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ people and their knowledges within the BEDILR program. PAR also helped me explore the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ knowledge and also empowered the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ people to design, implement, and assess the BEDILR program more
77 appropriately. Moreover, this provided the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ people with greater opportunity to converse with each other and with the BEDILR program developers at the University of Victoria and the Saanich Adult Education Centre.
3.7. Community-Based Research in an Indigenous Context
As argued by Strand et al. (2003), with the expansion of scientific horizons, researchers tend to appreciate the importance of community and democratic participation within Indigenous research, and the significance of affiliating knowledge with community rather than knowledge isolated from action and practice. Such participation is conducted through Community-Based
Participatory Research (CBPR) as this provides an appropriate research method in Indigenous contexts and mutually and meaningfully helps to carry out research between researchers and
Indigenous communities to resolve social or community problems (Cunsolo Willox et al., 2012).
This is important as Indigenous communities were ignored or marginalized, and research within them was conducted without their consent (Mosby, 2013).
CBPR calls for meaningful involvement of Indigenous peoples to define research questions, implement the investigation, and share the results of the research with community members (Chevalier & Buckles, 2013). It collaboratively joins the community in the research to promote social change through its inquiry and action-oriented process (Brydon-Miller,
Greenwood, & Maguire, 2016). Correspondingly, and as argued by Ninomiya and Pollock
(2017), Indigenous research at universities in Canada is guided by the Tri-Council Policy
Statement and the Ownership, Control, Access and Possession (OCAP) principles to help researchers meet the ethical expectations in working with Indigenous peoples, as explained below.
First, Indigenous research involves Indigenous methodologies, is relational and
78 respectful, uses Indigenous methods and recognizes Indigenous knowledge systems (Singh &
Major, 2017). Second, the crucial point in Indigenous research is the concept of relationality, which is the relationship between people and everything in the world (Kovach, 2015). Thus, it values respect that is gained through cultural appreciation for Indigenous peoples (Denzin &
Lincoln, 2008) as well as trust that is built with the Indigenous peoples through ethical and cultural protocols, and an authentic relationship between researcher, community and participants
(Kovach, 2015). Third, Chilisa (2012) states that Indigenous research holds researchers liable for the understanding they gain following completion of the research, and Simonds and Christopher
(2013) argue it includes collaborative practices in analyzing data and treats Indigenous participants as partners. Finally, Indigenous research is a collective endeavor and leaves its impact on the entire community through consulting Indigenous participants, communities and elders in the process of knowledge sharing (Singh & Major, 2017).
As a consequence of what is outlined above, along with following the principles of PAR,
I adhered to the tenets of CBPR because they allowed researchers like me to collaboratively join my participants in the research to respect their cultural knowledge and values and develop a relational and respectful approach through negotiation with them. Thus, applying the tenets of
CBPR contributes to the investigation of the success of the BEDILR program in the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community and at the University of Victoria.
3.8. Theoretical Framework of the Study
According to Somekh and Lewin (2005), every study is oriented on a worldview that embodies the principles and beliefs that direct action. Creswell (2009) argues that this worldview constitutes one’s general orientation toward the world and the nature of research, as well as the way one bases their life in the world. Given this, the theoretical framework in my doctoral
79 research is based on PAR, qualitative methodology, grounded theory, and thematic analysis as these provide me as the researcher reliable means to investigate success in the BEDILR program in the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community and at the University of Victoria. I used qualitative methodology because it allowed me to capture my participants’ perspectives to design, implement and assess the BEDILR program for the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community. This was undertaken because PAR, as a qualitative methodology, enabled the participants in this study to have their voices heard with regard to their expectations of a successful BEDILR program.
In other words, when my participants were able to express their ideas, I could then evaluate whether the BEDILR program successfully meets the linguistic and pedagogical needs of the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community and people. The PAR qualitative methodology, grounded theory, and thematic analysis also allowed me to collect and analyze data through the use of different strategies of observation, note-taking, semi-structured interviews and personal experience.
Accordingly, my participants’ views were incorporated in the design, implementation and assessment of the BEDILR program insofar as the program developers induced appropriate changes in it toward successfully meeting the linguistic and pedagogical needs of the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community and people.
I also used PAR in the theoretical framework of my research because according to
Creswell (2009), PAR endorses change and reform in participants’ lives in a recursive and dialectical fashion and aims to raise participants’ consciousness, intertwined with politics and political agendas. PAR allows participants in this study to incorporate their epistemologies and pedagogies into the BEDILR program; assess the BEDILR program accordingly, and collaboratively contribute in designing questions, collecting data, and analyzing information.
Additionally, PAR provides the academic and the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community participants with the
80 opportunity for their voices to be heard and to embed their Indigenous epistemologies, ontologies, and language into the BEDILR program.
I used grounded theory in this research as it offers an inductive analysis of the data and keeps the data and mitigates some of the biases with regard to the emerging theory and the preconceived ideas regarding research. Following grounded theory, I collected, refined, and compared data with emerging themes, as suggested by Creswell (2009), that helped me unearth a theory that is grounded in the epistemology and ontologies of the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ people. I also used thematic analysis as it provides accessibility for new researchers to analyzing their data by offering a well-defined framework (King, 2004) that does not require detailed theoretical knowledge. Additionally, according to Braun and Clarke (2012), thematic analysis is adopted in qualitative and PAR as a translator as it does not follow a pre-existing framework. In other words, when analyzing the data collected from my academic and community participants, I thematically analyzed them to investigate their concept of success to be incorporated into the
BEDILR program at the University of Victoria and the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community.
3.9. Grounded Theory
I used grounded theory in my research as it allows me to heuristically develop a research methodology that is grounded in the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community and people and their epistemology and ontology. By using grounded theory, I explored and assessed the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community Indigenous peoples’ worldviews while I avoided specific theoretical or conceptual frameworks. Grounded theory and thematic analysis, as explained in the next section, are used in my research to explore codes and themes of success in the BEDILR for the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ people. In the following part, I explain why I used grounded theory in my research and will argue why I find it helpful in my research. This section will be followed by a discussion on thematic analysis
81 and how I used its principles along with the principles of grounded theory in my research.
Grounded theory is defined as a theory of “process, action, or interaction… discovered and grounded in the views of participants” (Creswell, 2009, p. 30) and according to Strauss and
Corbin (1998), it enables researchers to unearth a theory based on the information provided by participants. Creswell (2009) argues that following grounded theory allows researchers to collect and compare the collected data for their emerging categories that arise from within the collected data. These emerging categories will be combined with information from people and situations that is, as argued by Chevalier and Buckles (2013), otherwise difficult to explain. Researchers can use grounded theory to analyze data and develop specific codes that lead to the development of a theory grounded in the original data and to formulate a central category that has dimensions to use as its foundations (Saldana, 2013). That paired with the principles of thematic analysis, were used in this research to incorporate the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ participants’ worldviews so that they help emerge the concept of successful BEDILR program for the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ people.
Moreover, grounded theory offers an inductive analysis of data (e.g., thematic analysis) for the researcher and endorses keeping the data and the emerging theory immune from the researcher’s preconceived ideas. In other words, and based on Timmermans and Tavory (2012), grounded theory allows the emergence of novel and inductive worldviews rather than imposes any preconceived theory or worldview. This emergence was allowed as grounded theory and thematic analysis were used in this research, and I adhered to their principles because they allow new, for example the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ Indigenous worldviews, to emerge. Additionally, grounded theory allows the development of research based on the worldview of the participants in research. Also, thematic analysis allows researchers to analyze the collected data for their codes and themes an Indigenous research paradigm is extrapolated which, according to Wilson (2007),
82 is an Indigenous way of knowing of that people. However, grounded theory, like other scientific approaches, has not been without criticism. Timmermans and Tavory (2012) argue that grounded theory has been called “an epistemological fairytale” (p. 2) that barely leads to any novel approaches, and its advocates are admonished for generating new theories while not being impacted by existing theories and frameworks. On the other hand, Green (2014) countered such criticisms and argued that grounded theory develops new conceptual frameworks based on the information provided by participants.
3.10. Thematic Analysis
I thematically analyzed the data collected in this research because I aimed to investigate whether the BEDILR program for the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community is designed, implemented and assessed in line with the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ epistemology, and whether it provides for the pedagogical needs of the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community. For that, I followed the principles of thematic analysis to analyze the collected data for its intertextual chains, to refer to Foucault (1972), to explore the concept of a successful BEDILR for the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ people in their community and in the
University of Victoria. Thematic analysis was first proposed by Owen (1984) to analyze interviews using a three-step process: a) Recurrence, or the similarity in the meaning of each sentiment as follows or when meaning is repeated and the exact wording is not necessarily used; b) Repetition, or the frequency through which a word is repeated or when keywords or phrases reappear; and c) Forcefulness, or the importance that participants give to their words via tone, volume and inflection (Lawless & Chen, 2019). According to Molloy and Foust (2016), recurrence is defined as the same meaning in different wording; repetition as words, phrases and sentences that are repeated; and forcefulness as major pauses and changes in volume that stress an idea. Lawless and Chen (2019) define recurrence as the repetition of the same meaning and
83 not necessarily in the same words, and repetition as the specific reappearance of keywords or phrases.
Braun and Clarke (2006) argue that thematic analysis allows researchers to analyze data through developing codes and themes although it does not fall under a pre-existing framework.
In other words, it allowed me to analyze the data that I collected from the participants in this study for their themes and codes of success that are based on the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ worldview. As I explained in the previous section, I applied the principles of grounded theory to allow worldviews to emerge that are grounded in the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ knowledge and as a consequence will also give voice to the participants and their Indigenous experiences. King (2004) explores the advantages of using thematic analysis and believes that it possesses an accessible form for new researchers to analyze their data by offering a well-defined framework that according to Braun and Clarke (2006) does not require detailed theoretical knowledge.
Scholars have designed and delivered their own thematic analyses. Thomas and Harden
(2008) present a three-step approach in developing a theme: a) coding the text in a line-by-line method; b) developing descriptive themes; and c) generating the analytical themes. Braun and
Clark (2006) suggest a six-step framework to develop their thematic analysis. Specifically, researchers should familiarize themselves with the data; start generating initial codes; search for themes; and, after discovering the themes, they should review them, define and name them, and then produce the final report. Lawless and Chen (2019) present a two-step analytical framework for their thematic analysis. In open coding, a researcher stays as close as possible to the interview discourse and pays close attention to what the interview discourse reveals or identifies as discursive patterns that are important or meaningful to participants, either individually or collectively. At this stage, researchers understand what their participants reveal about their
84 phenomenological experiences and how their experiences are similar to other participants. In contrast, in closed coding, after understanding recurrence, repetition and forcefulness, researchers ask questions about the themes that have emerged and their functioning to connect interview discourses. After it becomes clear what the interview questions have revealed, researchers consider what the interview discourses may conceal. Finally, having identified sufficient accounts regarding repetition, recurrence and forcefulness, researchers build the theme
(Lawless & Chen, 2019).
Using thematic analysis in qualitative methods is not without criticism. First, it is believed to have no clear analytic method and lacks consistency and coherence in the development of themes from the collected data (Holloway & Todres, 2003). Second, it is a flexible approach used with any framework to endorse a constructionist approach because it has no fixed way that can be followed, it investigates hidden ideological themes, and it inductively analyzes qualitative and empirical data (Lawless & Chen, 2019). Finally, although a text is studied for its parts to become categories of analysis, these categories can only be understood in relation to the whole text because scholars explain the data collected and generate or hypothesize about its interpretive constructs (Tashakkori & Teddlie, 2010). Despite that, I used thematic analysis in my research because I believe the BEDILR program developers at the University of
Victoria and the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community would find its tenets effective in developing and assessing the BEDILR programs.
