Technology Helps Preserve Mi'kmaq Language

Mi'kmaq students at Riverside Education Centre in Milford, Colchester Co., are holding on to their ancestral language by embracing new technology -- and a new teacher 300 kilometres away in Cape Breton.

Thanks to new high-speed broadband connections, students in grades 7 and 8 can receive lessons through video conference technology from Arlene Stevens, a Mi'kmaq language teacher at Sherwood Park Education Centre in Sydney.

The Riverside students lost their regular Mi'kmaq language teacher just weeks into the 2000-01 school year. When the education system could not find a qualified replacement, Sister Dorothy Moore, a Mi'kmaq Student Services consultant with the Department of Education, realized they could use video conferencing to access Ms. Stevens.

Sister Dorothy knew that a virtual Mi'kmaq language class was possible thanks to recent network upgrades and new computer equipment installed in the schools in 2001. Both were funded by the Information Economy Initiative.

The initiative is a provincial/federal/private-sector partnership that has provided more than $90 million in information technology projects throughout the province since 1998.

The Riverside students had their first video conference with their new teacher shortly after the ugrades, in April 2001.

"The kids were so excited," said Sister Dorothy. "They are absolutely totally interested in getting their language back."

Ms. Stevens agrees.

"The Grade 8 students were especially appreciative because they had already had a year of Mi'kmaq language when they were in Grade 7. So I think this meant more to them," she said.

The video conference system is about as close to having Ms. Stevens in the room as possible. The students go into the classroom in Riverside and their teacher, Randy Harrison, activates the system. Ms. Stevens appears from Sherwood Park on the large screen in full audio and video and teaches them just as she would if she were standing in front of them.

"There is the occasional problem with the picture or sound slowing down for a few seconds, but basically, it's just like having her here with us," said Mr. Harrison, who is also responsible for keeping the students on task, administering tests and helping them as much as possible with their assignments.

About 10 per cent of the students at Riverside have Mi'kmaq heritage, which prompted the decision to provide Mi'kmaq as an alternative to French for the second-language class. Mr. Harrison said the students taking the Mi'kmaq class seem excited to be learning their ancestral language.

"I know some of them have been very happy to be able to start having small conversations with their grandparents and parents," he said.

The Indian Brook Band Council, whose children go to Riverside, was so supportive of the language classes and their cultural importance that they offered to pay for a Mi'kmaq crafts teacher to come in and teach Ms. Stevens' class in Sherwood Park while she's video conferencing with the Riverside students.

That community support and enthusiasm for the language makes Ms. Stevens happy. She has been deeply concerned about the loss of language within Mi'kmaq communities across the province.

"It happened pretty fast," she said. "In the Eskasoni Elementary School in 1986, 10 per cent of the kids spoke English, and 90 per cent spoke Mi'kmaq. By 1996, it was reversed."

Sister Dorothy sees the video conferencing system as a way for many Mi'kmaq communities throughout the province to address a shortage of Mi'kmaq language teachers.

"Not all Mi'kmaq students have the opportunity to take the language classes, but with this technology, it could be possible in many more areas," she said. "We are seriously looking into it and hope it can happen, because these students are the future Mi'kmaq speakers and they will be responsible for keeping the language alive."