Outreach

Indigenous language instruction and revitalization

Throughout the years I have been working with language teachers, community leaders and language activists to promote the study, education and revitalization of minority languages, primarily focusing on indigenous languages of Latin America. This is one of the activities that I enjoy the most in my work, since it gives me the opportunity to interact with people from different places, who speak a variety of languages and have very unique personal stories to share. Here are some examples of such activities (see my publication and presentation page for a complete list).

Wapichana

Since 2010, I have been working with Wapichana teachers and language activists in the Serra da Lua region in Roraima (Brazil). What started as a collaboration to produce pedagogical materials and to study bilingual language acquisition became a decade long friendship. I truly admire the work of the Serra da Lua language teachers who keep fighting to preserve their language.

Throughout the years, we worked together in several projects. In the picture below, we see Kimi Oliveira (Kirichiaba), Nilzimara Silva (Nizuaba) and Wanja Sebastião (Waruaba) working on the lexicon we use in different materials.

In 2020 we are starting our next project, in which we plan to use the reclaiming spaces methodology to prepare activities and second language materials to use with children and teenagers who no longer speak the language in the communities near Boa Vista.

More than 40 Wapichana language teachers participated in the workshops of the Pedagogical Grammar project (PRODOCLIN - Museu do Índio) between 2013 and 2015.

Wendy Leandro (Pimydyaba) was a lecturer at the University of Guyana, my former graduate student and a research partner in Wapichana projects.

Nilzimara Silva (Nizuaba), Joana Autuori, Benedita da Silva (Mariuaba) and Wendy Leandro (Pimydyaba) were the representatives of the Wapichana group in the Pedagogical Grammar workshops that took place in Rio de Janeiro.

Pedagogical grammar workshops in Brazil (2013 - 2015)

The pedagogical grammar workshops in Brazil happened as part of the Museu do Índio documentation project (PRODOCLIN) coordinated by Prof. Bruna Franchetto. Five languages (Ikpeng, Karaja, Kawaiete, Paresi and Wapichana) were chosen to be used as the proof of concept, and teams of speakers, language teachers and linguists who worked with those languages participated in those activities.

There were also activities at indigenous communities where the material was produced using the methodology described during those workshops. After designing the specifications for the grammars and the methodology to prepare them, I had the pleasure of working with the five groups to create the pedagogical units for their grammars.

Pedagogical grammar workshops in Mexico (2015 - 2018)

The Pedagogical Grammar workshops for Otomanguean languages took place during four consecutive summers at the Biblioteca de Investigación Juan de Córdova in Oaxaca. I was invited by my colleague Prof. Emiliana Cruz (CIESAS) to share the Brazilian experience with speakers and linguists in Mexico. In the first year, we had more than 80 participants who spoke more than a dozen languages.

One of the most interesting aspects of the work was to explore ways in which the methodology used to build the usage-based pedagogical grammars could be adapted to include units dealing with tonal languages. The workshop participants had finished specific training on how to identify and describe the very complex tonal systems of Otomanguean languages, and they were eager to use their knowledge to produce relevant pedagogical materials. I had not worked with tonal languages in Brazil before working in Oaxaca, and I was really excited to learn so much about the phonological properties of these fascinating Mexican languages.

Early Literacy materials in Brazil (2016)

As part of a national initiative called "Sabares Indígenas", I was invited by some colleagues at the Federal University of Minas Gerais and the Instituto Socioambiental to give a workshop on indigenous languages and early literacy materials in January 2016. There were language teachers from four different communities: Maxakali, Sanöma, Yanomae and Yekuana. The goal was to look into existing models of literacy materials for languages with strong oral traditions and develop a set of specifications to create new materials for these four languages. Together with Ana Gomes (UFMG), Joana Autuori (USP) and Moreno Martins (ISA) , I published a paper in 2016 that describes the research and work that took place to prepare an early literacy book for Sanöma.

Based on this project, I also gave a workshop at CIESAS (Mexico City) in 2018 on literacy development and indigenous languages with strong oral traditions. It was a four-day workshop for 50 participants who spoke several different Mexican languages. I hope I can go back to Mexico and work a little more with teachers who speak some of those languages.

Karajá (2012)

In 2012, I was invited by the Karajá community and the team of researchers working on a documentation project (Marcus Maia, Chang Wang and Cristiane de Oliveira) to give a workshop on pedagogical materials at Hawaló.

Although their contact with non-indigenous communities date back to the 18th century, the Karajá managed to preserve their language, which is still being learned by the younger generations in the communities who live in the middle of the Bananal Island.

The Karajá are famous for their ceramic dolls depicting several aspects of their daily life as well as animals that live in their traditional territories. It was a great pleasure to work there and learn more about their language and culture. It was also the first time I had the opportunity to work with my friends Marcus, Chang and Cristiane. I look forward to doing that again soon.

The work done by the Karajá teachers and the team of researchers in 2012 was crucial for the beginning of the Pedagogical Grammars project in the following year. It served as a proof of concept that was used by PRODOCLIN to justify the implementation of the project. During the workshop, we produced the first version of some pedagogical units that were later used in the Karajá grammar.

Apyãwa (2011)

In 2011, I was invited by the Apyãwa (Tapirapé) teachers to give a workshop on bilingualism, second language instruction, and minority languages in Tapi'itawa (Mato Grosso). I was visiting the community during a very beautiful summer celebration I had the honor to witness.

The Apyãwa live in the southern Amazon and have a very challenging and beautiful survival story. They were almost extinct in the middle of the 20th century, when they were reduced to a population of less than 50 people. They have recovered after fighting for many years for the right over their traditional land, and they are now more than 960 people. Their children are speaking the Apyãwa language while the adults are constantly creating new words to use their language in everyday communication. You can find more information in de Paula and Tapirapé (2017)