Speaking in Context: Developing a Shawnee Language Program From Within

• In Event: Indigenous Language Immersion and “Mainstream” Dual Language Bilingual Education Allyship: Learning From/With Each Other

Abstract

Objectives
To support the Shawnee Language Immersion Program’s (SLIP) move to online language classes in 2020, the Shawnee Tribe built a team of Indigenous and non-Indigenous linguists and language teachers to develop curriculum. In this paper, we (SLIP team members) discuss SLIP’s curriculum development since 2020 in relation to language teaching theory and community context, ultimately arguing that it is not enough for theory to be adapted to community context but that community context creates relevant theory. When the latter occurs, concepts such as “fluency” and “speakerhood” transform.

Conceptual Framework
We operate under indigenizing frameworks that prioritize our Indigenous community’s perspective. As Shawnees, we value both our individual and our communal knowledge and experiences, meaning we center “kinning” (Van Horn et al., 2021) and the relationality that each Shawnee is obligated to upkeep interpersonally and intercommunally.

Methods and Data Sources
Following the Shawnee Tribe’s history of community-engaged scholarship (Barnes & Warren, 2022), we gather our data from (1) autoethnographic reflections on being active participants of and stakeholders in SLIP over the past 3-4 years, and (2) knowledge shares (indigenized participant observation) amongst ourselves, learners, and the Shawnee Tribe’s Language Department. Author1 also brings findings from three years of assessment surveys to contextualize language learner progress across curricula iterations.

Findings
We found each author drew on different theories, frameworks, and methods in adapting existing programs and knowledge to a specific Shawnee context—adults taking beginner classes online.
Analyzing learner surveys from 2021 to 2024, Author1 found that whereas learners initially prioritized community engagement through language learning, currently they prioritize communicative competency and producing spontaneous and grammatically-correct Shawnee. In response to these new goals, Author1 implemented new learning methods. Though homework assignments and class observations reveal learners are meeting their recent goals, many learners have internalized Western measures of fluency and speakerhood and do not believe their language skills are proceeding as hoped.
Under the guidance of first-language speaker George “Fife” Blanchard, Author1 began to reconceptualize fluency and speakerhood in a uniquely Shawnee way. For Fife, speakerhood is the commitment to keeping Shawnee language in our bodies and to develop continuing relationships with other Shawnee language keepers. By Fife’s standards, many of our learners have achieved advanced fluency and Shawnee speakerhood. In sharing this perspective with learners, we saw increased joy, comfort, connectivity, and commitment to the program and our Shawnee community at large—the ultimate goals of the program.
Considering our learners’ journeys through the lens of Shawnee speakerhood, we assert that developing curriculum and programs from adapting theories and frameworks is not enough. By centering community perspectives of speakerhood and fluency, we empower our learners as language keepers.

Scholarly Significance
For Indigenous Language Immersion (ILI) and Dual Language Bilingual Education (DLBE), we offer the approach of first identifying community and cultural contexts and then creating theory and frameworks accordingly. Taking an Indigenizing/decolonizing approach to DLBE, schools might move from language separation models to formalizing their own instructional models grounded in the existing translanguaging practices of that school and local community.

Authors

• Bri Alexander, Graduate Center - CUNY

• Jessica Somerville-Braun, Skidmore College

• Joel Barnes, Shawnee Tribe Language Department