3.11. Developing Codes and Themes
It is important that codes and themes in a thematic analysis approach are defined and distinguished from each other. As defined by Saldana (2013), a code is an analytic reflection and construct made by a researcher, where meaning is given to each piece of data and describes
85 implied processes. Braun and Clarke (2019) state codes single out a feature of the data collected to be assessed in a meaningful way, and Gordon-Finlayson (2010) argues a datum is coded
(sometimes more than once) to distinguish and identify its meaning based on the needs of the inquiry. According to Saldana (2013), theme is the outcome of a code and is defined as a unit derived from vocabularies, repetitive activities, and meanings from sayings or proverbs that may look or sound meaningless when viewed alone (Aronson, 1995). As an abstract entity, a theme brings identity and meaning to a repeated experience and its alternative manifestations (Nowell,
Norris, White, & Moules, 2017). Themes are either inductive, those that are data-driven (Braun
& Clarke, 2006) and cannot be put into an already existing framework or the researcher’s framework, or deductive, which are those that follow a researcher’s framework and describe the data in a more detailed fashion.
Coding approaches have been developed to help qualitative researchers encode and develop concepts. Creswell (2014) advocates a systematic process that creates themes through categorizing and analyzing the data, and King (2004) proposes a provisional template to enable researchers to rationalize the inclusion of their codes and themes and explain how they are used.
It is recommended that qualitative researchers use a code manual to categorize similar or related pieces of collected data before analyzing them (Nowell et al., 2017). Coding is actively performed at the semantic level to pinpoint the parts of the data that are relevant to the research questions of a given study (Braun & Clarke, 2012). To develop codes and themes, researchers familiarize themselves with the data and regularly check it and focus on it to develop ideas relevant to their research (Nowell et al., 2017). To do this, researchers actively immerse themselves in the data, mark parts of interest and then connect with it through asking questions and analyzing it. For example, “How does this participant make sense of their experiences? What
86 assumptions do they make in interpreting their experience? What kind of world is revealed through their accounts?” (Braun & Clarke, 2012, p. 5).
After reading the data, researchers encode it and create an inventory of the ideas that are related to the theme (King, 2004). In other words, developing themes is the next step that should be taken by a qualitative researcher. King (2004) states that there should be several pre-defined codes to help researchers develop themes, though they should not be excessively driven by their research questions. In the same line of argument, Attride-Stirling (2001) argues that researchers group their codes to come up with basic themes, organizing themes, and global themes.
Furthermore, there should not be too many themes in a qualitative study, and all should be related with no overlap between them (Braun & Clarke, 2012). A miscellaneous theme is used to discover and describe all of the themes that do not seem to belong anywhere. However, regardless of the approach used in the development of themes and concepts, to help their readers understand that the final outcome is rooted in their data (Ryan, Coughlan, & Cronin, 2007), researchers should delineate all of the steps taken toward developing their concepts and themes.
King (2004) regards reviewing themes a vital part of their development because it allows researchers to refine them and place them in distinct categories, naming those that are listed.
Themes will be defined and refined before they are concisely and precisely written because the more meticulous the themes are, the more credible the findings are (Nowell et al., 2017). The researcher ensures explanations and implications are offered for the codes and themes identified, and that they write a convincing and academic report on their data to logically present their themes (Braun & Clarke, 2012). Following this, researchers ensure respondents’ views are accurately depicted in the themes developed (Tobin & Begley, 2004). I followed the afore- mentioned steps to familiarize myself with the collected and transcribed data, to extract primary
87 codes and themes, and to keep the related codes and themes within the scope of my research.
Although King (2004) suggests that researchers hold several pre-defined codes when they develop themes, I did not do this, instead opting to let the codes and themes emerge inductively from the data. For that, I approached the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community and let my participants express their ideas regarding what constitutes a successful BEDILR.
3.12. Analytical Approach of the Research
As a Bakhtiari person, I am aware of my outsider status and perspective in this research, and, yet, I am not a complete outsider. I am concerned about Indigenous and minority language loss in my country of origin and in the world more generally. Indigenous researchers have warned against research conducted by non-Indigenous researchers as it decolonizes Indigenous pedagogy and people (Smith, 2012). However, non-Indigenous and Indigenous researchers co- operate, and conduct research based on the Indigeneity of the people involved in research and benefit from each other’s interactive ways of knowing (Wilson, 2007). This is done through appropriate Indigenous methodologies and theoretical frameworks developed from Indigenous peoples’ knowledges, customs and ways of living.
Many scholars have asserted the importance of designing and following an Indigenous methodology in Indigenous contexts. These Indigenous methodologies derive from relational accountability through which relationships with the world are achieved (Wilson, 2001), as they ensure that research in Indigenous contexts respect the worldview of the Indigenous peoples involved in it (Singh & Major, 2017). For example, Indigenous strategies and research frameworks are developed along with the wisdom and Indigeneity of the Indigenous people in the research (Riecken et al., 2006). However, for Indigenous communities with no documented
Indigenous methodology, new approaches are developed through spending significant time with
88 Indigenous communities, consulting their knowledge keepers and learning their Indigenous ways of living. According to Timmermans and Tavory (2012), these understandings are based on the empirical data accrued within the community and lead to theories or approaches that contribute to an effective observation and understanding of the very people in the research.
Moreover, researchers devise appropriate Indigenous methodologies and research theories to provide invaluable information on the Indigeneity of a people and to develop an effective understanding of Indigenous peoples in general. For this, grounded theory is of great assistance because, based on MacMilan and Koenig (2004), it contributes to theory construction through coding schemes and heuristic principles that identify and appreciate patterns of meaning
(Braun & Clarke, 2012) toward providing appropriate answers to specific questions. Grounded theory allows researchers to develop analytical frameworks that approach the depth of meaning in a text and develop codes and themes that are heuristically used in the data analysis of that research. Consequently, I founded my research on the Indigeneity of the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community and the participants in this study and used grounded theory and thematic analysis methods to analyze the data collected to discover what a successful BEDILR is comprised of for the
W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community and people.
In summary, I discussed in this chapter the acknowledgment of ‘others’ in research followed by definitions of epistemology, ontology and axiology. I also discussed the importance of conducting research based on the Indigeneity of the participants involved. Next, I presented the reasons why PAR and CBPR were chosen as the most effective research methodologies in my doctoral research. Information on the theoretical framework, analytical approach and grounded theory adopted in my research followed in the final sections of this chapter.
89 Chapter Four
Data Collection and Analysis
In this chapter, I present a description of the participants in my doctoral research, who were divided into academic and community participants. Next, I discuss the process used to collect the research data. I also discuss how participant letters of consent as well as ethics approval from the University of Victoria were obtained. The rationale underpinning the methodology, code pool (and their definitions), and the figures for each of my interview questions, themes and sub-themes from the interviews conducted are given in the final sections of the chapter.
4.1. Participants
In the following sections, I discuss the participant recruitment process carried out for this research. Following this, I divide my participants into two groups: community and academic participants.
4.1.1 Recruiting Participants
There are five participants in this research. Three are at the Saanich Adult Education
Center and two are at the Department of Indigenous Education at the University of Victoria. The process of recruiting participants and data collection for my doctoral research has been one of the most educational undertakings in my academic career to date. Specifically, although I was aware of the sensitivity involved in establishing relationship networks with Indigenous peoples, I learned even more about the appropriate approach with which I could reach out to my participants and establish these networks. For this, I was mentored by Dr. Riecken, my supervisor, and my committee members Drs. Rodriguez de France and Anderson, as explained
90 below.
After explaining the foundations of my doctoral proposal to investigate the concept of success in the BEDILR program for the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community, it was recommended to me by
Dr. Riecken and my committee to reach out to Aliki Marinakis at the University of Victoria.
Aliki is the Manager of the Indigenous Language Programs at the University of Victoria and has rich knowledge of the language revitalization programs at the University of Victoria. Thus, I was confident to seek her help and knowledge for my research, and it was vital for me to obtain her consent prior to approaching my participants in the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community. After we met and I explained what I wished to undertake, Aliki agreed to participate in my doctoral research and gave me her word that she would accompany me to the community and introduce me to the
W̱ ŚÁNEĆ people and authorities at the Saanich Adult Education Center.
Following these few steps, I was then prepared to embark on the next phase of the research process. I then needed to go to the community and, as I had not previously been in contact with the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community, I was kindly accompanied by Dr. Rodriguez de France and Aliki to the Saanich Adult Education Center to talk with my potential future (although tentative) participants. It was here that I was introduced to Tye Swallow, the Director of the
STÁTSEN Program, which focuses on the revitalization of SENĆOŦEN; Kendra Underwood, the Director of the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ Adult Education Center; and PENÁĆ, an Indigenous language instructor for the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ people. In the meeting, I introduced myself and talked about my dissertation topic and my Indigenous Bakhtiari background. Thanks to Aliki and Drs. Riecken and Rodriguez, I was welcomed by the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community, and Tye, Kendra, and PENÁĆ gave me their word they would co-operate with me in my research endeavor. I knew if the community agreed, I would be one step closer to my goal.
91 It was in my introduction at the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community that I worked out how important it is to be in the company of an elder before one reaches out to Indigenous peoples. There is the
Translated, this means “Make sure . ﺮﯾا ﯽﭙﮔ ،یراﺪﻧ ﯽﺗ ی دﺮﺑ ﯽﭙﮔ ﻦﯿﺸﺑ ,following saying in Bakhtiari you are accompanied by an elder [before you reach out to a new people]”. In other words, even if
I had obtained consent from the Human Research Ethics Office at the University of Victoria, I knew I would have a much higher chance of being accepted in the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community if I were accompanied by my supervisors and Aliki. I was one step closer to my actual data collection process. It was also recommended to me to meet with Dr. Judy Thompson (Edōsdi) in the Department of Indigenous Education at the University of Victoria. Edōsdi is a Tāłtān
Indigenous scholar and a newly appointed faculty member at the University of Victoria. After several instances of correspondence back and forth and having explained my dissertation topic and my interest in this research, Edōsdi agreed to meet with me to see whether she would be interested in participating in my research. I felt fortunate when I heard she liked the focus of my studies and was also eager to be one of my participants. It is important to mention here that all the participants in this research consented to being referred to by their real names.
4.1.2. Community Participants
The first participant is PENÁĆ (David Underwood). He is a W̱ ŚÁNEĆ Indigenous instructor of the SENĆOŦEN language at the Saanich Adult Education Center. PENÁĆ is the grandson of late David Elliott Sr., who invented the SENĆOŦEN alphabet. The second participant is Tye Swallow, who is the director of the STÁTSEN program at the Saanich Adult
Education Center with a purview of language programming for children and adults, and staffing the SENĆOŦEN LE,NOṈET SCUL,ÁUTW̱ (immersion school). The third participant is Kendra
Underwood from the Tsawout First Nations. Kendra’s Indigenous name is SȽEMXÁMTENOT,
92 which she carries and shares with her dad through her family connection to her Elliot family in
Duncan. Kendra is the Director of the Saanich Adult Education Center, the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ School
Board and the main administrative partner in the delivery of the W’SENĆOŦEN Indigenous
Language Revitalization Diploma program.
4.1.3. Academic Participants
Aliki Marinakis is a manager of Indigenous Language programming at the University of
Victoria focusing on undergraduate Indigenous language revitalization programs within the
Faculty of Education. She is a settler of Greek and British descent, and a learner of both Greek and Kwak’wala. She was raised in the traditional territories of the Kwakwaka’wakw and is connected to the Musgamagw Dzawada’enuxw through her son. She has been a grateful visitor on the Lekwungen and W̱ ŚÁNEĆ territories for over 20 years. Aliki is fortunate to have developed long term partnerships with Indigenous communities reclaiming their languages, such as with the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ School Board, where she works with other NEȾOLṈEW partners on the delivery and constant review of the W̱ ,SENĆOŦEN IST program, focused on building adult proficiency in SENĆOŦEN.
The second academic participant is Edōsdi (Dr. Judy Thompson). Edōsdi is a member of the Tāłtān Nation and was born and raised in La̱ x Kxeen (Prince Rupert, BC) on Ts’msyen territory. She is a trained elementary school teacher and has been teaching at the post-secondary level for over 25 years. From 2012–2019, Edōsdi served as the Language Reclamation Director for her nation, where she developed and implemented a Tāłtān language reclamation framework and managed a team of passionate individuals with a shared vision of creating more speakers.
