Summer Institute sits at the center of NILI's work, bringing together Indigenous languages teachers from a broad region to share, learn, develop, and test language teaching and revitalization methods, skills, and ideas.
From elders to youth, we live, learn and speak together. We offer strands for beginning and experienced teachers, focused on skills for building language use and supporting your students. Institute participants also join an online audience to take part in the Tuxámshish Revitalization Learning Series (TRaiLS), a series of talks and discussions focused on Indigenous Language Revitalization.
At the end of June, more than 45 Native American language leaders, teachers and learners gathered on the University of Oregon’s Eugene campus to attend the annual Summer Institute. Presented by the College of Arts and Sciences's Northwest Indian Language Institute, the event featured live, daily workshops for teachers of Indigenous languages. The Summer Institute provides professional development for Native language teachers and an opportunity for peer connection.
NILI held its first Summer Institute in 1998 and has been bringing people together for language work over 25 years. We still meet the last two weeks of June, and participants from across Oregon, the Pacific Northwest, North America and elsewhere gather to work on their Native languages.