This is the second instalment in a two-part series.
Agnes Mitchell and Jacey Firth-Hagen have only known each other for a few days, but they’re already the best of friends.
Having a common bond in their desire to learn and speak their mother tongue, the two are one of six pairs who met during the opening class of the Mentor-Apprentice Program, July 13-14 at Aurora College in Inuvik. They’re beginning a 10-month journey of speaking Gwichya Gwich’in, the dialect around Tsiigehtchic.
“I was very happy she asked me. I know she’s always talking about her language,” said Mitchell, who will mentor Firth-Hagen. “I’m really thankful to be sharing my language. Our language was slowly dying, but now it’s a different story.
“You see all of us in here. My dream is to teach her, and then she’ll start teaching. Eventually, give it a few years, she’ll be the mentor. It really touches my heart to speak the language and I get more excited when somebody else wants to learn.”
Mitchell said she’s “floating” to be able to teach her language, which she only got back in practice with over the pandemic.
She, her sister and cousin around the North initially connected over video chat to keep in touch. During those chats, they were able rekindle the spark of language.
”Since Covid started, the language really kicked in for me,” she said, “so we sort of got together and started speaking out language.
“Most of us didn’t know (the online program) Zoom, but now we’re all comfortable with that and we can see each other speaking. So we’re all happy to share what we know.”
Firth-Hagen, who has been running the revival campaign #SpeakGwich’inToMe for six years, said she sought out Mitchell through the program specifically, deciding it was time to take her knowledge of the language to the next level.
Though she has a good handle on vocabulary, she said her primary goal over the next 10 months is to get enough conversational practice to be able to put together complicated sentences. When she’s 10 months in, she’s hoping to be able to speak exclusively in Gwichya Gwich’in for up to 10 minutes.
“I felt it was just the right time for me to commit to learn Gwich’in,” said Firth-Hagen. “My goal is to be able to converse with a fluent Elder. I want to just keep improving my knowledge of conversational Gwich’in.
“I love being here, hearing all this Gwich’in and Inuvialuktun. I love being around our language champions and Elders. I’m very excited, I already have a page of phrases to learn and memorize just from Agnes and I talking the last few days.”
It pays to learn
Twelve people, pairing off into six groups, were present for the two-day training session, which included immersive conversation, ideas on how to arrange lessons, how to promote physical and mental wellness while practising and how to properly report on each mentoring session.
Each mentor in the Beaufort Delta region is compensated $30 per hour and each student receives $25 per hour, but need to report on the work they are doing before they get paid.
The total of 200 hours of language practice is double the amount of time the program offered students in its maiden-year. Launched in 2020 as a pilot program, MAP was so successful out of the gate that Indigenous governments across the NWT offered the money needed to add an extra 100 hours of instruction time for its second year.
Across the NWT, there are 80 mentors and students participating this year.
Part of the program is learning ways to teach language in a fun way. Each pair was given a variety of fun games, including cards with various images on them, picture books without words and even UNO decks to practice numeracy.
”It’s about doing real-life things and activities in the language,” said MAP project coordinator Jordee Reid. “We have decks of cards with different themes. Some are weather, some are emotions, or food, clothing or family. They can play ‘Go Fish’ with them. Or we have wordless books, so they can tell their own stories using pictures.
“Games are meant to bring some lightheartedness into the program. Language learning is exhausting, it’s frustrating at times, it can be really emotional with a lot of different triggers, so having a fun game you can fall back on that’s still in the language is very important.”
