Bah Kho Je Language Project
In the last months Journal, we introduced you to the Language Department. You were told of our location, hours of operation, and what the Project is about. Every day we are progressing - and each day our efforts are showing that all this is becoming a reality!! We are projecting a professionally run language department, and seeking assistance of professional experts and technical guidance. And so, today, we are seeing visible effects of a Language Department. It's very exciting! Please come by and visit! This is one of your tribal departments, too. By next month, we plan to host an Open House for all tribal members and interested others that may care to attend.
We are still in need of your participation. How many of us have all said how important our Language is to each of us, and how long we have waited for such an opportunity to learn the language. Well, wait no longer. Immediate plans are to begin the language classes, very soon. In fact, we anticipate the classes to begin by later mid June.
The Language Classes will be taught by Susan Garzon, Ph.D. TESL/Linguistics Director of the Department of English at Oklahoma State University. Dr. Garzon is a trained linguist and has assisted the Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma in previous years with other language projects. Here are some tentative dates and times for the language classes, and I would like to have your feed-back as to times when we will get the best participation. With your feed back we will announce and publish dates and times, and post in various places.
This is the initial criteria for the first class.:
- Eight (8) slots for 6 - 2-hour lessons or sessions
- These eight dedicated individual students or participants must be willing to learn the Ioway Language
- These initial individuals must commit by their willingness to be taught the language
- These initial individuals must commit by their willingness to earnestly practice the language
- These initial individuals must commit by their willingness to actively participate in the learning process. No observers, please
- Elders are expected to participate
- Teachers are encouraged to sign-up and participate. We need those who can teach and carry on the class work.
At a later date, this criterion will be modified to allow any and all who wish to participate. Even as we speak, enough curriculums are being prepared in anticipation to cover the 12-hour classes and get started on a continuation of the course, for future teachings. This mode of teaching is explained later in this article.
Here's a possible schedule for classes:
June 11-13 (Wednesday-Friday)
June 16-18 (Monday-Wednesday)
June 25-26 (the Wednesday and Thursday following the pow wow).
Preference of the instructor is to meet from 10:00-12:00 a.m. However, if that's a problem for potential students, we can move it to either of these hours: 1:30-3:30 or 7:00-9:00 p.m. If we change the hours to the evening, we'll probably want to change the dates so that we're not meeting on a Friday evening or maybe a Thursday evening, if that's a church night. I don't see a great way to schedule the evening classes, but it can be done if we need to. Please call for your preference; 405.547.5433 X 23.
Thank You.
Joyce Miller
BKJ Language Implementation Project Manager
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