Symposium on Immersion Education
Resources
Native Studies @ STU
Immersion Teacher Training @ STU
Contact
Working together for education in our language
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Join Us
To join the committee of Immersion Educators working for Immersion please e-mail your contact information (name, mailing address, phone, fax, and e-mail) to committee@immersion.org . A special letter to all Immersion presenters:
"Kci woliwon psiw-te wen! A big thanks to you all!
First of all, I can say without any doubt that all of our goals for the conference have been achieved, and then some!" Feature Articles:
Feature Article: "Native Languages: Wrongs from the Past, Rights for the Future?" by David Leitch is available here. Links Of Interest
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Working Together for Education in the Medium of Our Mother-Tongues
The first ever conference on immersion education in First Nations was held at St. Thomas University in Fredericton, N.B., October 3-6, 2005. This conference was sponsored jointly by the Chair in Native Studies at St. Thomas University and by the Chief's Committee on Languages (CCOL) of the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) with funding from Heritage Canada and Indian and Northern Affairs Canada. It was planned initially as an opportunity to bring First Nations immersion educators together around the visit of two world renowned scholars, Drs. Tove Skutnabb-Kangas and Robert Phillipson, on the topics of linguistic imperialism, linguistic human rights, and immersion education. But the conference grew into far more than just an academic exercise. Educators attended from virtually every First Nation in Canada with an immersion program, along with language policy specialists from the Assembly of First Nations, and language activists from communities seeking ways to save their languages. For once a language conference was able to focus on the single most important strategy for maintaining a language--immersion. And for the first time ever, participants had the unique opportunity not only to hear of the remarkable educational and linguistic success of immersion in nine different languages, but also to discuss educational and political strategies for establishing and supporting immersion programs. Among the many recommendations from this symposium was one to develop this website as a means of disseminating information on immersion from and to First Nations across the country.
Another recommendation of the October 2005 Symposium on Immersion for First Nations was to establish an independent committee of immersion educators and activists to promote awareness about immersion as the single most effective means for saving a language. The goal of this committee is to encourage and promote the establishment of immersion programs in all First Nations languages and communities across Canada. Its first task will be to address the recommendations from the October Symposium, and begin planning for an annual conference on immersion education.