The framework guided the work of the team to develop learning materials and create safe and supportive environments for Tāłtān learners and speakers toward becoming more proficient in
93 the language. She is currently an Associate Professor in Indigenous Education at the University of Victoria. In 2020, she was named a 3M National Teaching Fellow, Canada’s most prestigious award for excellence in leadership and teaching.
4.2. Letters of Consent and Ethics Approval
After I had contacted my academic and community participants, they were asked to sign a letter of informed consent to formally indicate their willingness to participate in this research and in the interviews. Importantly, the letter of informed consent granted my participants the opportunity to withdraw from the research whenever they deemed it necessary and without the need to provide any explanation to me as the researcher. This was done to ensure my participants knew they held the right to withdraw from the research if they ever felt uncomfortable with any aspect of the process of observation or interviews. Having gained my participants’ consent, I applied for research approval from the Human Research Ethics Office at the University of
Victoria. Notably, seeking research approval was quite a lengthy process, taking two revisions of my proposal before this was granted.
4.3. Data Collection
After obtaining approval for the research, I began the process of observing PENÁĆ’s classes at the Saanich Adult Education Center. This involved driving to the Center, sitting in
PENÁĆ’s classes, striking conversations with PENÁĆ, observing, and taking notes. One of the unique features of PENÁĆ’s classes was how friendly he was toward his students. He was always smiling and explaining everything kindly and passionately. During the classes, I would sit quietly and observe PENÁĆ and his students, how they would interact with each other, what they talked about, and how the classes would begin and close for each day. From these observations and from my own experience as a teacher, I could not help to be reminded of how
94 important it is to develop and nurture strong and amiable relationship with students.
All the classes that I attended at the Saanich Adult Education Center would begin with a prayer, where either PENÁĆ or one of the students would play an Indigenous drum and say the
W̱ ŚÁNEĆ prayer while the remaining students would stand up and pay their respects. Those who could say the prayer would say it aloud while the remainder would listen along. This was the first lesson I learned. In other words, saying your prayers to the Creator and being thankful to
Him plays a critical role in the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ pedagogy. Next, the students would sit and PENÁĆ would begin his class while the students would take out their notebooks and begin their lesson.
The materials were developed to engage the learners in a way where, after a few minutes, everybody was participating in the class. PENÁĆ would emphasize the importance of learning the SENĆOŦEN language along with the Indigenous and the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ cultural and pedagogical teachings. Thus, he would conduct a review before beginning a new subject and lesson.
The morning classes would be spent inside and, depending on the afternoon weather, we would be invited out on the school campus or the land surrounding the Saanich Adult Education
Center to either take a walk and talk about the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ cultural teaching or go on a field trip outside the Saanich Adult Education Center to be exposed to pedagogical teachings, which would usually include making a traditional object. The lunch break was a good time for me to strike up a conversation with PENÁĆ and share our mealtime together. Whether we were inside or outside of the classroom, I would be taking notes on the materials taught and how everybody treated each other. PENÁĆ would lead us around and teach the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ Indigenous teachings using the SENĆOŦEN language. After all these sessions and interactions, I began to appreciate, as far as I could, the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ knowledge, pedagogy, and values. Most of the class time was spent on teaching the SENĆOŦEN language and PENÁĆ would design his lesson plans in a way
95 that class activities and exercises embedded the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ cultural knowledge, and traditions.
4.4. Formulating Interview Questions
It was during the observation and note-taking sessions I began crafting the draft for my interview questions. Due to the nature and Indigenous context of this study, I believe semi- structured interviews were the most effective data collection method because they granted participants an opportunity to express themselves and the chance to get to know me better as the researcher. In the process of formulating my interview questions, I was profoundly inspired by the way PENÁĆ taught in his classes. However, as indicated in my Human Research Ethics
Office form, although I had generated my interview questions, I needed to gain the approval of my participants. For this, I sent all interview questions to my participants and provided some occasional explanations for them. My interview questions were then modified through this process to be more culturally sensitive to my participants. Although I had initially formulated eleven questions, after reflecting on them and making slight alternations, I eventually narrowed the interview questions down to nine more refined, culturally sensitive questions. I provided my participants with the list of interview questions for approval or further alteration. All the interview questions were then approved by my participants. Having observed PENÁĆ’s classes, drafted my interview questions (and having them approved), it was time to initiate the next phase in my study: conducting interviews.
4.5. Conducting and Transcribing Interviews
At the interview stage, my participants were asked about their availability and the most convenient time to hold the interview. The interview dates were then set, and the interviews were conducted in a friendly and open manner. Knowing my participants may be busy with their teaching and personal lives, some interview appointment rescheduling was necessary. When
96 everyone agreed with the date set for their appointment, I conducted three of the interviews of my community participants at their offices at the Saanich Adult Education Centre, away from any interruptions from the academic environment. I conducted two interviews with my academic participants at the University of Victoria with Aliki and Edōsdi. These interviews were conducted in their office at the Indigenous Education Department in the University of Victoria.
The interviews were carried out in semi-structured way and a friendly and relaxed atmosphere to help me extract answers to my research questions. It took me about one month and a half to conduct all the interviews. That is because I had to reschedule my interview appointments a couple of times. Each interview lasted between 16 minutes and 44 minutes, and all of them were carried out in English. Interview questions had been already generated, and occasionally I added some clarification to them while I was conducting interviews with my participants.
All the interviews were saved on an external hard disk, and whenever I was about to embark on transcribing the interviews, I would disconnect my computer form the Internet to provide myself a safe environment to transcribe my data. I used my cellphone to record the interviews, and immediately following the conclusion of each, I uploaded the recording onto my laptop for the later transcription. During the interviews, there was no coercion and neither the researcher nor participants found any grounds for complaint. While I was recording the interviews, I provided the participants with enough time to answer questions. All interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim on single-spaced pages and kept safe on an external hard drive to be inductively analyzed for their codes and themes. I then sent the transcriptions back to my participants for their approval of them. Having transcribed all the interviews and looking over them several times, I followed Owen’s (1984) framework to gain an overview of the data and come up with a code pool. I have divided my participants into two groups
97 (community and academic) because my aim was to investigate the concept of success from both an academic and community perspective. Specifically, I grouped Aliki and Edōsdi in the academic category and Tye, PENÁĆ, and Kendra in the community category.
4.6. Rationale for the Research Methodology
Due to the nature of my research and to investigate the concept of success in the
BEDILR program for the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ people and the University of Victoria, I advocated for the development of an appropriate research methodology and analytical framework drawn from the
Indigenous teachings of the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ people. Consequently, I believed the thematic network would align with what I had in mind as it would allow me to avoid a pre-existing pattern of ideas
(Attride-Stirling, 2001) and develop codes, themes, and concepts based on the epistemology of the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ people involved in my research. With this in mind, to investigate the participants’ conceptions of success in the BEDILR program in the abovementioned contexts, I collected my data through observation, note-taking, conversation and the use of semi-structured interviews with participants and Indigenous knowledge keepers at the Saanich Adult Education Center for the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community and the Department of Indigenous Education at the University of
Victoria. Using an inductive approach and following Owen’s (1984) thematic analysis, I then developed codes and themes of success in the BEDILR program in question. For this, I used coding, as it allowed me to study the data collected and identify the data relevant to the goals set out in my research.
4.7. Code Pool
I grounded the analysis of the interviews for their codes and themes on the participants’ responses and based on my observation of PENÁĆ’s class. I did that as I aimed to explore the interviews for the themes and codes that arise from within the interviews. Thus, to create my
98 code pool, I separated the interview questions and the answers provided to me by my participants and categorized them based on academic and community participants. Next, I extracted the codes by reading the transcripts for each interview question and introduced myself to the ideas developed and grounded in them. I read the transcriptions a few times to make sure I understood what my participants responded to the interview questions. I did this by following the six steps outlined in Braun and Clark’s (2006) thematic analysis framework and based on Owen’s (1984) framework, which recommends looking for repeated, recurrent, and words or phrases that were uttered forcefully. Second, I examined the interview questions with the codes I had developed based on my participants’ answers in this research. Specifically, I checked the codes identified with the interview questions for each of my academic and community participants. Third, I compiled all the codes and looked for the common words or phrases among them to develop the themes that were grounded in the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ pedagogy and for the interview questions.
Themes were developed based on the commonalities among the codes identified for each group.
Finally, the themes developed were used in answering the research questions to approach the concept of success from the perspectives of the community (the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ people) and those in academia (at the Department of Indigenous Education at the University of Victoria).
However, due to the sensitivity of the concepts discussed in the interviews, the process of coding and identifying themes required patience. I looked over the codes and themes identified and developmentally modified them until I came up with a code and theme that would encapsulate what I assumed my participants had spoken about. For this, I benefited tremendously from what I learned from the literature on Indigenous language revitalization programs and from the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ Indigenous people with whom I worked. Due to the importance of establishing a strong relationship with the Indigenous peoples in this study, I developed a friendly relationship
99 with all my participants in this research so that I would benefit from what I have learned from the experience and conversations I had with them. I spent a significant amount of time in PENÁĆ’s classes, and this time was paired with the formal or informal conversations we shared during recess and lunch breaks, and during field trips taken in that period.
4.7.1. Codes Identified from the Interviews
In the following sections, I discuss the codes identified from the interviews conducted with my participants.
4.7.1.1. Defining What it Means to Be Indigenous. As I believe it is important to define what Indigenous means and who an Indigenous person is, I asked my participants in this study to define that word. Thus, when I asked my participants about the definition of Indigenous (Figure
1), the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community participants stated that an Indigenous person is native to a certain place and develops a relational and spiritual relationship with whatever is in that place. As
Kendra remarked, “Indigenous people are relational and holistic in nature.” Tye believed,
“Indigenous is anything that emanates from a specific place” and PENÁĆ stated that Indigenous people are “of a region, akin to a land, landscape, and culture.” I asked the same question from my academic participants, and one participant, Aliki, did not provide a definition because, as she proclaimed, she is not an Indigenous person. However, another academic participant, Edōsdi, defined Indigenous as a person from a certain nation, like a Tāłtān Indigenous Community.
Edōsdi stated the term “Indigenous” “refers to a notion, like a Tāłtān scholar as opposed to an
Indigenous scholar.”
100 Figure 1
Participants’ Definitions of Indigenous
Native to culture (PENÁĆ)
Notion Relational (Edōsdi) Indigenous people (Kendra)
Native to a place (Tye)
4.7.1.2. Components of Indigenous Pedagogy. As this research was about the
W̱ ŚÁNEĆ people, it was vital for me to investigate the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ pedagogy and its components.
Turning to the description of Indigenous pedagogy and its components (Figure 2), Indigenous pedagogy is described by the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community participants as an Indigenous and holistic worldview that advocated Indigenous learnings through connecting Indigenous peoples with their background, land, history and language. PENÁĆ described Indigenous pedagogy as “the connection that people have to territory and history.” The W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community participants continued on to say that Indigenous pedagogy prepares flexible people so that Indigenous learners can observe and engage in the process of learning their Indigenous worldview. Kendra remaked, “Indigenous pedagogy is learning by observing and doing and it is about establishing connection to place.” Moreover, the academic participants reported that Indigenous pedagogy is a holistic worldview that educates people through connecting them to their Indigenous
101 sociocultural background and does so in a non-hierarchical relationship. Edōsdi described
Indigenous pedagogy as “Indigenous to use the language and be able to converse in the language.” Aliki stated, “Indigenous pedagogy is the connection that people have with their territory, history, and ecology and is holistic [pedagogy] that prepares people to see the whole picture and not a bit of it.
