Hello, I greet you! I would like to introduce myself, my HoChunk name is Wanik Co (Blue Bird) and my English name is Lewis “Bleu” St.Cyr. I am a proud member of the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska and also a member of the Bear clan. As of August 2015, I have been serving as the Program Director for the HoChunk Renaissance language program. Founding in 2003, the HoChunk Renaissance Language program is the official tribal language program of the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska. Although we have been a community resource for cultural information, our mission at the program is to specifically focus our efforts in revitalizing the HoChunk language. I would like to update our tribal membership regarding the latest projects and accomplishments at HoChunk Renaissance.
Daily HoChunk Classes
Our language instructors are teaching daily at the local educational facilities which include Winnebago Public Schools (WPS), St. Augustine’s Indian Mission, and Little Priest Tribal College (4-credit hour class). At WPS and St. Augustine’s, our teachers are allowed approximately fifteen (15) minutes in each class a day to teach the language. It is evident that language learning requires much more time. This method has shown to be effective in our recent data but not in a way that can produce a fluent speaker. With this in mind, we have been developing and implementing innovative projects to speed up the process by providing miscellaneous language learning materials suitable for all ages.
One concern we found is that the child/student would learn the language at school, but would return to the non-speaking home and find rare to none language interaction, that shows the language stops at school. To tackle this issue, it is our goal to implement a community educational course available for families and all tribal members. Our participants will be active in language learning and it could strengthen language usage in the home. This will be a free opportunity for all to learn more of the HoChunk language.
Community Education
In the past we have provided language classes to the community but would have retention issues. After reevaluating the last classes, which were done approximately 7-8 years ago, the conclusion was that there was no clear direction or objectives to each class. The learner did not have a clear path of understanding on what they were going to accomplish at the end of the language class. However at this time, we are pleased to announce, we will be returning with our structured community language classes with an official individual name, a curriculum featuring hands-on activities, a workbook, and incentives. Further detailed information will announced soon. Our project manager is currently working on finalizing this project and it is our intent to have our classes fully operational in early 2018.
Curriculum & Language Development
In addition to all the extracurricular activities and projects we host, we are also investing into our next generational speakers. Our language apprentices are currently studying daily terms and phrases corresponding with our unique curriculum development. To best describe our actions, our Language Apprentices and Curriculum Coordinator are laying the tracks while the train is moving. In order to teach these challenging phrases, it is crucial that our Language Apprentices learn them beforehand. Our curriculum structure is generated by using the American Council of Teaching Foreign Language (ACTFL) guidelines. The ACTFL guidelines are used within many world language curriculums and allow for language to be evaluated and learned more quickly. However, we have the task to adapt everything to our HoChunk language, which is also can be time consuming.
There are three main blocks within the curriculum structure. These blocks are called Novice, Intermediate, and Advanced. Within each block there are three individual levels called low, mid, and high. (Ex. Novice-low, Novice-mid) Our curriculum team is currently designing and also being evaluated monthly through the Novice-Mid level. This requires our Language Apprentices to expand outside of basic nouns and begin using sentences and phrases. Our Curriculum Coordinator, Language Apprentices, and Eminent Speakers have been working hard collectively to assure we will have our next generation speakers ready to teach out of a curriculum they are also designing.
We also are proud to announce we have completed our Novice-low curriculum. Our curriculum now features daily lesson plans, activities, objectives, material boxes, supportive binders, and online & digital resources such as PowerPoints and Quizlets. These are currently being used in our classes at the local schools. This is a proud accomplishment by the staff as there was never a firm HoChunk language curriculum developed before. Now we have a foundation and are building toward a comprehensive curriculum for our future generations. It is taking a lot of time investment but we are on our way!
Online Resources
Our Language Apprentices are also seeking innovative ways to expose our audiences to the HoChunk language. We currently have an online resource called “Quizlet”. With the help of Quizlet, you are able to access a database of categorized language terms and phrases. Quizlet allows you to turn these language categories into quizzes and study guides, and it is possible to even create a virtual game with the quizzes. This is a project our Language Apprentices have been dedicated and working hard on these past years. To access it, search: www.Quizlet.com and type in HoChunk Renaissance in the search box.
