Narrative Language Pedagogy and the stabilization of indigenous
languages

**Paper presented at the Stabilizing Indigenous Languages Symposium**

**Buffalo State College, Buffalo, NY**

**May 19, 2006**

**Mark K. Warford, Ph.D.**

**Buffalo State College**

**1300 Elmwood Ave.**

**Buffalo, NY 14222**

**716-878-4814**

<warformk@buffalostate.edu>

ABSTRACT: This paper discusses recent trends in language pedagogy that
emphasize movement from a psycholinguistic to a more sociocultural view
of language teaching and learning. Nourished primarily by sociocultural
theory and Hinton\'s (2002, 2003) efforts to promote the stabilization
of indigenous languages, the author presents Narrative Language
Pedagogy, a model for teaching non-dominant languages that centers on
authentic conversations as the focus of instruction.

There is a saying in Irish Gaelic: *'*Tir gan teanga, tir gan anam",
which roughly translates "land without its language, land without a
soul." Language is a living thing; it is the very core of our cultural
identity. Sensing its power, colonizers have systematically sought to
control or even eradicate it among those they colonize, often with great
success. Psycholinguistic pedagogies, rooted in Western Rationalist
thought, have served as a tool in this process by abstracting and
decontextualizing the way we view language teaching and learning to the
point that its inherently cultural nature has been minimized, if not
excised. The teaching of indigenous languages, as is the case with the
teaching of all languages, cannot and should not ever be divorced from
its vibrant cultural heritage. As Hinton (2002) states: \"learning your
language of heritage also means learning about customs, values, and
appropriate behavior\" (p. 14). Learning a language for its abstract
linguistic properties (grammar) to the exclusion of the social
contextual particularities of its meaning and usage only exacerbate the
devastating work of conquest and colonization. New directions in foreign
language learning research recognize and value the social context of
language instruction. After distinguishing these new sociocultural
perspectives on language pedagogy from dominant psycholinguistic
approaches, I will show how the former serves as a vehicle for Narrative
Language Pedagogy, which resonates with many of Hinton\'s (2002, 2003)
ideas regarding the preservation of indigenous languages. Rooted in the
principles of Sociocultural Theory, NLP centers on a view of language
learning as the sharing of autobiographical and traditional stories.

# Psycholinguistic vs. sociolinguistic perspectives

Walk into any mainstream Western language classroom, and typically you
will find a teacher explaining an abstract grammar rule in the dominant
language, which in many cases, is English. Drills and mechanical
activities ensure that students can use the rule much in the same way
they would apply some algebraic or geometric formula. Rarely does one
find teachers and students engaged in real communication or in exploring
the actual cultural context in which the particular grammar point is
used. Such practices, associated with mainstream *cognitive* approaches
to teaching and learning, are artifacts of what has come to be known as
a Rationalist or Formalist perspective. Kincheloe and Steinberg (1993)
describe rationalist or formal thinking as a mechanistic worldview
centering on cause-effect, hypothetico-deductive reasoning. Unconcerned
with questions of power relations and how they structure our
consciousness, formal operational thinkers are content with an
objectified, unpoliticized way of seeing teaching and learning. In the
study of language teaching and learning, Pennycook (1989) traces the
origins of Rationalist approaches to the Enlightenment period in Western
thought, with its emphasis on "coherent theorizing\" and \"emphasis on
formal and rule-based study" (p. 598). Rationalist or formal thinking is
best exemplified by the influential work of Noam Chomsky, the father of
modern linguistics. Chomsky and his followers believe that language
learning is largely a matter of universal rule-governed processes in the
individual mind. Understanding the nature of language, in this
psycholinguistic view, is simply a matter of studying the grammatical
properties within every written sentence (Lantolf, 2000). While
psycholinguistic researchers and methodologists may quibble about the
extent to which the grammar of another language needs to be explicitly
taught, as opposed to simply allowing the brain to decode the language
rules present in messages in another language, they all agree on one
point: it\'s all our heads. In other words, the particularities of the
cultural setting in which language happens is largely irrelevant. Since
the Seventies, the emerging field of sociolinguistics argued to the
contrary, pointing to the important role of social context in shaping
the nature of language. Firth and Wagner (1997), for example, have
questioned the field of second language acquisition\'s adherence to an
"individualistic and mechanistic" view of language phenomena, arguing
that it "fails to account in a satisfactory way for interactional and
social dimensions of language" (p. 285).