Figure 2 Components of Indigenous Pedagogy
Pedagogy Holis&c Prepara&on
Language Learning Flexible People
Indigenous Language Use Indigenous Elders/Mentors Worldview
Land Recording Indigeneity
Connec&on History
4.7.1.3. Participants’ Ideas Regarding the Differences Between Indigenous and Non-
Indigenous Education. I was eager to learn what the participants in my research would indicate about the differences between Indigenous and non-Indigenous education (Figure 3). This was vital to ask this question because the BEDILR is offered in academia and the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community, and knowing these differences help the BEDILR designers and developers to distinguish them
102 more effectively. In other words, learning more about the distinction would provide invaluable insight for developers of the BEDILR program for the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community and the University of Victoria. The W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community participants reported that Indigenous education is holistic, community-based, culture-based, indirect, generative and based on Indigenous worldviews in a community. For example, PENÁĆ stated “Indigenous education focuses specifically on language education.” Additionally, the community participants continued that the SENĆOŦEN language plays a pivotal role in Indigenous education in a way that fosters the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ Indigenous identity. Kendra, one of the community participants, stated, “Indigenous pedagogy is a community-based learning and fosters identity.” To the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community participants, non-
Indigenous education is full of rubrics, system-oriented, prescribed, and political. As PENÁĆ stated, “Western [or non-Indigenous] pedagogy is full of rubrics.” Similarly, Tye explained, “Non-
Indigenous pedagogy has prescribed learning outcomes.” In other words, the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community participants and educators would have no control over their pedagogy if a Western pedagogy was applied to them because it would be prescribed to them without attention paid to the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ cultural teachings.
Moreover, the academic participants at the University of Victoria described how
Indigenous education is indirect, life-oriented and related to Indigenous peoples. To the academic participants, non-Indigenous education is full of rubrics, prescribed, rigid, structured and contains a reward system that prioritizes physical outcomes and has no inter-dependency between subjects. For example, Aliki stated, “Indigenous education is indirect and life-oriented,” and is “generative and relevant to Indigenous peoples, their goals and communities [and] focuses more on language education.” Edōsdi explained, “Non-Indigenous [education] is about attaining grades and not for the sake of learning.” This was echoed by Tye when he stated that “non-
103 Indigenous pedagogy has prescribed learning outcomes.”
Figure 3 Indigenous Education versus Non-Indigenous Education
Indigenous Education Holistic Indirect Community-based Teaches Indigenous languages Teaches Indigeneity Not degree-oriented Generative Fosters identity Culture-oriented
Western Education Full of rubrics Physical outcomes Reward system Prescribed Structured Rigid System-oriented
4.7.1.4. Factors to Be Included in the BEDILR Based on Participants’ Ideas. With respect to the factors that need to be considered when teaching or working in the BEDILR program (Figure 4), the community participants explained that the program should be flexible and reflect and honor the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ Indigenous content involved in the program. It should be conducted through involvement with the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ Indigenous instructors, elders, the knowledges, land, the SENĆOŦEN language in the BEDILR. For example, PENÁĆ stated that the BEDILR program should use “Indigenous cultural content and resources and traditions into
104 the program” and “Indigenous instructors [and] contents must be included to let students enter into the world of Indigenous peoples.” Furthermore, Kendra stated, “we are honoring our words and elders and the BEDILR program is about our philosophy through the use of our language.”
When the same question was asked from the academic participants, they explained that the
BEDILR program should be a flexible program with an appropriate environment that relates to and involves Indigenous peoples and content to meet the needs of the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ Indigenous people and community. Edōsdi described how the program should provide “safe environments to speak Indigenous languages,” and Aliki stated that the BEDILR program should prepare “an environment for learners to speak their language.”
Figure 4 Factors to be Included in the BEDILR
W̱ SÁNEĆ Contents Instructors
SENĆOŦEN Language
Indigenous Elders Flexible Teaching
Community
Place-based Culture Teaching Teaching
4.7.1.5. How to Maintain Indigenous Knowledges Based on Participants’ Ideas. With reference to maintaining Indigenous knowledges in the BEDILR program (Figure 5), academic participants believed that the BEDILR program for the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community and
105 people should be based on the Indigeneity of the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ people so that it can empower their
Indigenous learners and provide an appropriate space for the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ Indigenous learning to occur. As Aliki pointed out, “Indigenous pedagogy should be designed based on the worldviews and the goals of the people involved.” Accordingly, Edōsdi stated the program should “maintain what Indigenous peoples do to keep their languages alive… [work] with elders to record their stories and everyday conversations… and the relationship with each other, world and whatever exists within.” The community participants described how Indigenous knowledges of the people involved in the BEDILR program needed to be maintained through the design of flexible programs based on Indigenous worldviews as well as the involvement and incorporation of
Indigenous elders, the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ ways of being, and their knowledges. They also explained that teaching in an Indigenous context should be infused with Indigenous worldviews and create opportunities for the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ people. Both the community and academic participants stated that Indigenous language revitalizers should consult with Indigenous elders— the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ elders in this case— to develop empowering programs. For example, PENÁĆ maintained the
BEDILR program “should be designed based on the Indigenous peoples’ worldviews and goals… and should be flexible and have Indigenous curriculum, frameworks, activities… it should maintain the Indigeneity of an Indigenous people… it should infuse the teaching with
Indigenous worldviews.
106 Figure 5 Maintaining Indigenous Knowledges
Indigenous Worldviews
Reflexes Indigenous Indigeneity Elders
Consults with Creates People Opportuni es
Empowers Flexible Peoples
4.7.1.6. Developing Curricula in the BEDILR. When the participants were asked about how to develop the BEDILR program toward it becoming successful (Figure 6), the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community participants stated that the program should follow a SENĆOŦEN language proficiency-based policy so that the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ Indigenous learners would feel comfortable walking in both the SENĆOŦEN and English world. This, they believed, would empower them to revitalize their Indigeneity at school and home in a multi-generational manner so that the
W̱ ŚÁNEĆ people could honour their land, identity, knowledge-keepers, pedagogy, and the
W̱ ŚÁNEĆ epistemology. PENÁĆ stated the BEDILR program “should be proficiency-based learning and develop their identity and the SENĆOŦEN language” and Kendra believed the
107 BEDILR program should “help post-secondary students feel comfortable walking in both worlds.”
At the same time, the academic participants at the University of Victoria explained how the BEDILR was designed around the Indigeneity of peoples in the program. They maintained it deconstructs the colonial system and assumptions and provides opportunities to revitalize their languages and create allies and new speakers. Furthermore, the BEDILR should incorporate and honor Indigenous teachers, elders, and land in a way that it helps the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ learners develop their Indigenous language proficiency (Figure 6). For example, Aliki, one of the academic participants, stated that a successful BEDILR “provides opportunities for the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ people to explore places to revitalize their languages; it should privilege the knowledge-keepers, and try to deconstruct the colonial systems and assumptions. It is centred around the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ peoples and is based on proficiency-based learning so that students learn how to maintain and revitalize their own languages.” Accordingly, Edōsdi expressed that a successful program “should connect people to the land, engage elders, create allies and help students become teachers and involve them in the future programs.”
108 Figure 6 Developing Curricula in the BEDILR
Teachers Develops Epistemology Identity
Land-based
Indigenous Pedagogy Creates Speakers
Community-based
Language Honor Knowledge Decolonized System Proficiency Keepers
4.7.1.7. How to Assess the BEDILR Based on Participants’ Ideas. As Indigenous language revitalization programs are designed and developed by academic institutions, they should be assessed for their success. Hence, I asked participants to share their insights regarding the assessment criteria to be used in the BEDILR program (Figure 7) and, for that matter,
Indigenous language revitalization more generally. The W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community participants believed that assessment needed to be conducted through the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ Indigenous learners’ learning and the SENĆOŦEN language proficiency to explore whether the BEDILR program provides an appropriate place for Indigenous learning to occur. For example, PENÁĆ stated that assessment is done to find out if students “have the tools, motivation, and the understanding of
109 how to continue their learning outside of the program”, and Tye stated that assessment should be done by “the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ knowledge keepers.” Additionally, assessment should be conducted to investigate whether the program meets the communication needs of Indigenous peoples. For this, an Indigenous assessor should have the required Indigenous knowledge and work with community knowledge keepers to conduct a proper assessment. Kendra stated, “if you are evaluating the BEDILR program within a university setting, it's important that you are working with a third party that really understands that complexity and holds that community knowledge and learning as very sacred.”
The academic participants at the University of Victoria believed that an assessor should be an Indigenous evaluator with comprehensive knowledge, who based their assessment criteria around the Indigenous students’ own language learning goals to gain a level of language and discourse proficiency. This is done, they argued, to find out whether students are satisfied, motivated and connected to the program, and whether they have developed language proficiency and communication skills in their language. Aliki stated, “the assessor should be an Indigenous evaluator with a comprehensive knowledge [and] should assess whether students feel satisfied with their journey.”
110 Figure 7 Assessment Criteria in the BEDILR
Indigenous Communica)on Knowledge Skills
Knowledge Keepers Students’ Assess Discourse Sa)sfac)on
Assess Language Skills
Students’ Motivation Assess Language Proficiency
4.7.1.8. Participants’ Concept of Success in the BEDILR. To explore the concept of success in the BEDILR program (Figure 8), the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community participants believed the
BEDILR program is successful when the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ learners develop the SENĆOŦEN language proficiency or felt personal growth in their confidence level. Furthermore, the BEDILR is a successful program when it creates a speech community and fulfills the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ individual goals and interests based on the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ Indigenous epistemologies. Success can also be attained when the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ students can communicate in their SENĆOŦEN language and connect with it to build their confidence, language connection and proficiency. PENÁĆ stated that success is the “creation of [a] speech community… it is when students feel more confident and willing to change their mind about pursuing their education… and it is the ability to be able to use the language on a regular basis.” Echoing this, Kendra stated that success is “building confidence.”
111 The academic participants’ answers varied. One of them, Aliki, believed success in the
BEDILR program needs to be regarded separately and from the program perspective and an individual point of view. In other words, for the BEDILR program to be successful, it needs to create a speech community of SENĆOŦEN speakers and transform them into teachers. From an individual perspective, a successful BEDILR program elevates the confidence and proficiency level of learners’ language proficiency, encourages Indigenous learners to stay in the community and turns silent speakers into active ones. Aliki continued, “for a program, success is creating a speech community and speakers, and it is expanding the domain of language.” For individual students, he believed, “[they] should feel successful… if students wish to stay in their community… success could be building confidence and proficiency for a person who did not seem to have that before the program.” Additionally, Edōsdi stated that success is “creating speakers and their language proficiency who can learn it and converse in the language.
Figure 8
Success in the BEDILR
Language Growth Language Learning Language Connection
Students Meet Goals Communication Skills
Feeling Success Language Speakers
Home Language Capacity Development Language Language Use Fulfilment
Creates AcAve Speakers Proficiency Improvement Confidence
112 4.7.1.9. Participants’ Recommendations for the Future of the BEDILR. Finally, as I continued accruing knowledge on the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ Indigenous knowledges and learnings, both the
W̱ ŚÁNEĆ and academic participants were asked for their recommendations regarding conducting future research that is more informed or whether there was anything I missed in the current study (Figure 9). The W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community participants believed that researchers need to pay attention to creating jobs for Indigenous learners and be attentive to the content of the
BEDILR program and differences among the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ peoples. PENÁĆ stated that I should
“pay attention to the content of the program and the differences among communities and peoples because language revitalization programs in communities must be designed and developed based on those differences.” Additionally, Aliki stated that I should “think of different scopes and impacts of language revitalization… and language revitalizers should ask about the design, the content.”
Figure 9
Recommendations for Future Research into the BEDILR
Program Program Design Content
Revitalization Job Impacts Investment
113 4.7.2. Interview Themes
To develop the themes around success in the BEDILR program for the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ people from an academic and community perspective, I honed my understanding of the replies given by my participants to the interview questions. After following the frameworks suggested by Braun and Clark (2006), Owen (1984), and Thomas and Harden (2008) to develop the codes, I read through the codes I had developed for the community and academic participants to identify the concepts underlying repeated terminology and meanings.
Accordingly, I familiarized myself with the data, read it closely, generated initial codes, and looked for the themes of success discussed in them and in the process of the interviews.
Having done that, I tabulated and listed the interview questions with the initial and relevant codes in the answers, which I extracted from what my participants had provided me with. Then, due to the range of the provided answers, I reviewed the potential themes for each of the questions. Lastly, before I ventured to produce the report along with the list of codes and themes,
I had defined and named more than one theme to each answer.
