Dene teacher Allison Lemaigre sits with a researcher at an event in New York City during an annual meeting on languages. (submitted photo/Krista Pike)

By Julia Lovett-Squires

Living Language

New York language society welcomes Dene language teacher among their presenters

Feb 13, 2024 | 1:47 PM

Allison Lemaigre remembers when she first became passionate about revitalizing her Dene language.

“When I was able to start teaching in the classroom like that and seeing how that I could teach in my own language and then just seeing how the kids have their ‘A-ha’ moments and stuff, I think that’s where my interest really started,” she said.

Lemaigre didn’t come to know her language until she went to university for education and took her first course in Dene.

“People didn’t really believe that we could be successful if we spoke our language and so it was always like ‘You have to leave here and you have to go do something different,’” said Lemaigre.

The future educator found herself and her voice. By the time she joined the Clearwater River Dene School in about 2007, it was clear where the path lay – in teaching the next generations their language in the newly formed immersion program.

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“I think it’s really nice that we’re focusing on our language and our culture specifically and showing how much education we can get in all of that.”

In January, Lemaigre, who has her master’s in education, attended the 2024 Linguistic Society of America Annual Meeting that featured over 1,000 attendees. This year marked the society’s centennial and students, professionals and linguists came together to take part in lectures and workshops.

“A lot of the people that attend there are from all over the world in different levels of language revitalization,” she said.

They received the invitation to the meeting due not only to their language but how they learn.

“We’ve had a lot of interest over the years of people coming in and seeing what we have going on here,” she said, noting visitors were curious as to how they made the program work.

“It was really nice to go to New York and be able to network with people all over the world who are working in language revitalization as well.”

When their school began its language program nearly two decades ago, what they offered was rare in the world. Now, the program begins with three-year-olds in HeadStart before transitioning to English in Grade 3, moving into the core subjects from Grades 4 to high school and they are now into their second cohort of university students taking the Dene Teacher Education Program.

“We go right from age three to university in our language,” said the Grade 1 teacher, noting they’ve added the cultural component of land-based learning.

According to Assistant Principal Krista Pike, there are now a number of immersion programs in different communities in the country and across the world.

“It’s great to see that everyone’s kind of doing their own spin on that and realizing how important your language and culture is and then incorporate that into classrooms,” she said.

Meanwhile, the school’s land-based learning program runs concurrently to the language component.

“We’ve had our culture camps happen with the elementary and junior high kids, we’ve had some ice fishing and stuff but this year we kind of made a bigger focus for our culture program,” said Pike.

She explained two teachers along with two teaching assistants oversee curriculum planning for the whole school and incorporate culture within the classrooms. They work with the students from kindergarten to high school with weekly plans in addition to academics.

The students learn from Elders and are taken hunting, fishing, and trapping and according to Lemaigre, it also includes learning traditional food preparation.

“Right from the beginning, from getting the animal right to bringing it in here. We made moose hide from the beginning to the end and the students are actually sewing with it.”

Language and culture cannot be separated she said.

“In our language – especially the land-based language is what teaches us to be, well, for here specially would be Denesuline,” said Lemaigre.

“A lot of the Dene laws are incorporated in how we interact with the land, with the water and with nature.”

That, she said, makes up a huge part of their students’ identity.

“That just ties back into completing us as a whole and making sure that all aspects of life are met.”

The educator said for a long time they were focused on the language and seeing how they can incorporate the cultural aspects.

“It’s just a matter of reconnecting the disconnect that we have to our spiritual selves.”

Now that cohorts of students have become fluent over the years, both Lemaigre and Pike have hope their efforts – and the efforts of the other educators in their school won’t be in vain.

“That’s the most important part for me is to see that you can have success and there is a place for our language, and it has value,” Lemaigre said.

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Julia.lovett@pattisonmedia.com

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