Languages, Place, and Power: Exploring Multilingualism and Language Learning on Indigenous Land

Event Date & Time

Event Description

UBC Vancouver | In-person

This event is part of the 2023 Celebrate Learning Week, taking place from May 2–9, 2023.

Settlers on Indigenous land are not just English-speaking or French-speaking. The hundreds of languages we learn, use, and teach at UBC add up to a complex picture of what we might call settler multilingualism. What do different models of multilingualism and monolingualism currently promoted today tell us about how we acknowledge, or undermine, Indigenous sovereignty? What does it mean to learn or teach a colonial language on Indigenous land? More fundamentally, how do existing approaches to language teaching and learning relate, or fail to relate, to land, place, and local commitment? What tools can we develop to nurture that relation in our classes, curricula, and communities, from now to 2050? What contributions can language teachers make to a broader decolonial project?

Facilitator:

• David Gramling, Professor and Head, Department of Central, Eastern, and Northern European Studies
• Nadia Joe, Co-Senior Project Manager: Gä̀gala- ƛiƛetko (Nadia Joe) has spent the past 10 years working to support Indigenous communities across Canada advance their rights and interests in water security through various water co-management initiatives. She was raised by a river and loved into leadership by the many elders, leaders, mentors of the nłe?kepmx and southern Tutchone-Tlingit peoples. Her mother is nłe?kepmx and sylix and her father is southern-Tutchone & Tlingit. She belongs to the Crow Clan (Kä̀jet) of the Champagne and Aishihik First Nations
• Tim Frandy, Professor of Indigenous Nordic Studies

Note to Non-UBC Participants:

In order to register for this program, non-UBC faculty, staff, and students will need to create a UBC Basic CWL. To do this, please go to the CWL page and scroll down to the accordion tab that reads “Basic”. Follow the instructions there for creating and activating a Basic CWL, then please return to this page to register for the program.

This event will be hosted in-person on UBC Vancouver Campus.