Developing Naskapi grammatical awareness and its effect on adult literacy
This paper explores how Naskapi grammatical awareness can be developed, and provides insight into the form that pedagogical grammatical instruction should take, in order to equip Naskapi adults to become adequately literate in their mother tongue. In the Naskapi community of Kawawachikamach, Quebec,...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Language: | unknown |
| Published: |
2015
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/10125/25363 |
| Summary: | This paper explores how Naskapi grammatical awareness can be developed, and provides insight into the form that pedagogical grammatical instruction should take, in order to equip Naskapi adults to become adequately literate in their mother tongue. In the Naskapi community of Kawawachikamach, Quebec, Naskapi is the language of instruction in the early primary grades of the school. Only recently have Naskapi-speaking teachers received formal instruction in pedagogy, with a cohort of Naskapi teachers following courses for their Bachelors in Education degree towards careers teaching in the Naskapi language in their local school. These adults are highly motivated to improve their mother tongue literacy in order to teach or prepare curriculum materials in Naskapi classrooms. This paper describes an instructional method for learning Naskapi language patterns in a form that is accessible to speakers. This method was implemented a classroom setting in which bilingual adult Naskapi speakers were learning to read and write their own language. Using a qualitative/mixed research methodology, the responses and performance of adult Naskapi learners were used to construct and to validate the framework. The instructional method includes a component of grammatical description that may be grown into a pedagogical grammar of Naskapi crafted to help speakers attain successful literacy in their own language. 25363.pdf |
|---|