Aresta Tsosie-Paddock
Note: Title was current at time of award and may have changed.
Shifting Pedagogies for Learning the Navajo Language: Applying a Mentor-Apprentice Paradigm through Technology
The number of fluent Navajo speakers continues to decline as a result of English language immersion, English-only policies, migration and resettlement, and intergenerational language trauma leading to non-transmission of the language. This CUES project uses a virtual Mentor-Apprentice Paradigm approach to address the challenging mission of increasing the number of Navajo language speakers. Students, as apprentices, will study with fluent Navajo speakers, as mentors, in an individualized format through the Zoom platform, with the goal of increasing student Navajo language proficiency and cultural knowledge, including cultural motivational philosophies as a retention mechanism. The Mentor-Apprentice model is based on a K’é (relative)-centered framework, a culturally appropriate method. It represents an effort to foreground Native Arizona community resources and knowledge to provide awareness of native language, rooted in our diverse society’s life-ways. This program is an appropriate way for the University of Arizona, a land grant institution, to utilize its talent and resources to reciprocally serve its diverse stakeholders and support its educational mission.
Project Outcomes
Revitalizing Indigenous languages necessitates innovative, community-rooted approaches. The mentor-apprentice program extends beyond teaching the Navajo language. In collaboration with mentors, students acquire intrinsic traditional teachings encompassing identity, in-depth cultural knowledge about their clans, oral traditional stories, history, and teachings, thereby holistically positioning themselves within their Diné community. The qualitative and quantitative analyses demonstrated positive and constructive effects on student apprentices. These findings encourage students to continue and amplify their studies through relationality teachings, supporting assessment improvements, and fostering retention. The student apprentices gain cultural knowledge not typically acquired elsewhere, strengthening their sense of achievement and allowing them to reciprocate by teaching family members what they have learned. This process fosters reconnection and deeper engagement with family. Navajo Language and cultural knowledge advancement fosters creativity in developing concepts for academic projects. Moreover, the student apprentices find an intertwining of cultural and academic grounding while establishing a closer connection to their homeland's traditional elements. The CUES-supported mentor-apprentice program is on a continuing track, as it transitioned and integrated into the West Regional Native American Language Resource Center grant at the University of Arizona and receives funding from the Department of Education. It has expanded to include additional American Indian languages spoken across Arizona, Utah, Nevada, and California. The program will feature training and workshops aimed at mitigating language loss.
Presentations
JUN 2025: Community Mentor-Apprentice Program Design Workshop, American Indian Language Development Institute, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ.
JUL 2024: Climate change, resiliency, and new terminology , Indigenous Languages in the Times of Climate Change Conference, Virtual.
FEB 2024: Engaging a Mentor-Apprentice Model for Learning the Diné Language, CUES Inside UAZ-Funded Scholarship Series, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ.
OCT 2023: Native America: Language is Life (Screening and Panel Discussion), Hosted by PBS 6/Arizona Public Media (AZPM), University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ.
JUN 2022: Indigenous CALL: Promoting Social Justice through Language Revitalization Initiatives, CALICO 2022 Conference: Social Justice & Diversity in CALL, Virtual.
APR 2022: Enhancing the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning through Mentor-Supported Research Design, CUES Inside UAZ-Funded Scholarship Series, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ.
Broader Engagement
OCT 2023: Western Center for Native American Language Resource Center, U.S. Department of Education Grant, $1.7 million.