In an earlier section I established that themes identified from the data are either inductive and data-driven, or deductive (Braun & Clarke, 2006), and that they can be developed and encoded using a systematic process (Creswell, 2014). Following these notions, I scrutinized the codes developed and focused on specific parts of the data collected to develop relevant ideas or themes (Nowell et al., 2017). I then studied how these themes I had developed were interrelated and how they might have different hierarchy of themes and sub-themes to make thematic networks, as suggested by Attride-Stirling (2001). For that, I grouped the developed themes into basic themes, organizing themes and global themes. The reason for that was to make sure that the themes are extracted and are grounded on the pedagogy of the participants. Then, having
114 developed themes for this study, I defined and refined them to be written down precisely at a later time (Nowell et al., 2017) with convincing and logical explanations (Tobin & Begley, 2004) about the data. Thus, whenever possible, I used the exact words my participants had used during the interviews (Pill, 2016).
4.7.2.1. Identified Themes and Sub-Themes. When I was developing the relevant themes in this research, I did so inductively to ensure the themes encapsulated research participants’ key ideas. For this, I bifurcated all the codes into the community and academic participant categories to extract more precise and accurate themes for each participant group.
Following this, I sorted out all the initial codes into some orders/groups and studied the codes for each group. I then identified their similarities, kept one of the repeated codes, grouped them together so that they have an overarching thematic category. After that I gradually developed them into basic themes, as explained above, that encompassed the encoded messages and/or ideas. For that, I elaborated on the individual basic themes and offered convincing explanations for them. Then, I grouped these basic themes into some organizing themes, or the themes that helped organize the developed basic themes, which were later classified into global themes, as suggested by Attride-Stirling (2001). Finally, I compiled the global themes, as can be seen in
Tables 1 and 2.
Based on the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community participant data (Table 1), the four themes of
Indigenous person, approach of the BEDILR program, Indigenous pedagogy, and assessment were inductively identified. The data collected from the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community participants also led to seven sub-themes in the BEDILR program. The approach of the program theme was sub- divided into method and approach dynamics, and there are a further three sub-themes:
Indigenous pedagogy of language of instruction, content of the program, and objectives of the
115 program. The assessment theme was divided into the following sub-themes: Assessor from inside community and external assessor. Furthermore, there were also four themes identified for academic participants: Indigenous person, approach, pedagogy, and assessment (Table 2), which led to the identification of the six sub-themes, method, approach dynamics, content of the program, objectives of the program, assessor, and what to assess.
4.7.2.2. Discussion on the Themes and Sub-Themes in the Study. In the following section, I present the findings of my research. Before I do so, however, it is important to mention that all the following points were extracted from the interview data for the BEDILR for the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ people at the Saanich Adult Education Center and the University of Victoria. As mentioned previously, my participants were divided into the categories, academic and community, and, based on this, I analyzed the data toward identifying my themes and sub- themes.
4.7.2.3. Community Participants. The data collected from the community participants led to four inductive and global themes: Indigenous person, approach of the program,
Indigenous pedagogy, and assessment. The seven sub-themes were identified as the following:
Method, approach dynamics, language of instruction, content of the program, objectives of the program, assessor from inside the community, and external assessor.
116 Table 1 Themes Identified for the W̱ SÁNEĆ Community
Themes identified from the W̱ SÁNEĆ Community Participants
Indigenous person: Native to place/Native to a culture/Relational people.
Approach of the program: • Method: Community-based, place-based learning, maintains Indigeneity, responsive to community, reflective, reflects on learners. • Approach dynamics: Flexible method, consults with Indigenous peoples.
Indigenous pedagogy: • Language of instruction: Indigenous language • Content of the program: Creation story, connection to Indigenous culture, traditions, territory, values, history, place-based pedagogy, local land pedagogy, Indigenous worldviews, ontology, epistemology, positionality, values elders, Indigenous instructor. • Objectives of the program: Motivate people, empower people, mobilize people, build speakers, fulfill goals, feel success, plant the seed, foster identity, feeling movement, diversification, identity development, developing skills, personal growth, build confidence, create teachers, create speech community, communication skills, create opportunities, revitalizing Indigenous teachings, learn and use language, capacity development, Indigenous language-proficiency/mastery, becomes home language, language fulfillment, language connection, language growth, expands language domains (e.g., in media), language is sacred. Assessment: • Assessor from inside community: Conducted by Indigenous fluent speakers, Indigenous assessor has broad knowledge of language and the W̱ SÁNEĆ Indigenous knowledge, assessor ensures the program meets the needs of the community and/or individual goals. • External assessor: External assessor should have strong knowledge of the program and Indigenous knowledge of the community.
117 The first theme, Indigenous person, was defined by the participants in this research as a person native to a place and a culture who establishes a relational connection with that place and culture. This definition of Indigenous was in line with other indigenous scholars such as Ali’s
(2017) and Walsh’s (2005) definition of Indigenous as a person who has lived in a place before the arrival of Europeans as the native people of a place. In addition, the community participants stated the approach of the BEDILR program has two sub-themes: Method and approach dynamics. For them, the most effective method that could be used in the BEDILR program is the community-based method because it focuses on place-based learning that maintains the
Indigeneity of the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ Indigenous peoples involved in the BEDILR program. This method is responsive to the educational needs of the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community and reflects the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ
Indigenous teachings and people. Based on Cunsolo Willox et al. (2012), the community-based participatory approach helps Indigenous peoples conduct their research within their community and resolve their social or community problems (Strand et al., 2003). In the same line of argument, it is through a community-based research that Indigenous peoples and communities are involved in the research to promote social change (Brydon-Miller, Greenwood, & Maguire,
2016), relate and consult with each other and with their communities and elders (Kovach, 2015).
The approach dynamics sub-theme of the BEDILR program is based on a flexible method that consults the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ Indigenous peoples in the program. This is a vital point to consider because, in the case that the program developers are not Indigenous or are Indigenous with a different background, one can be assured the BEDILR program will be developed based on the Indigeneity of the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ people and community. This is, as argued by Rau (2008), important because, although Indigenous peoples are similar in many respects, they have unique differences that have to be considered carefully when working in their communities.
118 With reference to the Indigenous pedagogy theme, the data from the community participants led to three sub-themes: Language of instruction, content of the program, and objectives of the program. According to Grenoble and Whaley (2006), Indigenous languages embed Indigenous knowledges and epistemologies and must be learned by Indigenous peoples.
Sefa Dei (2000) remarks that Indigenous knowledges are defined as the knowledges accrued as a result of a long-term residence in a certain place that a group (not necessarily Indigenous) accumulates in an environment. Thus, a successful BEDILR program will embed the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ people’s creation story, and their connection to their W̱ ŚÁNEĆ culture, traditions, ontology, epistemology, local land and elder values. A successful BEDILR program equips language revitalizers in Indigenous communities with the skills to teach their Indigenous knowledge and languages which, as argued by Battiste (2000), and explore methods to marry their Indigenous and Eurocentric perspectives. This was also indicated in the findings of this research that a successful BEDILR equips the learners with the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ knowledge and SENĆOŦEN language. In the same line of argument, Munroe et al. (2013) argue that is also important as
Indigenous knowledges maintain and preserve Indigenous peoples’ languages and identities and embed knowledges different from those of Indo-European languages.
The last sub-theme extracted from the approach of the program theme identified from the community participants is objectives of the program. Based on this, the BEDILR program can be successful when it motivates and empowers the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ learners and transforms them into
SENĆOŦEN speakers. Additionally, the BEDILR program can be successful when it helps the
W̱ ŚÁNEĆ learners fulfill their goals and develop their W̱ ŚÁNEĆ identity, which is achieved through revitalizing the SENĆOŦEN language-proficiency, which in turn develops the
W̱ ŚÁNEĆ learners’ communication skills. This would then connect the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ learners and
119 people with their SENĆOŦEN language, making it their home language and, in turn, building and improving the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ learners’ confidence and identity.
Therefore, it is suggested by Lafrance and Nichols (2010) that Indigenous assessment should follow an Indigenous method and encompass Indigenous and cultural protocols such as having an opening prayer, respectful language, and community values. The community participants in this research held different views depending on whether the assessor is from within the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community or from outside of it. The community participants stated that if the assessor comes from within the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community, they should be a fluent speaker with a broad knowledge of the SENĆOŦEN language and the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ Indigenous knowledge, and they should be an individual who ensures the BEDILR program meets the needs of the
W̱ ŚÁNEĆ people and community. However, if the assessor is not from the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community, they must have strong knowledge of the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ people and their Indigenous knowledge, traditions and worldview to be able to properly evaluate the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ learners’ linguistic performance.
120 Table 2 Themes Identified for the University of Victoria
Themes for Academic Participants
Indigenous person: Relational people/Indigenous to a place/Notion like a Tāłtān scholar
Approach of the program: • Method: Community-based, holistic, not hierarchical, generative, relevant to community, responsive, aligned with Indigenous history, based on Indigenous worldview, cultural relevance, reflects Indigeneity, traditions-oriented. • Approach dynamics: Indirect, life-oriented, flexible, sharing information, networking, privileges knowledge-keepers.
Pedagogy • Content of the program: Indigenous socio-culture, history, community, land, place exploration, traditions, Indigenous beings, involves Indigenous elders/peoples, nurtures and teaches Indigenous languages/language use/Indigenous knowledges, students set their own goals, language learning, language education. • Objectives of the program: Makes adaptable Indigenous people, personal growth, increases capacity, develops proficiency, develops communication skills, Language growth/mastery/production, creates allies/teachers/speakers/language community, builds confidence, decolonizes systems, domains fulfillment, proficiency improvement, proficiency-based- learner possesses traditional knowledge.
Assessment: • Assessor: Indigenous knowledge-keeper, Indigenous students are assessors. • What to assess: Discourse, language proficiency, students’ satisfaction/ motivation, students’ connection
121 4.7.2.4. Academic Participants. In response to the interview questions in this research and the data collected, the following themes and sub-themes were inductively extracted from the academic participants. The first inductively extracted theme relates to the concept of Indigenous person. The academic participants believe an Indigenous person is native to a place; belongs to an Indigenous nation and a notion, like Tāłtān, and develops a relational connection with that place, people and whatever lies therein. As indicated above, Indigenous scholars have delineated their definition of Indigenous as a person who has lived in a place as the native person from there
(Ali, 2017; Walsh, 2005).
The second theme identified for the academic participants is approach of the program, which led to the identification of two sub-themes: Method and approach dynamics. Like the community participants, academic participants in this research also believed the most effective research method to follow in the BEDILR program is the community-based method based on the
Indigeneity of the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community. In other words, they stated that Indigenous research should embody a holistic (and not hierarchical) method related to the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community, or any Indigenous community or people involved in the BEDILR program. Academic participants continued that Indigenous research is generative and responsive to the needs of the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community and people and involves their history, traditions and worldviews in the BEDILR program, as discussed more in depth in the next chapter of this dissertation. This is in line with
Ray’s (2012) idea that Indigenous research is based on the worldviews and knowledges of the people involved, and it ensures relevance to the researcher and the Indigenous partners. This is because, as argued by Kovach (2015), Indigenous knowledge is an indispensable part of
Indigenous research and can keep Indigenous peoples safe from the non-Indigeneity and impacts of colonization (Gerlach et al., 2018) and highlight Indigenization practices.
122 With regard to the approach dynamics of the program theme, the data from the academic participants indicated that, to have a successful BEDILR program, it should be life-oriented to involve the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ Indigenous peoples and privilege their knowledge keepers. In this case, the BEDILR program helps the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ Indigenous people expand their networking whereby they can share their information with each other. I believe this finding is also in line with the long-standing demand of the Indigenous peoples in Canada, and perhaps in the world, to take their education in their own hands which led to the first Indigenous-authored treatise on education (National Indian Brotherhood, 1972) and Article 14.1 of the United Nation (2008) that grants the right to Indigenous peoples to take control of their own education and design and implement educational programs akin to their Indigenous cultures and languages. That is according to McGregor (2012), who argues that Indigenous knowledges and languages have been used in the development of decolonizing materials as they embed Indigenous insights and knowledges.
