 Now I speak the language, the old language, which is very undistorted, it's totally intact and not many people speak the old language anymore where the language is alive and strong and it is always active which means any new things or events or situations or circumstances come up where the language was not used before, let's say like new technology and a global community of the animal world or events and activities that go on, a lot of people that are not really fluent in the language will tend to not know how to say those things or say we never had that so we don't have a word or language for that, so because of that the language kind of stopped dead in its tracks from evolving with time and the changing world, the language that was spoken 30, 40, 50 years ago is very different from how the language is spoken now, I'm not saying they are different in a way that one is better than the other or more than the other, all I'm saying is the language that was around 50 years ago and before that and the way the language works now is an expansion development and growth of the language to accommodate for the changes with time, like evolving totally, it continues to evolve just like any other language, that's important to keep that in mind when working with elders and strong speakers of the language to have strong academic education as well because the two things that work really well is a strong language fluency, the ability to speak language and the ability to have a strong academic background and put the two together and when that happens you have people or educators that are effective and working with the languages to pass it on and teach language learners how to speak fluently in the language, I'm talking about the ministry curriculum, native language programs and the language programs we have at the university, all of those have to be in sync, how I teach language in primary, junior, intermediate, secondary school, post-secondary education, I do the same way of teaching at every level, there's no difference in there, your strategies, your methods and the effective and best practices and things that work and how do I know that they work is because the students are enthusiastic, motivated, inspired and they want to continue learning and as a teacher there's nothing more rewarding than having my former students in grade four come to me as an adult as they remember me and I'm like yeah but of course I don't remember because I've had so many students and they change from kids to adults anyway and I'm like oh so what are you doing now well I'm a teacher because when you were my teacher I would be like you and they had another student in grade one who stopped me at the door when they were leaving my native language class he looked at me and said Mr. Beardy and I said what it's recess time I want to be like you when I grew up and I looked at him he's a little guy why would you want to be like me I don't want to be like me and he looked at me serious and he said I want to I want to learn our language and I want to teach it and I was taken aback by that I looked at him and I thought how do I answer that well I could answer it in two different ways one I could just say well great you know I'm sure you will but then I thought is that the truth or not so I went with option B the other answer I told him was well let's work on that and make sure it does happen from that day on that was quite a few years back I changed how I looked at the way the language programs and language teaching was done and it was pretty bad in a bad state I've been to thousands of conferences in 30 years language conference and I keep hearing the same regurgitation of what has been done and what new generations of people they speak at the conferences and say all the pretty things they're doing and stuff but when you go to their home base it's half truth I mean you can sort of see what they were talking about but it does not apply to all other communities and environments yeah so one thing is where you teach and what you teach it has to be local it has to be functional that's the word I use when teaching language you have to teach functional language functional language means language that is used every day in a natural speech communication thing and how do you get that well I'm working on a curriculum I've been working on this curriculum for many years it's it's that it's based on that comment by that little great one student and how I have to change how I teach because there was something missing the way the things that language was being taught has been taught for many many many years and it's a wave crash and burn I call it okay where students learn the language during the course of the year to some extent so they're writing the way they're going up they're learning some you know teaching units and themes and stuff and they crash they go down at the end of the year or at the end of the month when that unit is done so they pick up like a wave and then that goes down to flop and then they start again and so that's how when you look at students in school elementary high school or even the instructions program you will see that happening when they are in the program they're being exposed to the language yes there's there's learning happening but once it stops they lose it if you don't use something you start to lose it and I thought how do you like how do you change that that seems to be like a major problem that people are just ignoring the language experts language teachers it's not working like hello it isn't and all the conferences all the money that's on those things it's a waste I mean sure it's a bad age thing to you know temporarily help and make it sound nice but people are still losing the language and it's suffering how do we make what we want to do is help people to learn the language and become fluent speakers that's it so what I have been not doing is sure you have what I've done is from grade 1 to 12 I have sequenced all the units that follow step by step expansion and sequencing through the years to grade 12 and I also incorporated something that that has never been put in then worked on which is what I call the spirit or the core of the language the functional language which is there from day one from the beginning and grade one the language that is used all the time just continues to be used year after year lots of repetition and use and meaning and it continues to expand through each grade level it just continues to expand so by the time they're in high school they should be speakers of the language yeah because that core the spirit of language grows and strengthens their knowledge base and the spirit of the language and during that journey they don't crash and burn they continue to grow and when they have that they are sort of self-propelled the spirit of the language has enough flame and motivation and aspiration to continue growing on their own and the on the sidelines with what is being taught to them and the speakers that help them and the language they hear on the side it merely strengthens the core of their being it becomes their personality their identity over there and that's because I sat back and thought about I'm a speaker of the language I learned how to speak how did I learn it so I pinpointed how I learned the people that were in my life growing up ever since I was a kid crawling around they don't remember that far but I'm sure there were people there and I know who they were and during the years I grew up all the people that were part of my life that spoke the language those were my teachers those were the people that molded and shaped the languages but it was part of me who I am so there was never any question about that so that's how I grew and became part of language I never thought about it I never thought about oh I gotta remember I learned this word and remember it because when it comes to do the test I have to pass so those are the kind of