Our Media Production Manager has also developed and maintains our online language resources. These include Facebook, Twitter, and Soundcloud. Not to mention, the unique cultural & language videos that are posted on our Youtube. Our Media Production Manager is also a graphic artist and creates all our flyers, posters, and artwork.
Our Accomplishments
There are many other projects and concerns we have, which include creating traditional and digital materials (both instructional and promotional), preservation (recording, transcribing), teaching classes daily, social media, prepping and grading for classes, learning teacher instruction, strengthen individual HoChunk fluency, fulfilling external requests, and so much more.
However, since my inheritance of the program in August 2015, our program team has accomplished quite a number of goals. Some highlights include:
- Beginning curriculum development – Novice-Low completed
- Strengthening social media relations – Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud, Quizlet
- Hocak Vocab builder app – Available on IOS & Android devices
- The “Hocak hoit’era” Vol. 1 language book & Audio drives
- Community & cultural events including: 2017 HoChunk Youth Summer camp, Language baseball tournament, Haunted House fundraiser, HoChunk Christmas Carols, Family Game Night, Easter Egg Hunt, Jack-o-lantern contest, Waboxiri contest.
- Digitized older audio materials for database
- Created new HoChunk words to describe modern items,
- Apprentice language fluency evaluations
- “Who wants to be a Millionaire” – Computerized language game.
- Street “Stop” signs & Banners
- And so much more!
In today’s society, technology is growing and changing every day. We feel that we need to utilize these technological tools to help retain the interest in our younger generation. By working in conjunction with the Language Conservatory, we launched our “HoChunk Vocab Builder” app in November 2016. This opportunity further expands our language learning in the digital era. Not to mention, our tribal members who reside off the reservation now have exposure to our sacred language. We are pursuing further opportunities to expand our efforts in the technology realm but must first consider many factors before doing so. These include the potential risk of exploitation of our language and culture within non-HoChunk communities. It is our intent to provide our off reservation relatives access to the language but we must consider all protective measures first. Before we pursue any major projects, it is important that we always seek the approval of our elder fluent speakers that are employed within the program, two of which are veterans.
The Future of HoChunk Renaissance
With the decreasing amount of fluent speakers, our language team has been on a race to revitalize our tribal language by teaching our tribal membership and by hosting other educational activities for the community. In part of our efforts, we hope to implement more opportunities for language learning in the near future. We have also begun slowly shifting our efforts & focus in a way that our children will become first language speakers of the HoChunk language. This shift will occur as we finalize our curriculum and develop our Language Apprentices as our next generational speakers and teachers. It is also our intent to expose stronger cultural pride in our community. You will see us implementing unique projects like incorporating street signs in the language, billboards with culture, banners with tribal designs, and much more in our local community.
In conclusion, we look forward to minimizing our existing obstacles and face new challenges with revitalizing our sacred language. We tend to think of creative ways to implement language for all our tribal members. We ask that you continue to support our tribal language revitalization efforts by getting involved, attending language & culture events, downloading or seeking our resources, and importantly speaking, which will keep our language alive. It is important for all tribal members and all HoChunk people to do their part in contributing to speaking our language on a daily basis. It was once said, if our language is gone, we will lose our identity as HoChunk people. We strongly feel that it takes the whole tribal community (not only the language program) to strengthen a language and we believe if our people come together, our language can flourish once again. Our language team is ambitious and every day they take the initiative to lead our people through a “HoChunk Renaissance” with our tribal language. However, we need your help. On the other hand, if you need any cultural or language resources, we will gladly help in the best way we can as well. It is our duty to serve as a cultural resource for all our HoChunk people. We thank you for your continued support and look forward to offering you many more HoChunk Renaissance language projects and events in the future.