The most potent counterargument to the individualistic view of language
learning naturally came from a collectivistic culture, the Soviet Union.
Vygotsky (1986) is regarded by many as the figurehead for a more
sociocultural view of how we learn languages. Vygotsky, building on the
work of Piaget and other Western theorists, presented a dialogic view of
learning in which the human genetic endowment and its dynamic cultural
context are in a constant conversation. A major feature of this process
is the use of tools, which enable us to shape our environment. Tools,
which are responsible for creating the diverse cultural expressions that
are all around us, present themselves in two major varieties: physical
tools, such as those used for gardening or warfare, and what he called
semiotic or psychological tools, such as a string tied around the finger
to remember something, or the stock phrases teachers use to conduct a
class, the act of figuring out a math problem in one\'s head, or
classifying a particular word or phrase. Of all the psychological tools,
language is the most important because it enables us to make meaning of
our environment by negotiating, shaping and categorizing physical and
psychological reality. Vygotsky, unlike Rationalist thinkers, refused to
see our natural mental endowment as independent from its environment:
the two are seen as fundamentally inseparable, constantly entwined in
the act of making meaning. Think about any word you learned, and how its
meaning has changed over the years into an ever-growing conceptual
network of associations and uses within a given cultural context. If
rationalists main concern is decoding syntax and morphology- the algebra
of linguistic forms, sociolinguists following Vygotsky see language in a
more dynamic, *semantic* light, as something that is constantly
negotiated from the most mundane interactions to the long-term evolution
of our cultures. Sociolinguists refuse to decontextualize

Figure 1: Comparison of psycholinguistic and sociocultural views on
language learning

  ------------------- --------------------------- -----------------------
  **Basis of          **Sociocultural**           **Psycholinguistic**
  comparison**                                    

  **Authors**         Lev Semenovich Vygotsky     Noam Chomsky, Stephen
                      (U.S.S.R.)                  Krashen (U.S.)

  **Cultural          Collectivistic: Marxist     Individualistic:
  influence**         social psychology           Western Rationalist
                                                  discourse

  **Associated        Sociocultural Theory        Second Language
  fields**                                        Acquisition

  **Nature vs.        Both nurture and nature     More nature than
  nurture**                                       nurture

  **Importance of     Language is one of many     Culture is largely
  culture**           physical and semiotic tools irrelevant; language
                      we use to construct         learning is an innate,
                      cultural meaning            individualistic
                                                  phenomenon.

  **Approach**        Dialogic, holistic          

  **View of learner** Transformational: learners  Passive transference:
                      as active participants in   input to output
                      the development of new      processors (mechanistic
                      sociocultural roles,        view).
                      identities.                 
  ------------------- --------------------------- -----------------------

Sources consulted: Firth and Wagner (1997); Kincheloe and Steinberg
(1993); Kinginger (2002); Pennycook (1989)

language into the tidiness of the printed sentence, preferring to see it
as a living thing that cannot be separated from its actual use in human
interactions in a given cultural setting.

# Toward sociocultural approaches to indigenous language instruction: Changing metaphors 

In framing the preservation of indigenous languages, the choice of
psycholinguistic vs. sociolinguistic teaching approaches has important
implications for how we conceptualize both teacher and learner. The
psycholinguistic teacher\'s primary concern is with organizing bits of
the language around increasing grammatical complexity. Hinton (2002),
for example, suggests presenting lots of sentences using verbs, then
moving to nouns, for, it is argued by psycholinguists like Krashen
(1985) and Lee and VanPatten (1995), this is the way the individual mind
processes and acquires language. While psycholinguists have presented a
compelling case for some potential universalities in how languages are
learned, it is important to remember that they are a product of Western
Society, which, as I mentioned previously, is fond of deductive logic
and decontextualization. The learner is hauled out of the
particularities of his or her cultural heritage and viewed as a passive,
generic, computer-like input-output processor.

