Offered Online, Thursdays, Sept. 25-Nov. 13 2025, 5:30-7 pm Pacific Time
Facilitated by Taysíki Allyson Alvarado and Joana Jansen of the Northwest Indigenous Language Institute (NILI) and the NW-Native American Language Resource Center (NW-NALRC), University of Oregon.
Registration fee: $100
Thank you for your interest! Registration for this course for Fall 2025 is closed.
Please email nwili@uoregon.edu if you'd like to be added to a waiting list and/or be notified the next time the course is offered.
About the course
This eight-week course is designed to support and strengthen beginning Indigenous Language teachers, with a focus on teaching language in classrooms. The format includes time to share, learn, and support one another.
The course is an introductory level overview of concepts and practices. The intended audience is teachers who are beginning their language teaching journey or who would like to revisit common practices. We recognize that every language situation is unique. Still there are valuable techniques and best practices that we can draw from and we have much we can share and learn from each other. We hope to help participants develop a varied toolbox of methods and strategies for classroom teaching, to move towards goals that are appropriate for your own classrooms and communities. This is one of two classes in NILI’s core beginning teacher series. The second, Language Revitalization, will be offered in the winter.
You will need an email address, computer with webcam and headphones, a quiet space to work, and an internet connection that is strong enough to zoom with video on. Plan to spend an hour and a half per week in class, and an additional hour and a half to two hours on work outside of class.
Schedule and Location
5:30-7:00 pm Pacific Time Thursdays, Sept. 25-Nov. 13 2025, online
All instruction is provided online and instructors will join online. Participants will join remotely via zoom (please see technology section below.)
Registration
**Enrollment is limited and will be closed when the course fills**
The course has a fee of $100, offset by the NW-NALRC. Register and pay at: https://ecomm.uoregon.edu/order_form/nili-teaching-your-language-others-course-fall-2025
If you can’t attend these sessions and would like to be informed the next time the course is offered, please email nwili@uoregon.edu
Participants who attend at least 7 of the 8 sessions and complete out of class work (readings, reflections, and short homework assignments) will receive a certificate of hours attended. You will earn 24 hours.
Technology
We’ll meet via Zoom and will use Canvas, a course management system, for materials and activities. Participants must have an email address. It will be best to join on a computer that has a stable internet connection, a webcam, and headphones (depending on your work environment). Using a computer rather than a mobile device will improve your experience - you will be able to better interact with others, participate in hands-on activities, and see presented materials.
Session Information
Sessions will build on one another. Each session will include an icebreaker or quick activity and a brief review of the last session; presentations; examples; hands on activities; debriefing of activities; questions and answers; reflection/wrap up, and follow up activities and readings for the week. All class materials will be posted and available to you online. We welcome your questions and comments any time! You all bring valued knowledge and experience to our work together.
Topics include: Language reclamation and language learning; Indigenous Language teaching methods; Course and lesson planning to teach; Classroom strategies and activities; language beyond the classroom.
Learning Objectives
- By the end of this course, participants will gain awareness of how languages are learned, and how some Indigenous language communities are engaging in revitalization/restoration. Participants will set a goal for their own teaching and learning practice.
- By the end of this course, participants will be able to identify and use language teaching methods and activities that are appropriate for Indigenous language teaching and learning.
- By the end of this course, participants will be able to reflect on their teaching contexts and classroom practices and apply those reflections to establish appropriate goals and inform their teaching in school, after school, or community settings.
- By the end of this course, participants will be able to create and use unit and lesson plans and identify some of the benefits of planning a lesson. Participants will be able to support larger community language goals within their classrooms.
- By the end of this course, participants will be familiar with different ways to monitor and assess student progress and will be able to identify what assessment practices might fit their classroom situation.
- By the end of this course, participants will identify and apply strategies to help themselves as Indigenous language teacher-learners to work towards their own language learning and teaching goals.
- By the end of this course, participants will build community with other language teachers.
We acknowledge the importance of Indigenous languages to individual and community health and well-being, and the connection of language to place. Language teachers and learners take active roles in extending and advocating for language use well beyond the classroom.