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The 13 Kaska Elders who participated in a recent university-level Kaska language course held in three locations on the land took different approaches to teaching than those associated with institutional settings. The diversity of Elders facilitated the modeling of gender roles, the mentoring of family members, and the representation of dialect diversity. They demonstrated a depth of experience and knowledge including a particularly wide-ranging knowledge of narrative traditions, prayers, and cultural practices. They provided balance to academic modes of instruction by communicating orally; by providing models of complex, extended use of native language; and by using the language in the context of daily activities.
Introduction
The Kaska First Nations and the University of British Columbia (UBC) jointly sponsored a Kaska language course that was held in Kaska territory in the Yukon in the summer of 2002. This article focuses on the role of Kaska Elders in determining how the language was taught at this course. Kaska is an Athabaskan language spoken in the Yukon and northern British Columbia. Like other Yukon First Nations languages, Kaska became endangered in the post-war period when the non-Native population of the territory increased dramatically and attendance at residential mission schools became compulsory. The UBC Kaska course was conceived as one way of addressing the needs of adults in the Kaska communities who would like to know more about their language and culture.
The UBC Kaska course built on the experience of Kaskas with earlier projects that were designed to document and teach the language. These included a dictionary project that resulted in the publication of a noun dictionary (Moore, 1997) and a narratives workshop (Moore, 1999). Kaska Elders were the main sources of information in these projects, and they also gradually assumed a more dominant role as language teachers. In 1999 the Kaska Tribal Council conducted a series of six-week language workshops that brought together language learners of all ages with Kaska Elders and other fluent speakers. The morning routine at these workshops included formal language instruction, including activities focusing on literacy, vocabulary, grammar, and conversational skills. The afternoons were devoted to lessons using the language for cultural activities such as hide-tanning, snowshoeing, drum-making, singing and dancing, storytelling, and cooking. This model of language instruction was chosen...