Sociocultural Theory offers a much richer metaphor for the language
learner. As Hall (2000) states: "language learners of all ages and
levels need to be seen as active, creative participants in the learning
process" (p. 294). Language learners under the lens of sociocultural
theory are seen as active participants in the creation of new cultural
and linguistic identities as they negotiate meaning with their teachers
and peers. The core of Hinton\'s advice regarding the teaching and
learning of indigenous languages, I would argue, is better situated in
this context.

Hinton (2002), for example, in describing the master-apprentice
partnership, discusses the importance of agenda setting between an
elder, more expert speaker of an indigenous language and a novice
(\"Both the master and the apprentice should decide what to do, what to
teach, and what to learn\", p. xi) and reverence (\"the apprentice needs
to keep in mind that anything the master wants to teach is of great
value, even if it is not what you had in mind at the moment, p. 18).
Post-mortem processing offers expert and novice a framework for talking
about how their session could be more profitable. Rather than being
passive in the process, Hinton suggests that apprentices keep a journal
and encourages them to seek clarification and guidance through the
indigenous language asking questions like \"How do you say? and
\"What\'s that...?\"

This expert-learner negotiation of meaning, according to Vygotsky
(1978), occurs with a **zone of proximal development** or ZPD
('zo-ped'). The ZPD is measured by the distance between the actual
developmental level of the novice with regard to a concept and a next
(\"proximal\") level that may be arrived at through negotiation with an
expert other. As Vygotsky puts it, "To introduce a new concept means
just to start the process of appropriation" (p. 152). Whether initiated
by the teacher or the learner, concept development is an ongoing
conversation between the novice, his expert-other, and cultural
influences. Learning within the ZPD helps us navigate and internalize
the culturally-determined signs that surround us. Vygotsky described
this appropriation process as movement from the interpsychological to
intrapsychological realm. Negotiating meaning within the zone of
proximal development, in my mind, does more justice to the true richness
of the interactions Hinton describes than might a psycholinguistic
approach.

In reading Hinton\'s depictions of the possible conversations that
optimally occur between a more proficient elder and a novice speaker of
an indigenous language, I realized that the true power of partnerships
between masters and apprentices or teachers and learners is fully
realized in conversation. In mainstream American education, lost in the
abstracted and mechanistic models that are the artifacts of the dominant
Rationalist heritage, we have lost sight of the transformative learning
that can occur when students engage in real conversation with their
teachers. Oakeshotte (1989) is particularly critical of the technical
orientation that has taken over mainstream schools, one that stifles a
more dynamic view of conversation in educational settings: "Conversation
is not an enterprise designed to yield an extrinsic profit, a contest
where a winner gets a prize, nor is it an activity of exegesis. It is
unrehearsed intellectual adventure" (p. 13). Oakeshotte (1989) and other
philosophers like Alisdair MacIntyre (1984), like Vygotsky (1986),
remind us that conversation functions as a tool to enact and connect
personal narratives to the larger stories of societies and histories.
Whenever a teacher and learner begin a conversation, they engage the
dynamic process of (re-) shaping cultural traditions and practices. All
traditions and practices, from schooling to civic engagement to the
arts, are driven by conversation. According to MacIntyre (1984), the
health of any cultural practice depends on its ability of its
participants to collaboratively "respond creatively to problems" (p.
190) in the pursuit of goals that have intrinsic value. A common
characteristic of practices is their narrative nature, full of
"autobiographies written in collaboration with the larger narratives of
the history of humanity" (MacIntyre, 1984). According to Fuller (1989,
on Oakeshotte): "We are born and grow up in a world of ideas already
present and understood in various ways by those preceding us on the
scene, and we must learn its features, interpret them and appropriate
them to ourselves" (p. 6). This view is consistent with MacIntyre's
(1984) and Vygotskyan (1986) views of the learner as an active agent in
the process of appropriating the tools and artifacts of the society for
herself. MacIntyre posits what I take to be the central goal of learning
language: "the self has to find its moral identity in and through its
membership in communities" (1984, p. 221).

