Strategies
Incorporating oral language proficiency skills is essential as well as literacy skills for student success. I have students who are able to speak academically but struggle with natural speech as in conversational language. My ultimate goal is for students to become better speakers of Diné language while being able to convey/tell their own oral history to continue the oral tradition, moreover to develop a strong self-identity through their personal knowledge of their own history.
Proficient oral language speakers
A majority of my students do speak Diné language at either Novice High or Intermediate Low or Intermediate Mid on the American CT Foreign Language guide. My students need to practice oral language to become more proficient in Diné. Using second language learning strategy, Accountable Talk, which provokes students to use language to question and discuss a situation. I will create situational stories that will create discussion for example, a story about a young girl who has to choose between her traditional life, and a western education. I will develop higher order thinking questions about the story for students to discuss. Questions will include what, why, and how so that the answers create more than a yes and no response. I will assist students with Diné language as they are in a discussion session.
Teacher modeling oral history
Through modeling of oral history by the teacher and community storytellers will help students develop natural language that includes traditional language of onomatopoeia and figurative language that are parts of oral language. It is important for students to listen to oral language the way it is spoken in a natural traditional way for its authenticity. Students will hear the inflections and expressions in words in natural language. I will model my oral history on various topics such as my education, my childhood, my boarding school experiences, and other topics for students to listen to oral Diné language.
Vocabulary Development
My students are limited in their Diné language vocabulary. It comes challenging for students to create complex oral sentences to orally tell of an event with accuracy. Many of my students interject English words or phrases for words they do not know in Diné. Diné language sentence pattern is different from the English sentence pattern. The English sentence pattern is S-V-O. The Diné sentence pattern is S-O-V. Further, every verb has between 15 to 46 conjugation depending time and speakers. A majority of the parents are not speakers of Diné language that makes it difficult for my students to practice speaking Diné language at home with parents.
Teaching students Diné language is very challenging due to the complexity of the language and the conjugation of verbs. Vocabulary words need to be taught in context not isolated words. One word in Diné could translate to one sentence in English or vise versa. Vocabulary words need to be introduced by modeling it pronunciation and meaning for students be able to use the vocabulary words correctly. The vocabulary words need to be used in similar context in speaking and writing daily until students are able to use the vocabulary words correctly.
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