Harriet St. Pierre was raised speaking Michif. She has travelled to many places in Canada, working at different jobs before returning to Saskatchewan, where she worked in education as an Elder counsellor for many years. Retired now, she teaches Michif and provides translation support for language resources. Harriet shares the importance of having one’s Indigenous language and how it feels to be able to express one’s-self in their language. The Michif language is essential, Harriet shares, as it helps show the community, culture, and nation to whom it belongs. Today, she continues to teach Michif via Zoom with high school students.

The LHF is proud to announce the release of the sixth podcast episode in our new series called, Voices from the Land: Indigenous Peoples Talk Language Revitalization. Today’s entry is with Emily Angulalik, an Inuk from Cambridge Bay, who teaches Inuinnaqtun to adults at Nunavut Arctic College.

Emily Angulalik shares with listeners her methods and approach to teaching Inuinnaqtun to adults. Inuinnaqtun is a close relative language to Inuktitut. In teaching it, she uses an approach guided by cultural principles. Students in her classroom are welcomed into a safe environment for language learning. This is particularly important for an Indigenous language classroom where learners could experience a range of emotions from intergenerational traumas. Join in and have a listen as Emily Angulalik offers practical advice and explains how she engages language teaching through culture to create a language learning approach that is effective and healing for Indigenous language learners.

The LHF is proud to announce the release of the fifth podcast episode in our new series called, Voices from the Land: Indigenous Peoples Talk Language Revitalization. Today’s entry is with Mabel Metallic, a Mi’gmaq language teacher from Listuguj in Quebec.

Mabel has been teaching since 1999, and she has taught her traditional language in various contexts, including in school, in community programs, and at home, and with adults and children. She has also worked hard to raise her own children in the language.

From her years of experience and many different language-teaching contexts, including raising her own children in the language, Mabel Metallic shares many practical best practices and recommendations for improving Indigenous language outcomes for children. Teachers, and parents wanting to raise their children in the language, will get a lot out of this episode.

The LHF is proud to announce the release of the fourth podcast episode in our new series called Voices from the Land: Indigenous Peoples Talk Language Revitalization. Today’s entry is with Brian Maracle, co-founder of Onkwawenna Kentyohkwa – an adult immersion Kanien’kéha (Mohawk) language program on the Six Nations of the Grand River territory.

Prior to becoming a language teacher, Brian has had a previous career in journalism. However, for over twenty years he has dedicated his time supporting language revitalization as both a Director in the program and as an instructor. Brian came to speak his language as an adult, and through reflection and adaptation over 20 years, he has gained many insights into how to make a successful adult Indigenous language immersion program. Brian shares these insights and practices in an interview that has broad relevance for Indigenous language teachers and those running community language programs.

The LHF is proud to announce the release of the third podcast episode in our new series called Voices from the Land: Indigenous Peoples Talk Language Revitalization. Today’s entry is with Zebedee Nungak, an Inuk originally from the Nunavik community of Puvirnituq.

Zebedee Nungak is a fluent speaker of Inuktitut, and he is a writer, satirist, radio commentator, and a former political leader. He has helped produce films and documentaries. As a spokesperson, he speaks powerfully for the importance of learning and revitalizing Inuit language and culture. He shared with our interviewers about the importance for Inuit of knowing their first language and being immersed in cultural teachings and knowledges as both an essential component of building up one’s identity and self-confidence, but also to protect them from colonial ideologies that disregard Indigenous identities.

The LHF is proud to announce the release of the second podcast episode in our new series called Voices from the Land: Indigenous Peoples Talk Language Revitalization. Today’s entry is with Colleen Omand, a Cree language teacher at Isaac Brock School in Winnipeg.

While Colleen is doing great work to promote the Cree language, she draws our attention to the larger, coordinated effort going on at her school that she is a part of. In this interview, she talks with our interviewers, Gordon Spence and Andrew Bomberry, about the curriculum used at her school and the pedagogical practices used with young children in a public school Indigenous language immersion setting.