When Hinton (2002) encourages language apprenticeships to ask masters
about their experiences, this is an important reminder to all language
teachers that learning language cannot be divorced from the negotiation
of cultural identity within what Kramsch (1994) refers to as
*intercultural space*, a zone where the learner integrates the tools and
signs commonly encountered in the target culture with those internalized
from their own culture. The result is a fundamental shift not only in
perspective but also identity that exists somewhere between the
learner\'s first and second culture. My father once had a close
encounter in intercultural space while visiting an Ojibway school in St.
Paul. As the teacher had the students introduce themselves, each did so
in the indigenous language using their given Ojibway name. When the
circle came around to the last student, he paused and shifted his glance
sheepishly, then proclaimed, \"I\'m the FONZ!, sticking out his thumbs
and crooning \"Ayyyyyy!\" just like the Henry Winkler character on Happy
Days. In my limited capacity to imagine conversations between tribal
elders and novice indigenous language speakers, I would anticipate that
the context of learning indigenous languages presents a unique and
poignant dilemma for the learner, and in some cases for the elder as
well. As they exchange their personal narratives, both may find
themselves walking in two worlds: the dominant world of Whiteness and
English, and the fading world of their linguistic and cultural heritage.
There is a Hungarian proverb that goes: \"To have a second language is
to have a second soul.\" While mainstream European-descended learners of
non-dominant languages often find this experience to be a stimulating
discovery of a \"second soul\", they are not faced with the eradication
of their first, as are many Native Americans and non-English speaking
immigrants. Adrienne Rich (1993), in her poem, \"Prospective Immigrants
Please Note\" captures this tension that often exists in the
intercultural spaces, particularly for members of non-dominant groups:

Either you will\
go through this door\
or you will not go through.\
\
If you go through\
there is always risk\
of remembering your name.\
\
Things look at you doubly\
and you must look back\
and let them happen.\
\
If you do not go through\
it is possible\
to live worthily\
\
to maintain your attitudes\
to hold your position\
to die bravely\
\
but much will blind you,\
much will evade you,\
at what cost who knows?\
\
The door itself\
makes no promises.\
It is only a door.

As the poem suggests, the intercultural spaces that open up in teacher
learner conversations should be approached with great care. As Hinton
(2002) argues, cultural tools have been appropriated and re-fashioned in
both directions: from dominant to non-dominant groups and vice-versa.
Simon says, as she illustrates, becomes \"Coyote says\". Regardless of
the directionality, conversation emerges as a means of "finding a way to
be at home in the world" (Burton, 1989, p. 16). In the learning of
second languages, conversations in another language help us find a way
to be at home in a multiplicity of worlds.

# Introducing Narrative language pedagogy

Teachers and learners in conversation about their experiences represents
the focus of what I am advancing as Narrative Language Pedagogy. The use
of stories and narratives as teaching tools is not a new concept. It is,
in fact, a time-honored context of teaching and learning that has faded
with the advent of formal schooling. The idea came to me in my work with
Esther Sehnalek (Sehnalek & Warford, 2005). Esther, a Colombian native
and gifted writer, had written a series of short semi-autobiographical
accounts of her childhood in the rainforests of Colombia. The stories,
which were written for her US-born children as a way of communicating
their heritage, were rich with idioms and sayings, and presented an
excellent source for the construction of unit plans for use in
mainstream K-12 Spanish classrooms. The approach, which is influenced by
Vygotskyan pedagogy, the philosophical notion of the conversation, and
my reading of Hinton\'s (2002, 2003) work in the preservation of
indigenous languages, is fairly straightforward, but it demands a
fundamental shift in the way teachers and learners view their roles.
While the focus is always on ongoing conversations between teachers and
learners, the central mission for both parties is a sort of
anthropological adventure, one of exploring and appropriating linguistic
and cultural practices. For this reason, there are essentially two major
concerns to address: 1) setting up the communication structure of the
lessons, and 2) selecting authentic materials that complement the topics
that come up in the instructional conversation. Like Breen\'s (1986)
notion of the classroom as a coral garden, NLP is always authentic and
organic, connected and every-growing.

