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Open Resources for Indigenous Languages

March 10, 2019 Leave a Comment

Photo credit: “Nahuala huipil” by Sergio Romero for “Chqe’tamaj le qach’ab’al K’iche’!”, licensed under Creative Commons License

2019 is the International Year of Indigenous Languages, as established by UNESCO. The goal of this year is to increase support for, promotion of, and access to indigenous languages. UNESCO suggests that one approach to this goal is to “develop new and open educational resources to facilitate teaching and learning in indigenous languages”. (You can read the other suggestions on the program website.)

Since we at COERLL focus on open educational resources (OER) for language learning, we are happy to see when OER are suggested as a way to support a movement. Open Creative Commons licenses, an essential aspect of all OER, make it easier for people to access and share important information in their community and with the world, while ensuring authors are always credited for their work. This will not be a solution that suits everyone, but there are many indigenous language teachers and organizations who have chosen to make their resources available under a Creative Commons license. The list below is just a sample. Thank you to the authors of these resources for sharing their valuable knowledge.

Please share other openly-licensed indigenous language materials in the comments!

Fijian

Na vosa vakaviti – A Fijian language children’s activity book of word searches, colouring pages, and stories published by the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. Licensed under a CC BY-NC license.

Indigenous languages of Canada

Indigenous Storybooks makes the text, images, and audio of stories available in Indigenous languages as well as English, French, and the most widely spoken immigrant and refugee languages of Canada. It’s for children, families, community members, and educators. Inspired by Little Cree Books. Licensed under a CC BY-NC-SA license.

Iñupiat

Iñupiat Language Community site – Lessons, activities, and additional resources for the Iñupiat language developed by Chelsey Zibell at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Licensed under a CC BY license.

Komnzo, Mauwake, Moloko, Palula, Papuan Malay, Pite Saami, Rapa Nui, Yakkha, Yauyos Quechua

Studies in Diversity Linguistics – A book series published by Language Science Press on individual less-widely studied languages (primarily reference grammars). The chief editor is Martin Haspelmath. Licensed under a CC BY license.

K’iche’

Chqe’tamaj le qach’ab’al K’iche’! – A multimedia K’iche’ curriculum in English and Spanish, comprised of 40 lessons developed by Sergio Romero, Ignacio Carvajal, Juan Manuel Tahay Tzaj, Mareike Sattler, et. al. with the support of LLILAS and COERLL at the University of Texas at Austin. Licensed under a CC BY license.

Māori

Te reo Māori pukapuka mahi – A free downloadable Māori language activity book for kids published by the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. Licensed under a CC BY-NC license.

Nahuatl

Language faculty and graduate students supported by LLILAS and COERLL at the University of Texas at Austin are in the process of planning materials for beginning language learners of Nahuatl. Stay tuned to the blog for updates!

Sāmoan

Gagana Sāmoa Tusi o gāluega fa‘atino – A Sāmoan language activity book of word searches, coloring pages, and stories for kids, published by the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. Licensed under a CC BY-NC license.

SENĆOŦEN

SENĆOŦEN Classified Word List – A list of over 3300 SENĆOŦEN words and sound files by Dr. Timothy Montler et. al. Licensed under a CC BY-NC-SA license.

General Indigenous Language Studies

Language Learning Assessment Tool – A guide for adult learners of Indigenous languages to self-assess their learning and progress written by Dr. Onowa McIvor and Dr. Peter Jacobs of NEȾOLṈEW̱, the Indigenous Language Research Network. Licensed under a CC BY-NC-SA license.

 

What other openly licensed indigenous language materials do you recommend?

Filed Under: Instructional Materials, OER initiatives Tagged With: 2019, assessment, CC BY, CC BY-NC, CC BY-NC-SA, children, Creative Commons, endangered, Fijian, Indigenous, indigenous language, international year of indigenous languages, Iñupiat, IYIL, K'iche', kids, Komnzo, license, LLILAS, Māori, Mauwake, Moloko, Nahuatl, OER, Palula, Papuan Malay, Pite Saami, Rapa Nui, Sāmoan, SENĆOŦEN, unesco, Yakkha, Yauyos Quechua

Welcome to Open Education Week 2019!

March 4, 2019 Leave a Comment

March 4-8, 2019 is Open Education Week, an international event to build awareness of open education and show its impact on teaching and learning. Open education encompasses resources, tools and practices that employ a framework of open sharing to improve educational access and effectiveness.* Read below to learn how to get involved during Open Ed Week.