Moving to the pedagogy in the BEDILR program, the data from the academic participants led to the identification of two sub-themes: Content of the program and objectives of the program. For content of the program, the academic participants believed that, to have a successful BEDILR program, it should be based on the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ Indigenous sociocultural approach, which focuses on the Indigenous community’s history and community. Most importantly, the BEDILR curriculum should encompass the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ Indigenous land and place and focus on teaching the SENĆOŦEN Indigenous language. Since the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ elders know the language and traditions, they are included in the BEDILR program to teach the
W̱ ŚÁNEĆ Indigenous culture and knowledge. Additionally, the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ Indigenous learners and students should set their own goals to learn and educate themselves based on their
123 Indigenous knowledges and teachings. This is akin to Little Bear’s (2009) idea who argued that program developers should attend to the content, or whatever constitutes Indigenous knowledges such as language, land, rituals and songs, and process of these knowledges, or the ways
Indigenous learners are prepared to know, accept and apply these Indigenous languages. Thus, the BEDILR, as an Indigenous research and program, helps restore and preserve the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ peoples’ and community’s traditions, cultures, and land and nurtures the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community.
The second sub-theme identified under the theme of pedagogy among the academic participants is objectives of the program. Based on this, a successful BEDILR Indigenous program should make adaptable the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ people who can grow personally and develop their SENĆOŦEN language and communication skills in such a way that they develop mastery over their SENĆOŦEN language and produce it communicatively. Moreover, a successful
BEDILR program should transform the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ learners into teachers who will continue to help build a speech community. Additionally, it should help the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ Indigenous learners build their confidence to enable them to decolonize the non-Indigenous system which
Indigenous peoples continue to suffer from.
As established before, and according to Kovach (2009), as Indigenous knowledges originate from Indigenous lands, environment, and contexts, they can help Indigenous peoples emancipate themselves from non-Indigenous educational issues and emphasize learners’ self- confidence (Harrison & Papa, 2005). More importantly, the findings in this research indicate that speaking the SENĆOŦEN language is highlighted by the participants because, based on
Rosborough (2012) communicating in one’s language helps shape their identity and helps people become a member of their ethnic group (Luo et al., 2000) which, in turn, draws Indigenous members closer to their native traditions, land and history (Lin & Yudaw, 2016).
124 Assessment was the theme identified from the data collected from academic participants in the BEDILR program. This data led to the identification of two sub-themes: Assessor and what to assess. Like the community participants, an assessor for the academic participants is either an Indigenous knowledge keeper or an Indigenous student who has the skills and competence to assess discourse and the language proficiency of the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ learners. Thus, according to Gilbert and Tillman (2017), these knowledge keepers are consulted and incorporated into Indigenous research and education so that program developers can design and implement culturally responsive context. Indigenous language revitalization developers should incorporate Indigenous knowledge keepers in their program and base the research on the
Indigeneity of the Indigenous peoples involved in the program. The academic participants believed that the assessor should assess whether the BEDILR program maintains the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ
Indigeneity, involves the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ elders, and whether it is designed to revitalize the
SENĆOŦEN Indigenous language. Additionally, it should ensure the BEDILR program incorporates the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ worldviews, epistemologies, and pedagogy. The assessor should also evaluate the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ Indigenous learners’ level of satisfaction and motivation and whether they are connected to the BEDILR program. More importantly, assessment should not be about assessing people but whether students have the tools to continue their education on their own and is based around students’ language learning goals.
In summary, in this chapter I presented a description of the academic and community participants with whom I collaborated in this research. I then discussed the data collection process as well as the process I used to obtain participant letters of consent and ethics approval from the University of Victoria. Following this, I presented the rationale underpinning the methodology for this research and then defined the codes, themes and sub-themes identified.
125 Chapter Five
Summary and Discussion
In this chapter, I present a summary of the language loss and shift that has occurred in
Canada, along with the revitalization efforts that have emerged to revive and revitalize them. I then present a section discussing answers to the research questions I posed before embarking on this PhD journey. Also, I present the limitations of this study followed by the recommendations for future studies.
5.1. Summary
Indigenous and minority languages are declining at a rapid rate throughout the world.
McIvor and Anisman (2018) argue that ten out of the Indigenous languages in what is known as
Canada today died out in the last 100 years following European arrival. This rapid decline has significantly influenced the status of Indigenous languages insofar as only a small number of those Indigenous languages are being learned at home. Given this, Indigenous peoples have attempted to regain control over their Indigenous languages and education, which was actualized in 1972 (McIvor & Anisman, 2018).
As reported by FPCC (2014) and McIvor et al. (2018), British Columbia is home to 34 different Indigenous languages and 203 different Indigenous communities which belong to seven language families of Wakashan, Dene, Salish, Tsimshian, Algonquian, Haida, and Ktunaxa
(Gessner et al., 2018). Since 2010, there has been a 100 percent increase in the number of
Indigenous communities in BC who have recordings of their languages (FPCC, 2014). In other words, the status of BC Indigenous languages is recovering but more work needs to be done
(McIvor & Ball, 2019). To help revitalize Indigenous languages in BC, the University of
Victoria (one of the academic institutions in BC that is involved in Indigenous language
126 revitalization) has been launching language revitalization programs for Indigenous peoples in BC and across Canada (FPCC, 2014). For example, one of such programs has been the BEDILR program in two Vancouver Island communities—the Kwakwaka’wakw and the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ communities—to revitalize the SENĆOŦEN and Kwak’wala languages. However, the extent to which the BEDILR program successfully meets the needs of Indigenous peoples requires investigation.
Given the above, in this doctoral dissertation research, I investigated what success meant in the BEDILR program for the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community at the University of Victoria and in the
W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community itself. To do this, I interviewed five participants in the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community and the University of Victoria who held different responsibilities in the BEDILR program. I observed and spent a considerable amount of time within the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community and developed friendly relationships with the learners, directors and the instructor. Following this, I grounded this research in the Indigeneity of the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ peoples. For that, I consulted my participants for help in formulating my interview questions before I conducted and transcribed the recorded interviews to identify the codes and inductively developed themes of success. I formulated the interview questions with the help of my participants as I did not wish to impose my thoughts and worldview to them.
Additionally, that provided the opportunity for the participants in this study to address the notion of success in the development and assessment of the BEDILR program in the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community and the University of Victoria. After the data collection process, I adopted Braun and
Clark’s (2006), Owen’s (1984), and Thomas and Harden’s (2008) frameworks to identify the codes and themes of success for the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community and University of Victoria. While analyzing the data for the codes and themes of success, I grounded my analysis in the Indigeneity
127 of the participants in this study and explored the data for the codes and themes of success that were W̱ ŚÁNEĆ in nature. Furthermore, I consulted with the participants in this study and asked them for their approval of the collected data that I used in the interpretation of the findings in this study. When they approved of them, I used the said data in the interpretation of extracted codes and themes of success in the BEDILR program so that they are thematically grounded in the
Indigeneity of the participants in this study.
5.2. Answers to the Research Questions in this Study
In the following section, I present answers to my research questions based on the data collected in the interviews conducted with the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community members and the
University of Victoria. It is important to note that all the answers are grounded in the Indigeneity of the participants in this study.
5.2.1. What Are the Concepts of Success in the BEDILR in the W̱ SÁNEĆ Community and the
University of Victoria?
To provide a comprehensive discussion on the research questions, I have answered them about the inductively extracted themes and sub-themes so that every answer addresses a relevant theme or sub-theme.
5.2.1.1. Success in the BEDILR Program in the W̱ SÁNEĆ Community. Based on the data I collected for this research, the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community participants believed a successful
BEDILR program should be flexible and reflect the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ Indigeneity. To them, success in the BEDILR is achieved via following an Indigenous approach or community-based method designed around the Indigeneity of the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community and people. This is because, based on Strand et al. (2003), community-based research democratically includes Indigenous learners into research and Indigenous language revitalization programs, and affiliates knowledge with the
128 community and shares the results with them (Chevalier & Buckles, 2013). Specifically, the community participants stated that the BEDILR is a success story when it incorporates the
W̱ ŚÁNEĆ Indigenous instructors, elders, knowledges, and land in its curriculum, as well as consults the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ elders, and knowledge keepers for its design and delivery. This is in line with Swallow’s (2005) report that the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ people believe their elders should be included in the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ research and language revitalization programs as they hold their Indigenous knowledge, history, and spiritual teaching.
When I was collecting my data, I personally attended the BEDILR classes at the Saanich
Adult Education Centre where I would witness some parts of that knowledge that PENÁĆ, the instructor in the class, shared with the rest of us. It is stated that Indigenous elders are highly valued among Indigenous peoples and communities because they emphasize on the importance of learning Indigenous knowledges that meet the needs of Indigenous peoples (Munroe et al.,
2013) and teach lifelong responsibilities to them (Battiste & Henderson, 2009). Therefore, based on Gilbert and Tillman (2017), language revitalizers are advised to consult with Indigenous elders when they embark on designing and implementing culturally responsive contexts.
Moreover, the community participants stated that a successful BEDILR for the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ people uses the SENĆOŦEN language as its medium of instruction; embeds the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ knowledges (e.g., the creation story) in its curriculum; and connects the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ people with their culture, traditions (e.g., Reef Net Fishery), worldviews, ontology, and epistemology. When the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ learners learn their SENĆOŦEN language, they move toward keeping the language alive because the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ learners feel they have developed a language proficiency in the SENĆOŦEN language and there is a personal growth in their confidence level regarding that proficiency and their W̱ ŚÁNEĆ Indigeneity. Thus, to have a successful program, the
129 BEDILR designers and developers offer the BEDILR in the SENĆOŦEN language and incorporate these traditional teachings in its curriculum.
Furthermore, a successful BEDILR program for the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ people helps build a
SENĆOŦEN speech community and fulfills the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ people’s goals and interests based on their Indigenous epistemologies. One of the community participants, Kendra, argued that the
BEDILR is a successful program because it creates a space for the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ Indigenous learning to take place and for the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ learners to learn their traditional and cultural teachings in an appropriate context. Thus, the BEDILR is designed and delivered to expose the
W̱ ŚÁNEĆ learners to their Indigeneity and motivate them to continue their language learning journey so that they can fulfill their Indigenous pedagogical goals, build their confidence, and plant the seed of their W̱ ŚÁNEĆ epistemology and ontology within themselves. Additionally, the BEDILR designers and developers help the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ learners grow and expand their communicative and language skills. Importantly, there is a distinction between Indigenous and non-Indigenous pedagogy for the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ learners. Based on the data collected from the community participants, the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ Indigenous education is holistic, indirect, generative and is based on the Indigenous worldview held by the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community. Thus, the BEDILR incorporates the SENĆOŦEN language, which is privileged over English, in teaching the
W̱ ŚÁNEĆ knowledge and pedagogy, promoting its success in the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community.
In contrast, community participants argued that non-Indigenous education is rubric- heavy, prescriptive and is politically driven with a top-down bureaucracy that prescribes learning outcomes. Therefore, as a successful BEDILR program is based on the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community and people, an assessor in the BEDILR should assess learners’ language using the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ fluent speakers and those with a broad knowledge of the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ epistemology, ontology, and
130 the SENĆOŦEN language. The assessor should ensure the program meets the pedagogical needs of the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community and people. The community participants argued that, in the case there is no internal assessor from within the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community, an external assessor with strong knowledge of the BEDILR and the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ knowledge and community can lead to successful assessment of the program.
5.2.1.2. Success in the BEDILR at the University of Victoria. Similar to the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community participants, the academic participants believed that the BEDILR is successful when it follows a community-based method that is holistic and generative and is aligned with the
W̱ ŚÁNEĆ Indigenous history. As indicated before, and based on Chevalier and Buckles (2013), community-based research methodology involves participants into research and shares the results with them to make necessary changes. Furthermore, based on the academic participants in this study, the BEDILR is successful when it is flexible, is based on the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ Indigenous worldview and reflects the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ cultural teachings. It should provide an appropriate context that relates to and involves the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ Indigenous peoples and contents, as well as meets their pedagogical needs and those of their communities.