# Setting up the communication structure 

In talking about establishing the context of indigenous language
learning, Hinton (2002) states: \"Live your daily life together. Don\'t
think of this time together as outside your normal patterns of living\".
It has often been said that the ideal language class should flow
naturally, like a good conversation. The instructional setting of a NLP
class should strive for virtual representation of the customs and tools
of the language and culture that is being taught, including the
classroom procedures selected by the participants. Hinton (2002) makes
the case that everyday teacher talk, can be carefully varied in order to
maximize the provision of indigenous language samples learners can use
for acquisition. In addition to offering opportunities to interpret and
negotiate meaning in the indigenous language, the most common
instructional activities, from introductions and greetings and roll
calls, to discussing directions and rules, transitioning, and explaining
aspects of the indigenous culture, serve to educate the learner
regarding culturally-accepted practices. While the activity structure
should be open to negotiation between experts and learners, the emphasis
should be on re-creating insofar as it is possible, the ways physical
and semiotic tools are used by native speakers of the indigenous
language. Because NLP centers on rich conversation, there should be a
lot of opportunity for open, extended communication about things going
on in the participants\' lives. Hinton (2002) refers to this as
classroom patter. Rapport-building in the language that is being taught
is essential because it breaks down distance, revealing the second
language as responsive to their lived experiences and interests. From
the very beginning, teachers and learners should share personal
backgrounds, beginning with the basic information and eventually leading
to stories from lived experiences. The teacher might begin by
introducing him or herself with an artifact, such as a ceremonial
attire, that expresses who they are or by teaching students their clan
name and introducing members of the family.

As Hinton (2002) warns, one of the struggles in the early stages will be
sticking to the indigenous language. With the help of props, gestures,
facial expressions, and active clarification seeking by the learners,
the use of English can be minimized. English, which may for many
indigenous language learners, represent their base language of literacy,
has already been ingrained as a tool for making meaning (Brooks &
Donato, 1994). Until the learner has acquired enough of the indigenous
language to seek clarification in the language he or she is learning,
its removal from classroom discourse only hampers the learning process.
This does not mean, however, that the teacher necessarily has to fall
back on English. In discourse analysis of foreign language classrooms, a
common pattern of teacher-learner interaction centers on the student\'s
asking questions in English and the teacher responding in the target
language.

As students begin to comprehend messages from the teacher in the
indigenous language about who they are, they will naturally want to
share similar information with peers and teacher. As the conversation
expands, related topics will present themselves for further exploration
in successive lessons. Cultural artifacts and practices, and their
meaning to the teacher should always be the engine of curriculum, but
the learners\' curiosity should be the gearbox that steers that engine,
so they should be taught early on the stock phrases that will help them
express their curiosity and help them appropriate their own stamp on
using the cultural and linguistic tools that the teacher presents.
Hinton (2002, 2003) suggests the following topics as frameworks for
linguistic and cultural exploration: attending ceremonies, visiting
another speaker, craft construction, ceremonial garb, clan names,
exploring the physical environment, prayers, and sweathouse discourse.
Such activity not only offers opportunities for learners to unlock the
linguistic code (Hinton, 2002), it offers vital material for negotiating
personal and cultural meaning in the indigenous language.

# Selecting and adapting authentic content for learning activities

Classroom conversations openly constructed around personal narratives
will naturally gravitate toward the gathering and study of a variety of
authentic cultural products and practices. Rather than depending on the
teacher or anthropological experts, students should be encouraged to
themselves be anthropologists. Kramsch (2003) refers to authentic texts
as *literacy events* that offer glimpses into how native speakers of the
target language use their language as a tool to mediate meaning. As
students bring in their artifacts, be they photos, stories, or crafts,
the conversations should turn to how the culture is expressed. Depending
on the age and level of the students, the following dimensions might be
explored:

1.  Events depicted?

2.  Target audience?

3.  Purpose?

4.  Register (i.e. formal, informal)?

5.  A stance or tone (serious, ironic, enthusiastic)?

6.  Prior text (relationship to a particular discourse)?

7.  Setting/perspective?

In selecting authentic materials for classroom use, Kramsch (2003)
distinguishes between literate and orate traditions. While literacy
centers on print media, oracy is less fixed and subject to re-telling
and re-shaping. Hinton (2002) reminds us that not all indigenous
languages have a printed form. In such instances, audio-visual media may
be of particular importance.

