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This article is from Today's Native Father, issue #137, January/February, 2005. Related articles from this issue:
Strengthen Your Family Through Language Building
Myths About Bilingualism
Power of Life or Death in the Tongue

My children can hardly communicate with my parents,” the father said sadly.

“They spend six hours a day at school, where only English is spoken. Then they watch five hours of English language TV every evening. When the grandparents speak our language, my children can understand some of the words but hardly any of the thoughts.”

Loss of primary language is a problem faced by bilingual peoples worldwide. Moreover, this loss may be one cause of the social breakdown and chaos seen in many communities, according to speech language pathologist Susan Wastie in an article published by Canadian Child Care Federation.

“In many parts of the world, children are encouraged to speak more than one language from the time they are born because bilingualism and multilingualism are considered assets. However, in spite of the benefits, there has always been controversy about how and why people learn, or fail to learn, more than one language. In some instances, children have been explicitly discouraged from speaking their home languages in child care facilities,” writes Wastie.

The steps to primary language loss proceed something like this.

• 1. Children learn from school and TV that fluency in the language of the dominant culture is key to success in life. Children are naturally quicker than adults to learn languages. They take advantage of their opportunities to learn the dominant language and soon prefer it over their primary language. Meanwhile, their parents are often “stuck” in jobs that do not require fluency in the dominant language and do not give them much opportunity to learn it.
  
• 3. Younger children born into the home pick up more of the dominant language from their siblings than they do the primary language from their parents.
  
• 4. Lacking a common language, the parents have difficulty teach-ing their values and culture to their children. It is unlikely that the children will learn these values in the same way from their siblings, peers or other care givers.
  

“If children are not given opportunity to learn their parents’ language, their sense of identity and culture may be at risk,” says Wastie. She cites studies that document the benefits of bilingualism, where children are encouraged to become fluent in both the dominant and primary languages.

The small Oji-Cree community of Wunnumin Lake in Northwestern Ontario is attempting to develop a generation of truly bilingual children. They want everyone to be fluent both in their native language, which they call Anishininimowin, and in English.

In their school, Kindergarten-4 and Kindergarten-5 are a total immersion program. If children don’t know Anishininimowin, they have to learn it. At this young age, children can adapt and learn language more easily. It has been found that students who communicate in this language with their class-mates and teacher have better understanding later of what is taught in school.

When students get to grade one, teachers begin to use some English. By the end of the second term, there is a 60/40 Anishininimowin/English ratio. This becomes a 50/50 ratio by the end of grade two. From grades three through eight, there are five 40-minute Anishininimowin classes each week.

Viola Roundhead, the native language teacher, caught the vision for this curriculum from John George Martin, who taught native language before the community had local control of its school. She helped get the program started in 1998.

“Students who are not fluent in our native language have more difficulty in school,” says Roundhead. “It is harder for older students to learn our language unless they are really keen on learning or willing to work hard.”

And what are the Wunnumin grandparents saying? They are very happy that their community has this program.

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