One of the academic participants in this study maintained that a successful BEDILR incorporates the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ elders in the program and records their stories and everyday conversations. Aliki, the other Academic participant, believed that success in the BEDILR is best viewed separately, both from an academic and individual perspective. In other words, Aliki stated that for the BEDILR program to be successful in academia, it should not only help build a community comprising the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ Indigenous speakers but also transform those SENĆOŦEN speakers into teachers. Also, from an individual perspective, a successful BEDILR elevates a learner’s confidence and mastery level in their language proficiency, encourages Indigenous
131 learners to stay in the community, and transforms silent speakers into active speakers.
Additionally, and similar to the community participants, the academic participants argued that a successful BEDILR program makes the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ people adaptable toward attending to their personal growth and capacity to develop their proficiency and communication skills in the
SENĆOŦEN language. It should also create speakers who decolonize Indigenous education and create allies with other Indigenous or non-Indigenous people. Additionally, the BEDILR program distinguishes between Indigenous education, which is indirect, life-oriented and related to Indigenous peoples, and non-Indigenous education, which is a reward system with no inter- dependency and is predominantly concerned with attaining grades and outcomes. Aliki believed that Indigenous pedagogy adopts non-Indigenous pedagogy and adapts it to Indigenous communities. In terms of assessment, a successful BEDILR should incorporate Indigenous knowledge keepers to assess discourse and the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ learners’ language proficiency, satisfaction, and motivation.
5.2.2. How do these concepts of success impact the design, delivery, and assessment of the
BEDILR in the W̱ SÁNEĆ community?
After I have explored the concept of success for the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community and academia participants, I explored how those concepts of success help the BEDILR program developers design and assess the program so that it meets the academic and Indigenous needs of the
W̱ ŚÁNEĆ people and community. To begin with, the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ participants believed that a successful BEDILR program is designed, developed and assessed based on the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ
Indigeneity to empower their Indigenous learners and to promote the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ Indigenous learning. During the times I attended the BEDILR class at the Saanich Adult Education Center, I observed how PENÁĆ, the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ instructor, incorporated the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ worldviews and
132 cultural teachings in his classes. For example, he would always begin the class with a prayer in the SENĆOŦEN before the day’s lessons commenced. For this he would stand in front of the class and play his drum and say his prayers in the SENĆOŦEN language, while the remainder of the class would listen and repeat the words they knew. Additionally, PENÁĆ would sometimes encourage one of his students to say the prayer, which provided a valuable opportunity for them to practice their language and the prayer.
As part of his pedagogy, PENÁĆ and an elder would take us on field trips in areas surrounding the school and on the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ land to teach us how to make the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ traditional objects or how to engage in something based on the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ teachings. On one occasion, we were practicing how to make a basket out of carefully selected twigs for which we looked for a specific twig to then peel it and weave it into the basket. That provided a good opportunity for me and for other learners in the class to obtain some hands-on experience and skill how to practice the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ teachings. On another occasion, PENÁĆ invited the class out near this lake and talked about sea animals in SENĆOŦEN language. These occasions, I can say, provided educational opportunities for the learners of the SENĆOŦEN language and the
W̱ ŚÁNEĆ teachings to expose ourselves to the Indigeneity of the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ people in real life situations. Additionally, PENÁĆ would invite a W̱ ŚÁNEĆ elder to the class and both, the elder and PENÁĆ, would communicate with each other and with the learners in the class in the
SENĆOŦEN only, which is a very useful way of exposing learners to real-life situations and meaningful conversations about the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ ways of being and doing. In other words, the class was designed and implemented based on the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ cultural teachings and provided real life situations in which students would be exposed to their cultural teachings and practice the
SENĆOŦEN language with W̱ ŚÁNEĆ elders and native speakers.
133 Furthermore, the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community participants stated the BEDILR developers should assess the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ learners’ SENĆOŦEN language proficiency through a W̱ ŚÁNEĆ knowledge keeper and instructor and investigate whether the learners walk comfortably in
Indigenous and non-Indigenous worlds. PENÁĆ stated that a successful BEDILR for the
W̱ ŚÁNEĆ people is based on proficiency-based learning to promote the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ Indigenous epistemology and ontology, as well as incorporates Indigenous instructors and knowledge keepers. Tye argued that proficiency-based learning empowers the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ Indigenous learners to revitalize their Indigeneity at school and home, and, importantly, in a multi- generational manner. Furthermore, the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community participants believed that assessment in a successful BEDILR is conducted with the help of the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ Indigenous participants and with the learning and proficiency they develop throughout the program to explore whether the BEDILR program has provided them with an appropriate place for their
Indigenous learning to occur.
Kendra argued that assessment in the BEDILR for the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ people is conducted in terms of providing for the needs of the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community. Accordingly, PENÁĆ believed assessment is conducted through learners, as they should say whether the program helped them reach their goals and whether they have developed proficiency. In addition, Tye expressed that assessment is conducted to investigate whether the BEDILR program meets the needs of the
W̱ ŚÁNEĆ Indigenous learners, and, importantly, whether it only assesses the BEDILR program and not the learners. However, in the case where there is no Indigenous assessor in the BEDILR program, as Kendra pointed out, it is important that program developers work with a third party who genuinely understands the complexity inherent in the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ Indigeneity and the
SENĆOŦEN language. Toward this end, a W̱ ŚÁNEĆ Indigenous assessor has the required
134 Indigenous knowledge and can work with the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community to conduct a proper assessment. Consequently, based on the data collected from my participants in this study, the
BEDILR is a successful language revitalization for the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community because it is based on the Indigeneity of the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ people, uses the SENĆOŦEN language as its language of instruction, incorporates the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ instructors, and assesses the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ learners based on their cultural teachings and their language proficiency level.
5.2.3. How Do These Concepts of Success Impact the Design, Delivery and Assessment of the
BEDILR at the University of Victoria?
Similar to the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community participants, the academic participants believed that a successful BEDILR program implements the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ worldviews, incorporates the
SENĆOŦEN languages and the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ ways of being. For example, Aliki, argued that a successful BEDILR program for the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ people should be designed to maintain the
W̱ ŚÁNEĆ Indigeneity and deconstruct the colonial system and assumptions that may have infiltrated it. Thus, the BEDILR program is successful as it involves the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ elders and is designed to provide opportunities to revitalize the SENĆOŦEN Indigenous language; it incorporates the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ worldviews, epistemologies, and teachings; and it creates allies and new speakers. As Indigenous elders and knowledge keepers possess Indigenous teachings and worldviews, the BEDILR program incorporates the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ Indigenous elders because they possess the Indigenous teachings and provide an opportunity for the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ Indigenous peoples in the program to explore their Indigeneity. Edōsdi, one of the academic participants, argued the program incorporates the Indigenous ways of living and knowledges, and works with the elders and records their stories.
The academic participants, similar to the community participants, argued that assessment
135 in the BEDILR program is conducted by an Indigenous evaluator who has a comprehensive knowledge of the people in the program and bases their assessment around the Indigenous people’s language-learning goals toward attaining proficiency. Edōsdi believed an assessor in the program should be an Indigenous person with strong Indigenous language skills and knowledge.
For Aliki, assessment is conducted to investigate if students are comfortable and connected to the
BEDILR program or have developed a proficiency whereby they can communicate in their
Indigenous language among themselves and with their instructor, as well as teach their language to others.
5.3. Limitations of the Study
A limitation of this study relates to my lack of knowledge of the SENĆOŦEN language.
The role of Indigenous languages in maintaining and appreciating Indigenous epistemologies and worldviews has been established throughout this research. Given the fact that I do not speak and, thus, cannot comprehend the SENĆOŦEN language, I was limited in my understanding of the communication shared with participants. As the researcher, it would have helped me enormously if I had known the SENĆOŦEN language, as I would have had the opportunity to appreciate the interactions and conversations shared in classes. Additionally, had I known the SENĆOŦEN language, I would have been able to explore the relationship between the embedded W̱ ŚÁNEĆ knowledge and pedagogy and the SENĆOŦEN language at a personal level. However, I hope to be able to pursue my education and maintain my relationship with the participants to learn more from them.
Another limitation of this study relates to my outsider status. Although I am a Bakhtiari
Indigenous person from Iran, I am not a W̱ ŚÁNEĆ Indigenous person, nor am I an Indigenous person from Canada. Thus, I acknowledge that my outsider status may have impacted the way I
136 conducted this research in the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community and at the University of Victoria. Even though I appreciate the similarities and differences among Indigenous peoples worldwide, the way I explored the concept of success in the BEDILR may be influenced by my own epistemology, which may differ from that of the participants in this research. However, being mindful of that, I grounded this study and interpreted the collected data in this study based on the
W̱ ŚÁNEĆ epistemology and ontology only, which can be seen in the framework that emerged in the research process.
The other limitation in this study concerns the participants, as they are exclusively faculty members and instructors at the University of Victoria and in the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community. I believe this is a limitation in the sense that the research could have investigated the concept of success in the BEDILR program from the perspective of the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ learners who attended the class. If I had explored the concept of success from the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ learners’ perspectives too, the results could have benefited the BEDILR program developers at the University of Victoria and at the
Saanich Adult Education Center more, where they might consider using those concepts in designing and implementing more informed and comprehensive language revitalization programs in general, and the BEDILR programs in particular.
I, as the researcher, analyzed the data collected using a qualitative and not a quantitative or mixed-methods methodology. As the focus of the research was to investigate the concept of success from the points of view of the BEDILR program developers and instructors, I decided that a qualitative methodology would allow participants to express their ideas regarding the concept of a successful BEDILR. However, I could have investigated the concept of success in all the BEDILR programs that have been conducted in the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community and at the
University of Victoria to date. For this, I would have reached out to all participants who have
137 ever engaged in the BEDILR programs in the community and at the University of Victoria. In that case, this study may then have achieved more comprehensive results, and I would have equipped myself with a more comprehensive knowledge and expertise regarding what is conceived as success from the perspective of academic and community stakeholders engaged in the BEDILR program. However, as I am an international student and am on a student visa in
Canada, I decided to limit the scope of my research to the BEDILR program at the time.
Moreover, there are other language revitalization programs at the University of Victoria the researcher did not enquire about. I could have benefited from the investigation of success in those programs and cross-studied those concepts with the one in the BEDILR program.
However, although this was not the purpose of this study, I hope to continue my studies toward investigating the concept of success in other language revitalization programs at the University of Victoria and in British Columbia more generally.
5.4. Recommendations for Future Studies
Linguistics (Duchêne & Heller, 2007) and applied linguistics, psychology, education, and linguistic anthropology have influenced language revitalization (Hinton et al., 2018). Although there exist differences among Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples and their languages (Rice,
2005), when it comes to teaching methodologies, the BEDILR language revitalization developers and participants in this study should continue using language teaching methodologies such as the
Master-Apprentice method and total physical response (TPR). There is some valuable literature
(e.g., Brown, 2014) on language teaching methodologies used around the world that I believe the
BEDILR developers and participants in this study would greatly benefit from.
In addition to what is outlined above, I recommend that the BEDILR developers and participants at the University of Victoria and the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community should conduct more
138 cross-cultural and cross-community studies and compare the concept of success in Indigenous language revitalization programs in British Columbia, and in Canada, North America, and around the world more generally. Also, as Indigenous communities in BC continue toward efforts to revitalize and maintain their languages, I recommend that the BEDILR program designers and participants should reach out to co-operate and conduct research in the said communities and learn from each other to ensure their Indigenous languages and traditions are maintained. Accordingly, the literature on the Indigeneity of those communities can then be expanded and other domains pertinent to Indigenous peoples and communities be investigated.
However, it is recommended that the BEDILR participants in this study and language revitalizers at the University of Victoria cross-conduct research in Indigenous communities in BC and
Canada and investigate the concept of success of their language revitalization programs from the points of view of their Indigenous learners in academia and communities. Their findings could be used to cross-study the similarities of the concept of success between Indigenous learners, instructors, and program developers both in Indigenous communities and in academia.