Every culture has rich oral traditions. They often take the form of
stories, either told, sung, acted out, or some combination of the
previous. These stories are at the heart of the language and its
cultural code. In French-speaking Africa, there is the tradition of the
griot, the tribal storyteller who carries the wisdom of the ancestors
(an example of a griot tale used for pedagogical purposes can be found
in Adair-Hauck & Donato, 2002). In the Spanish-speaking world, we find
in Puerto Rico, the plena, an African-European song tradition that sets
important historical events and figures to African rhythms. In Irish
Gaelic, there is the tradition of the recitation. At public house or pub
gatherings where traditional tunes are being played, someone will
occasionally spell the musicians with an ancient song in Irish that
tells of people and events that are a source of national identity and
pride. Some recitations are spoken, others are sung in the *sean nos*
unaccompanied style of traditional Irish singing. Storytelling, because
of its spontaneity, is often rich with stock phrases, regionalisms, and
is more accessible than literary counterparts that may be somewhat
constrained by abstraction and formality. According to Hinton (2002),
there are indigenous cultures that have rules regarding the appropriate
times for storytelling (winter), so such traditions, as would be the
case with any teaching and learning tradition constructed around NLP,
should be respected and observed. The ideal presentation of stories
should be as they were originally intended: with a teller, ideally the
teacher, and an audience. The disadvantage to taped stories is that the
interaction between the story-teller and audience, which is important in
order to tailor the delivery for maximum comprehensibility, is
short-circuited. Figure 2 details the main features of orate vs.
literate content.

In investigating orality and other discourse practices in the language
under study, Judd

**Figure 2: Distinctions between oral and written production (Kramsch,
2003)**

+----------+-------------------------+--------------------------------+
| **Cat    | **Printed situations    | **Verbal situations            |
| egory:** | (literacy)**            | (orality)**                    |
+----------+-------------------------+--------------------------------+
| **Perm   | *Permanent*             | *Impermanent*                  |
| anence** |                         |                                |
+----------+-------------------------+--------------------------------+
| **Cooper | Hierarchical,           | Additive,                      |
| ative/** | self-constructed for    | mutually-reinforcing,          |
|          | distant audience        | co-construction                |
| **hierar |                         |                                |
| chical** |                         |                                |
+----------+-------------------------+--------------------------------+
| **Sponta | Abstract, logical       | Facilitated by stock phrases   |
| neous/** | reasoning               |                                |
|          |                         |                                |
| **       |                         |                                |
| formal** |                         |                                |
+----------+-------------------------+--------------------------------+
| **Redu   | Benefit of time and     | Need to recycle, paraphrase    |
| ndant/** | organization to         |                                |
|          | structure focused       |                                |
| **f      | message                 |                                |
| ocused** |                         |                                |
+----------+-------------------------+--------------------------------+
| *        | Grammatically           | Grammaticality is loose, lexus |
| *Grammar | structured, lexically   | is slack (like, and stuff,     |
| and      | precise, dense          | 'know what I mean\...?)        |
| lexus**  |                         |                                |
+----------+-------------------------+--------------------------------+
| *        | On topic                | On people                      |
| *Focus** |                         |                                |
+----------+-------------------------+--------------------------------+
| **C      | \...rich, embedded      | \...dependent, -reduced; need  |
| ontext** |                         | for interlocutor to            |
|          |                         | co-construct context           |
+----------+-------------------------+--------------------------------+
| **       | Literate cultures enjoy | Literacy is a powerful tool.   |
| Relation | power and privilege     | In a world ruled by literature |
| to       | over orate cultures     | cultures, orate cultures are   |
| global   |                         | at a disadvantage/             |
| po       |                         |                                |
| litics** |                         |                                |
+----------+-------------------------+--------------------------------+

\(1999\) offers the following guidelines for selecting speech acts for
classroom exploration:

1.  In what situations, if any, will my students employ or encounter the
    pattern (at work, at home, at play\...?)

2.  With whom will the pattern be used (native or nonnative speakers of
    English, friends, associates, acquaintances, teachers, bosses,
    etc.)?