factors that throw you off the block do something it's to be naturally part of that progression of language development it's just look like learning to walk first you crawl you you build strength like skeletal physical muscular development and then you start to have coordination balance equilibrium before you're able to stand and start walking and that's the same with the language you need all the support services to strengthen them to continue to grow that does not like stop and go if you're trying to walk and you don't practice or you just stopped it how will you learn to do that and so all of those things come into play with the language learning portion the functional language is the key part of a language program and all the resources that I provided that I made through countless of hours of my time I made those things with passion because I enjoyed doing that and it was no problem for me to develop this and when I make them I share it and I give it to anybody and everybody whoever wants it and what I do too is I make it applicable for modifications so that the people that use them or get ideas from them can modify it to their dialect yes and their community yes yes yes and to me the success of language programming which I worked really hard to promote and teach at programs here at the university is to model how you do the the language learning and teach both ways and how you develop resources where do they come from and it's always locally it has to come from within the community or where the language is because people want the easy way they want to buy resources you can't because I've been in many different schools and stuff communities the resources that are being bought or brought to the communities they should sit on shelves they're not being utilized because they're inappropriate and they're not effective for the language that is in the community so the resources are very important that they are appropriate and only use resources that will be used because other stuff is just baggage that slows down or interrupts the program and use the the right people to assist you to assist the program so the four states of our being it's important to know that our physical state is our shell it takes us place to place to be in places where we can grow it's our choice and what that comes our mental state the ability to think logically um figure things out analyze things and how we think the third layer which is a bit deeper is our emotions our emotions come because we're human and that is what makes us alive feel alive gives us the inspiration the motivation and the ability to learn and grow it's powerful and deep down inside is our spirit the core of who we are the day we were born that is the one thing that never changes no matter how old you are going to be if you if you're 70 and you look back to the day you can remember back as young as you were those values and those thoughts ideas and what you thought was important and not important are still there that is the the the stem of the feather is your core your spirit and all the strands on good sides of the feather are the life experiences you veer off to explore and learn but ultimately your core always pulls you back in to identify uh what it is you were given uh to be part of in this lifetime to share and give and language is like that it's not just learning to speak it what is the purpose of it that is the question we ask ourselves why why do we need to speak it it's because it's the spirit of our being when i speak my language it's my ancestors that i hear they're part of me and they speak through me whether i like it or not i don't have a choice that's who i am and that's part of my history other people will try and tell me otherwise and condemn me for this and that or say i'm not this i'm not that but who are they to know that didn't judge me for that i feel sorry for them because i don't do that to them i have no right to judge people or other people i have no right to tell them how they should live their life i do have a right to respect them that's another teaching so i have a teaching you have to respect other people for holy air whether you like it or not because you yourself too deserve that you need that that respect so all of those things come into play that is the the language and it's glory so to speak so when we talk like that see when i talk like like i struggle talking with i think i'm pretty good at english yes i communicate very well but i'm just holding back from like when i start talking like this and my language native language wants to take over it wants to pour out but i i have to like put a lid on that and try and see when i speak in my language that's good that's not me me so the language itself is um something that pours out from the spirit of your being whereas in english i have to use the mental state which is only on the second level of my being to put into words what i'm trying to say no the the the weakness of that is what i'm saying and painting a picture for you is a hit and miss i might think i did very well explaining it to you and i'm assuming the picture i have of what i'm trying to say is what you're getting but i could be totally different because of your prior knowledge and experiences and and background and stuff your path and life is quite different from mine so for me to think that we are like parallel with that i can't think like that i have to like share with you as best as i can what what i know and that's the best i can do just like what you know when you talk yeah i uh there's there's probably times where i can relate to a number of things you're talking about yeah and there will would be times where i'm like totally out in the dark with that because haven't been there or was not there yeah and so that's pretty normal but in native language it's not like that in the days when there was just our language we wouldn't go visit at a cabin our neighbors our people many times we just walk in the door and visit and during the hour 15 minutes two hours however long there are many times not a word was said verbally but it was a great visit because we could sense our presence and we can tell if somebody is feeling healthy and strong and happy or something's bothering them and then you leave and tell somebody else i don't think that person's feeling well you know that's what i got even though not a word was said yeah he's like oh he's doing really well like you can feel the energy and stuff and there's a there's a communication that happens uh a spiritual communication and words when when words need to be said it comes out from there to uh elaborate on the communication that when you start to think about the success of language teaching and programming it's that aspect of it that comes into play when you teach or help somebody learn to speak a language it's all of these things it's sharing your stories and your knowledge and making the language have a purpose what purpose and the history of it and the power and the spirit of the language it's that which latches on to the person that's what makes it successful and developing a curriculum to reflect that i know what needs to be there and what works and i'm working on it but it's a lot of work uh the language learners should be able to speak fluent language like anybody whether it's an adult a child or a native person or non-native person anybody that means i am including all the language that needs to be covered in every grade level so the language is there the language teachers don't have to try and figure out what type of language they should be covered whether you know what words what terminology and what phrases and paragraphs and stories uh and i include all of that in and having a sequence that just expands at each grade level and also preparing putting together resources that they can use on that and uh and what i'd like to do to eventually is provide audio and video resources to go with that