There may be some uncertainty whether it is advisable to follow the Indigeneity of the people involved in the program or conduct research according to their Indigeneity. This inclination emanates from the different points of view that researchers hold with regard to knowledge and its principles. Thus, when Indigenous language revitalization programs such as the BEDILR are launched, measures should be taken to ensure that program developers adhere to the Indigeneity of the people involved in the research and regard that Indigeneity in the designing, developing, and assessment of their research. I believe the most important recommendation that I can make is that future researchers and participants in the BEDILR in the
W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community and the University of Victoria remember always to consult the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ
139 Indigenous community and elders with whom they wish to work. In doing this, they ensure the findings of their research are in line with the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ epistemology, ontology, and worldview and with the participants in the BEDILR. The BEDILR program developers and participants in this study should reach out to the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ and other Indigenous communities and people and listen to their concerns. It is recommended that the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ participants in this research and the BEDILR program developers meet the needs of the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ learners, be attentive to the content of the BEDILR program, and the differences among the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ peoples. They should also create jobs for the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ Indigenous learners so that they can continue learning their
Indigenous language. In addition, I recommend that the BEDILR participants and the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community should incorporate technology more in their language revitalization programs. They should also consider incorporating other pedagogies as well so that the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ learners equip themselves with their Indigenous knowledge along with other sciences to meet the needs of their community in a broader way.
5.5. Conclusion
As mentioned throughout this dissertation, Indigenous languages of the world are endangered and many of them are sadly on the brink of extinction. As an Indigenous Bakhtiari person from Iran, I have noticed the gradual shift and loss of our Bakhtiari language among my relatives and people in Iran. With this in mind, I decided to embark on this doctoral research in
Indigenous language revitalization in Canada to learn more about language loss and shift and to help maintain and revitalize Indigenous and minority languages in Iran and in the world. I sincerely hope the knowledge and expertise I have gained in conducting this research equips me with the skills and knowledge necessary to do this.
Aside from a few Indigenous languages in Canada that are deemed healthy, the condition
140 of the remainder is not (FPCC, 2014). Therefore, many Indigenous communities in Canada are attempting to preserve their Indigenous languages through designing and implementing language revitalization programs in their Indigenous community and academic institutions. These language revitalizers are not necessarily Indigenous or from the Indigenous communities whose languages may be the focus of a given program. Some of them are like me who have come from a different country to learn from the language revitalization praxes in Canada to help their own people and languages. Thus, I believe community-based participatory action research is the most appropriate research methodology in such contexts because it allows language revitalization program developers and Indigenous stakeholders to conduct the research based on the
Indigeneity of the Indigenous peoples.
Using participatory action and community-based methodologies, researchers can conduct their research based on the Indigeneity of their participants. Indigenous research has been colonized with non-Indigenous methodologies and should be decolonized through involving
Indigenous peoples and their worldviews in the research. Therefore, as Indigenous nations are growing, similar studies are more frequently carried out to make necessary adaptations and modifications in Indigenous language revitalization programs to ensure they increasingly provide for program stakeholders. With this in mind, and to learn and implement the knowledge and expertise in other contexts, I investigated the concept of success of the BEDILR program in the
W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community and at the University of Victoria. However, as there are other language revitalization programs at the University of Victoria this research did not investigate, it would be a significant contribution if other researchers assessed them for their success to improve their praxis.
This research has contributed to the Indigenous language revitalization and its evaluation,
141 as it explored how the BEDILR program provides for the linguistic and pedagogical needs of the
W̱ ŚÁNEĆ people in their community and at the University of Victoria. Also, the findings of this research may help the Indigenous language program developers at the University of Victoria, in the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community, and in other Indigenous communities in Canada to improve the success of their language revitalization programs. Based on the collected data, I argue that the
BEDILR is a very successful language revitalization program because it is based on the
Indigeneity of the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ people and community as well as provides the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ learners with materials, instructors and curricula akin to their Indigenous worldview. More importantly, the fact that both academic and community participants held very similar ideas about how to design, implement, and assess the BEDILR program for the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ people indicates that the
BEDILR program developers are in strong standing and have made a successful connection with community and academia. Consequently, my hope for this research is that it is modeled by future researchers interested in Indigenous language revitalization and who approach their Indigenous community of choice with no pre-conceived methodology, incorporate Indigenous instructors in their program, and assess it based on the Indigeneity of the peoples involved in the program.
In summary, in this chapter, I presented an abridged summary of my research along with the findings of the data analysis. I answered the research questions in this dissertation based on the data collected from the W̱ ŚÁNEĆ community and the academic participants at the University of Victoria. I then discussed the limitations in my research and made recommendations for future research, followed by the conclusion section. I long to see the day when peoples of the world speak their language freely and proudly expose their younger ones to it as well.
Hossein Ghanbari (Odivi)
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165 APPENDIX 1: INTERVIEW QUESTIONS
Investigating the Concept of Success in the Bachelor of Education in Indigenous Language
Revitalization Program in the W̱ SÁNEĆ Community and at the University of Victoria
1- As you know, the word Indigenous has been defined differently by different thinkers. As an Indigenous person how do you define it? 2- How would you describe an Indigenous pedagogy? What are its components? 3- Knowing that there are differences among Indigenous and non-Indigenous ways of being and their pedagogies (Rice, 2005), to have successful Indigenous language revitalization programs, how would you describe the differences between an Indigenous education from a non-Indigenous one? 4- To successfully tap into the Indigeneity of a people, what factors do you consider when teaching or working in an Indigenous language revitalization program? 5- Considering the importance of maintaining Indigenous knowledges, how do you think Indigenous pedagogies should be maintained and revitalized in an Indigenous language revitalization program? 6- To maintain the Indigeneity of the people involved in the program, how would you design and develop an Indigenous language revitalization program to be successful? 7- When it comes to evaluating Indigenous language revitalization program, how do you think the program in question should be assessed? who would be an appropriate evaluator? 8- How would you define success in an Indigenous language revitalization program? 9- Do you think there is anything about Indigenous language revitalization programs that I am missing to ask about in this project? ………Do you have any recommendations for me to consider for a more effective research?
166 APPENDIX 2: LETTER OF INFORMED CONSENT
[INSTRUCTIONS: This template is intended to provide an overview of the basic content required and a sample lay-out for your consent form. You will need to adapt the content and language of the form for your study and ensure that it is appropriate for your participants (lay-people, children). Yellow highlights are only meant to draw attention to sections often left in when they are not required. You are welcome to use a different lay-out that may suit you and your audience better. Also, please ensure that there is consistency between the content of your ethics application and your Consent Form.]
Participant Consent Form
Investigating the Concept of Success in the Bachelor of Education in Indigenous Language Revitalization Program in the W̱ SÁNEĆ Community and at the University of Victoria
You are invited to participate in a study entitled Investigating the Concept of Success in the Bachelor of Education in Indigenous Language Revitalization Program in the W̱ SÁNEĆ Community and at the University of Victoria that is being conducted by Dr. Ted Riecken (supervisor) and Mr. Hossein Ghanbari, PhD student in Education at the University of Victoria, Canada.
Dr. Ted Riecken is a faculty member at the Curriculum & Instruction at the University of Victoria in the department of Curriculum & Instruction and you may contact him if you have further questions by [email protected].
As a graduate student, I am required to conduct research as part of the requirements for a degree in PhD in Education. It is being conducted under the supervision of Dr. Ted Riecken. You may contact my supervisor at 250-818-3015.
Purpose and Objectives The purpose of this research project is to provide data to improve the success of Indigenous Language Revitalization programs in academy and community based on the Indigenous teachings of the participants.
Importance of this Research Research of this type is important because the researcher believes Indigenous Language Revitalization programs had better tap into the Indigeneity of the participants for more effective language revitalization practices and results.
167 Participants Selection Participants are recommended by the Indigenous Education Department at the University of Victoria to participate in this study because their invaluable Indigenous insights, expertise, and knowledge will be pivotal in this study.
What is involved If you consent to voluntarily participate in this research, your participation will include participating in an hour-long interview in which the interviewer, Hossein Ghanbari, will ask questions about the best practices in Bachelor of Language Revitalization program in W̱ SÁNEĆ community and the University of Victoria. The interview will be audio-recorded at the University of Victoria and will last for an hour and a transcription will be made. Saanich Adult Education Centre is in East Saanich where Indigenous language program is conducted there for W̱ SÁNEĆ community and is under the supervision of the Indigenous Education Department at the University of Victoria. The participants will participate in an hour-long interview which will be transcribed and analyzed for the concept of success based on the Indigeneity of the Indigenous participants. The researcher will also attend the class on-site at Saanich Adult Education Centre to observe the program in practice and gain first-hand experience.
Inconvenience It is hoped that participation in this study does not cause some inconvenience to you. However, there might such a potential inconvenience as meeting a timeline and the length of the interview. However, the interviewer, Hossein Ghanbari, is an Indigenous scholar from Iran and is well- aware of the requirements of conducting interview in an Indigenous context. He will approach the interview based on the availability of the participants and their convenience.
Risks There are no known or anticipated risks to you by participating in this research.
Benefits It is hoped that your participation in this study will benefit the world Indigenous society and Indigenous Language Revitalization programs in W̱ SÁNEĆ community in Victoria, Canada and the relevant information in the literature. It is believed that by tapping into the Indigeneity of the participants and including them in the language revitalization programs, the programs in question will be more efficient in providing more effective programs, practices, and activities based on the Indigenous teachings of each Indigenous people.
Voluntary Participation Your participation in this research is completely voluntary. If you do decide to participate, you may withdraw at any time without any consequences or any explanation. If you do withdraw from the study your data will not be used in any form of studies that the researcher may undertake in his career.
Researcher’s Relationship with Participants The researcher has no blood relationship to participants except in the scholar and participant form. The researcher will keep his relationship with the participants in a respectful and formal
168 way while paying profound tribute to the Indigenous teachings, beliefs, practices, and customs of the people involved.
On-going Consent To make sure that you continue to consent to participate in this research, I will ask for prior permission before I use the data that you have provided in this study in my future research unless you grant me the permission to use the collected data in my tentative future academic studies and scientific papers.
Anonymity In terms of protecting your anonymity, your real name and identity will not be used in this study or in the future ones unless you indicate different.
Confidentiality Your confidentiality and the confidentiality of the data will be protected by not mentioning your real name and identity. All the data will be stored an encrypted external hard-drive and the researcher is the only person with access to the data. To keep the stored data safe from Internet hazards, the researcher will only use the external hard drive offline.
Dissemination of Results It is anticipated that the results of this study will be shared with others in the following ways: my Ph.D. dissertation, Ph.D. dissertation presentation, academic papers, and presentation at scholarly meetings.
Commercial Use of Results This research may not lead to a commercial product or service.
Disposal of Data Data from this study will not be destroyed but stored in an encrypted external hard-drive and kept at the researcher’s home. Upon using it, the researcher will go offline to make sure that the data will be safe from any potential hackers or Internet threats.
Contacts Individuals that may be contacted regarding this study include:
1- Hossein Ghanbari, researcher 2- Dr. Theodore Riecken, supervisor 3- Tye Swallow: Principal at Saanich Adult Education Centre 4- PENÁĆ (David Underwood), Indigenous instructor at Saanich Adult Education Centre for W̱ SÁNEĆ community 5- Aliki Marinakis, The Indigenous Education Department at the University of Victoria 6- Edōsdi (Dr. Judy Thompson), The Indigenous Education Department at the University of Victoria 7- Kendra Underwood, Director, Saanich Adult Education Centre, W̱ SÁNEĆ School Board
169 In addition, you may verify the ethical approval of this study, or raise any concerns you might have, by contacting the Human Research Ethics Office at the University of Victoria (250-472- 4545 or [email protected]). Your signature below indicates that you understand the above conditions of participation in this study, that you have had the opportunity to have your questions answered by the researchers, and that you consent to participate in this research project.
Name of Participant Signature Date
[WAIVING CONFIDENTIALITY [IF APPLICABLE] PLEASE SELECT STATEMENT only if you consent:
I consent to be identified by name / credited in the results of the study: ______(Participant to provide initials)
I consent to have my responses attributed to me by name in the results: ______(Participant to provide initials)
Future Use of Data [IF APPLICABLE] PLEASE SELECT STATEMENT:
I consent to the use of my data in future research: ______(Participant to provide initials)
I do not consent to the use of my data in future research: ______(Participant to provide initials)
I consent to be contacted in the event my data is requested for future research: ______(Participant to provide initials)
A copy of this consent will be left with you, and a copy will be taken by the researcher.
170