3.  What is the social status of each speaker (equal, superior,
    inferior)?

4.  Are there other factors involved when the speech act will be used
    (age, gender, etc.)?

5.  What topics will be discussed when the speech act is used (clothing,
    work habits, personal behavior, etc.)?

Generally, language teachers have looked at authentic sources primarily
for their ability to deliver examples of a particular grammar point.
Remember that grammar is incidental, not central. Some psycholinguistic
methodologists have even suggested adapting authentic text by infusing
examples of a particular linguistic form. To do so compromises the
integrity of the source as a window into the way language is viewed from
inside the culture. Authentic sources should be treated as sacred.
Adulterating them is tantamount to linguistic colonization.

In setting up lessons around a particular authentic text, pre-reading,
viewing, or listening activity will serve to activate the learners\'
background knowledge related to the source content. The teacher should
also help students identify and understand unfamiliar vocabulary or
phrases. As the selection is presented, the emphasis should always be on
comprehension, not grammar, and processing should always be dialogic,
with the learners actively stating hypotheses and asking questions about
the meaning of the words and the story presented.

An intermediary, but not necessary, step in the reading comprehension
phase borrows from VanPatten\'s (2003) model of input processing. To
accompany the reading, the teacher may prepare a true false or
fill-in-the blank exercises that test comprehension while simultaneously
training learners\' attention to a particular form. For example, if it
is a story, the teacher might pose some simple alternate response
questions (true/false? this person/that person?) about things that
happened. Though there is no explicit discussion of the past tense or
how to form it, it\'s there for the learners to use for acquisition.
Learners, rather than assuming the conventional computer-processor mode
forced on them by similar psycholinguistic approaches, may naturally
inquire about the language forms to appear and what they mean. In
Vygotskyan terms, this would put the past tense forms on their
developmental radar, making them valuable material for negotiation
within the zone of proximal development.

More central to the exploration of the text, is to stay within the
questions presented earlier in relation to making meaning of literacy
events in the indigenous language. Following the reading, depending on
the level of the students, there are a variety of extension activities
that will flow naturally from processing the authentic source. Corcoran
and Evans (1987) have posited a variety of ways to make meaning of text.
Rather than the traditional book report, the teacher might have the
students re-tell the story from another person\'s perspective or write
their own ending, or prepare their own personalized version. Hinton
(2002), for example, suggests that, after processing an elder\'s story,
students prepare a play adaptation. This kind of play offers the
learners ample opportunity to appropriate the linguistic and cultural
meanings they have encountered for themselves. Multiplying meanings is
the key. The experience should be personalized, and all participants
should feel safe sharing their responses to what they read without
criticism or judgment.

The Mingo tale of a friendship gone bad (Figure 3 below),
Teyaknyatkánye\'skwa\' (McElwain, 2006), lends itself to a NLP lesson
centering on the experience of coming into awareness of racial
prejudice. It would most likely be appropriate for middle school-age
learners, since this is the age we typically begin to develop curiosity
around issues of race. I use this example to illustrate that, contrary
to mainstream classrooms, NLP lessons would openly embrace issues of
cultural identity. I also selected it to illustrate that narrative does
not have to be reserved for older, more advanced students. In terms of
size, it is relatively brief; nonetheless, in a short time, and with a
manageable set of language to comprehend, it raises many important
questions about the experience of racism.

A lesson using this text might begin with the teacher asking students in
the target language about the first time they felt they were treated
differently because of their race. He or she may help them understand
the question by sharing a personal story using props, miming, gestures,
and acting out the incidents. The students may need to respond in
English, but the teacher can coach them in the indigenous language along
the way so that they see how their story might be constructed in that
language. In preparing students for the story, the teacher might first
go over new terms with them or teach them Total Physical Response
Storytelling gestures to help them remember the meanings (i.e. miming
people arguing with the hands to remember \"argue\").

