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.