COERLL Launches OER Guide for Language Teachers

This Open Ed Week, we are launching Introduction to OER for Language Teachers, a series of modules on topics related to creating and using open educational resources and practices. We developed this guide based on our conversations with teachers about open educational resources (OER) and practices (OEP) over the years. We hope these modules will help teachers who are interested in open education, especially pertaining to the use of Creative Commons licenses to share materials and ideas.

If you are already a user or creator of OER, or are planning on becoming one, please take a look at the guide, and let us know what you think!

Attend our Open Ed Week Collaborative Webinar

On March 6 at 1pm CST, COERLL will host a webinar where participants will break into groups to work on a task related to different aspects of OER: searching, licensing, remixing, creating, and sharing. All participants will come together at the end to share what they worked on and to find out how to continue their journey as open educators.

Continuing Professional Education (CPE) credits available for teachers who attend the whole webinar. Register here.

Language OER Network is in full swing

Last year during Open Education Week, we launched the Language OER Network (LOERN), a showcase of teachers and students who are using, creating, and promoting open educational resources.

We’ve been thrilled to give digital badges to all of the people featured on LOERN: 82 faculty, teachers, librarians, undergraduate and graduate students from 50 different K-12 schools, community colleges and higher ed institutions, representing American Sign Language, Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, K’iche’, Koine Greek, Korean, Linguistics, Persian, Portuguese, Spanglish, Spanish, and Yoruba.

Visit the LOERN page to join or read about your colleagues’ open work

Find other events for Open Education Week

You can discover other events around the world on the Open Education Week website. Here’s just a sample:

  • Learn about digital social reading in two different webinars about Perusall and Hypothes.is (these tools are similar to our tool eComma)
  • Take the daily Oregon OER challenge
  • Preview Trayectos, a Spanish open textbook project led by Dr. Gabriela Zapata and supported by COERLL
  • Join a global web conference
  • Listen to stories about OER in another language, for example this webinar about open projects in Uruguay

*Definition from the Open Education Consortium’s Open Education Week website, licensed under CC BY.

Filed Under: COERLL updates, OER initiatives, Teacher Development Tagged With: american sign language, Arabic, badge, Chinese, community college, conference, CPE, creating, digital social reading, English, framework, French, German, graduate, guide, Hypothes.is, introduction to oer for language teachers, Italian, K'iche', K-12, koine greek, korean, licensing, linguistics, LOERN, modules, network, OEP, OER, Open Education Week, Oregon, Persian, Perusall, Portuguese, remixing, searching, sharing, spanglish, Spanish, undergraduate, Uruguay, webinar, yoruba

Looking Back on Four Years of COERLL Projects

August 5, 2018 Leave a Comment

COERLL’s 2014-2018 Title VI national foreign language resource center federal grant, and the projects funded by the grant, will soon be coming to an end.

COERLL and the project teams have learned a lot during this grant about the potential and the challenges of open educational resources. Each project had slightly different goals and a different way of reaching those goals. For every idea you see implemented in these materials, there is another great idea that we just didn’t have time for… but we hope to work on more of these in the future. And perhaps our reflections on these projects can provide some guidance or inspiration for those of you who may be considering creating your own open educational resources.

You can read about each of our projects by clicking the links below. Each of the projects was managed by faculty, created through faculty and graduate student labor, and supported by technical, graphic design, pedagogical, and administrative assistance from COERLL and other centers at the University of Texas at Austin.

  • Foreign Languages and the Literary in the Everyday (FLLITE) open literacy lessons
  • User-Generated Materials for Heritage Spanish
  • eComma: An Upgraded L2 Social Reading Tool
  • Língua da Gente podcasts
  • Chqe’tamaj le qach’ab’al! (Let’s Learn K’iche’) online course materials
  • Reality Czech online textbook
  • Open Digital Badges for K-12 Professional Development
  • Survey on OER/OEP use by language teachers
  • TELL Collab collaborative professional learning event

Thank you to all of the project teams! It has been wonderful working with you and we are proud to help share your work.

Filed Under: COERLL updates Tagged With: AISD, badges, Chqe'tamaj le qach'ab'al, Czech, digital annotation, eComma, English, FLLITE, heritage Spanish, K'iche', Língua da gente, Literacy, OEP, OER, Open Digital Badges, Portuguese, reading, Reality Czech, research, social reading, Spanish, survey, TELL Collab, Tzij

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