Alaskan teachers visit Texas for help in preserving a language
GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas — Alaskan educators traveled to Texas as they explore strategies to preserve an Indigenous language by teaching the next generation.
The Yugtun language is spoken by the Yup’ik people who live in Southwest Alaska but only about 10,000 native speakers are left in the community. So the district — which spreads across nearly 30 villages, the bulk of which are in remote areas — is working to ensure that the language will live on.
Veronica Simons is among about 32 Alaskan educators who visited Grand Prairie on Monday to see firsthand how the district approaches dual language learning. Each year for the past 12 years, representatives from the Lower Kuskokwim school district visit Texas to observe and learn from Grand Prairie ISD teachers who are bilingual and teach in English and Spanish.
Simons teaches in Yugtun, which is her first language. The Lower Kuskokwim school district in Bethel found Grand Prairie to be a model of successful bilingual education after learning about GPISD through consultants.
Second-graders at Bowie Fine Arts Academy sat in small groups of three and four when the Alaskan educators walked into their classroom. They were working on questions about a book they had just read “Un Conejo y su Danza de la Nieve.” Working independently, with a teacher rotating from group to group, the students wrote down their thoughts about the lessons they learned from the book about a bunny and its snow dance.
The local teachers and Alaskan delegation discussed strategies on how to manage both languages for students up to fifth grade. “They’re writing a lot,” Simmons said of the youngsters she’s observed in Texas. “Even in second grade, they’re writing paragraphs. I was amazed.”
The students’ independence in the classroom really stood out to Simons. She wants to implement a similar system when she returns home. Still, Simons knows her district faces great challenges back in Alaska. Some of the communities they serve require a plane or boat to access, which can complicate implementing new strategies. And publishers are not working with the Yugtun language the way they work with Spanish, for example. “I have to translate everything into Yugtun” for students, Simmons said.
Native speakers are the ones who create standards for each grade as well as lessons in Yugtun.
In the Lower Kuskokwim school district, 3,814 of the 3,971 students are Alaska Natives, according to state data. Each time they visit, the Alaskan teachers find new ideas or methods they can adapt to their own classrooms, said Christina Robbin, director of elementary education at the Lower Kuskokwim school district.
In Grand Prairie, about a third of the district’s nearly 27,000 students speak a language other than English at home, according to state data.
The district’s dual language program serves kindergarten to fifth grade, helping those students to be “bilingual, biliterate and bicultural,” said Monica Smith, one of the district’s English language learning strategists.
“It takes about five years to be truly bilingual in academic language,” Smith noted. “So we hope that those students will stay bilingual and bicultural for the rest of their lives.”
Smith said Grand Prairie educators also learn from their Alaskan colleagues. The district piloted a course last year that delved into Native American history and experiences. “It enriches us both because we also learn about their communities and ideas on what they are doing to keep their language,” she said.