In processing the story, the teacher might ask students alternate
response questions like \"Who was Ricky Bass? Was he Mingo or White?\".
Always wait before offering the alternate response just in case a
student is able to answer without the prompt. A variety of literacy
event-related questions could also be posed here: Who is telling this
story? What is the feeling of this story? Why do you think Ricky sprayed
the children by riding his bike through the mud puddle? These could lead
to more reader response questions like: How would you respond to Ricky?

After constructing an understanding of the story, the teacher might help
students construct the major incidents surrounding their first
experience with prejudice. If that\'s too tender for some students to
process, you might offer the option of writing a letter to Ricky\'s
father.

Certainly, the lesson will produce some profound conversations, which in
turn, will lead to new topics and new explorations, ad infinitum.

# Conclusion

The struggle to preserve indigenous language has a lot to teach the
wider milieu of language teaching. Nothing engenders more value for the
pursuit of a second soul than a deeper

awareness of what it is like to have your first one threatened with
extinction. Under such circumstances, it is impossible to lose sight of
the vital interdependence between language and culture. It is equally
impossible to remain indifferent to the dominant psycholinguistic view
of language learning, its connection to the ways of colonizing
societies, and the clear advantage of sociocultural approaches, in terms
of their respect for the central role social context plays in

shaping our language and thinking. Narrative Language Pedagogy, with its
emphasis on language learning as an authentic conversation, is a natural
application of a social view of

**Figure 3: Sample story for NLP lesson: *Teyaknyatkánye\'skwa\'*
(McElwain, 2006).**

+----------------------------------------+-----------------------------+
| **Tuskëö nae työkwanöhsút thë\'tyôtak  | *Ricky Bass lived near our  |
| ne Ricky Bass.**                       | house.*                     |
|                                        |                             |
| **Ne\' wai ne wêtö ti\'kwa             | *Sometimes we used to play  |
| teyaknyatkánye\'skwa\'.**              | together.*                  |
|                                        |                             |
| **Ne\' n-únë te\'akashææ\'ö të\'ë kúwá | *I don\'t remember what     |
| u\'tyakniiwakéha\'.**\                 | caused us to argue.*        |
| **Ukwényô íwí ne hu\'ni waë\' ne\'     |                             |
| te\'aö ëyaknyatkányé\' kës.**          | *I think it may have been   |
|                                        | that his father told him he |
| **Nö\'yönishe\'t                       | couldn\'t play with me.*    |
| ta\'teyaknyatkánye\'skwa\'.**          |                             |
|                                        | *Then we didn\'t play for a |
| **Ta unë nö\'ôwë uka\'stææ\'ke         | long time.*                 |
| akwatkánye\'skwa\' shô, ne\' únë       |                             |
| waa\'se\' teka\'sehta\'                | *One day some of us         |
| teka\'niskææyë\' ne\'hu huikê          | children were playing in a  |
| uka\'stææ\'ke.**                       | mud-puddle, and then he     |
|                                        | rode his bicycle through    |
| **Akwaksa\'shö\'ö kakwékö nae          | the puddle.*                |
| wa\'akwatya\'tatkit.**                 |                             |
|                                        | *All of us children got     |
| **Akhistö wai ne teka\'niskææyë\'      | dirty.*                     |
| waeya\'tyénët ne Ricky.**              |                             |
|                                        | *I pushed his bicycle over  |
| **Waastaë\'  waahtêti\' shô.**         | and Ricky fell down.*       |
|                                        |                             |
| **Hatínyö\'ö.**                        | *He started crying and went |
|                                        | home.*                      |
|                                        |                             |
|                                        | *They were White people.*   |
+----------------------------------------+-----------------------------+

language instruction. Though the model may not repair centuries of
linguistic colonization, it may serve to open spaces for deeper levels
of linguistic and cultural proficiency that give equal weight to
non-Western ways of speaking and knowing, one classroom at a time.

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