Reflection

As a Cherokee language teacher and program administrator for Cherokee Nation’s language revitalization programs, I was able to directly use the research based knowledge about pedagogy, methodology, learner strategies, and curriculum and put it directly to work in our Cherokee language classes. Even though the context of my work was different from ESL, part of the coursework that focused directly on teaching English learners and English grammar skills were of great use, not just from a perspective of intellectual curiosity, but for application. The vast majority of the content which was focused on English could be flipped to help English speakers learn Cherokee. This did take some creative thinking and a good grasp of both Cherokee literacy skills and grammar to make the shift from English as the target language to Cherokee, but every opportunity that was available to accomplish this redirection was completely supported and aided by the faculty and staff of our program. With a little extra work my instructors and I were able to make every course and educational standard applicable to my professional goals. The perpetuation of the Cherokee language is a personal passion of mine and deeply tied into my cultural and professional identity. My focus on “perpetuation” over “preservation” reflects my community’s need to create speakers rather than document language samples.

The focus on second language acquisition that wove the majority of our coursework together was the main reason I chose this program to help me be a better Cherokee language teacher and leader. The assignments and projects required that I put this work into practice, and through the process of creating curriculum and instructional materials, developing pedagogy and programmatic methodology, and actively teaching in our Cherokee language immersion settings, I was required to demonstrate what we were learning in context. This was the only way that I could accurately meet the required rubric of the assignments from our coursework. At times it was challenging to shift from an English language focus to Cherokee language focus.

I learned to better evaluate Cherokee Language proficiency in reading, writing, speaking, and listening. Although I had some experience creating assessment tools with the speaking and listening modalities, I had very little experience with assessing the modalities associated with literacy. The coursework improved my understanding of assessments in general and increased the efficacy of the oral proficiency assessments that I had already implemented in our Cherokee language Programs. Learning ESL teaching methodologies like Differentiated Instruction (Peregoy & Boyle, 2017), and SIOP lesson planning (Echevarria & Graves, 2003) improved the quality and efficacy of our language sessions. Moll’s Funds of Knowledge (1992), Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development as cited Brown (2014), Krashen’s critique of Comprehensible Input (Brown, 2014), and other educational theories have impacted my own ideological foundation when our language programs needed to find best practices by providing an understanding as to not only how to increase the effectiveness of our language sessions but also in explaining why certain methodologies were more effective. Most importantly, I learned there is no magic tool or easy answer to teach our target language. There are many contextually situated ways to increase our ability to learn and teach Cherokee, but the diverse variables from student motivation and learner strategies, to sociocultural challenges like poverty, racism, and emotional health all need to be taken account of and a nuanced approach to language learning that responds to contexts is vital to ensuring our overall success, and I feel that the coursework has better prepared me to take on this challenge.

This is my third attempt at our final project C&T 898, and despite my enjoyment of the coursework and in learning from our instructors and my peers, I have struggled to complete my degree. In the spring of 2020, I lost my Adopted mom to cancer, my biological mom was diagnosed with leukemia, and I found out my life partner and I were having unexpected challenges in our relationship, more than I had realized. My biological mom is still alive and in treatment, but my life partner and I struggled for a year and a half to save our relationship, but unfortunately we were not able to be successful. In the fall of 2021, I decided to pick myself up and finish my degree, surprisingly the emotional challenges did not fade as fast as the situations that initiated them. I found myself struggling with grief and triggered by common things that would never have caused me pause in the past. Despite that, the faculty at KU Curriculum and Instruction, primarily led by Dr. Rocha has stepped in and guided me over the last few months and these challenges are being overcome.

The life challenges and emotional health problems that have delayed the completion of my coursework have also affected my professional work as well. However, as I have begun to raise my productivity and reliability professionally through time and treatment, I have also been able to see the greater long term effects of the practices and policies we put into place at our program that were implemented and maintained as a direct result of my coursework at KU. What we have learned has not only been integrated into our Cherokee language programs, but it has already begun to bear fruit. Specifically of interest are the evaluative tools that were implemented to assess proficiency development in our Cherokee Language learners. We have been able to improve the rate of language acquisition and track effective changes to curriculum and instruction through evaluation. This has improved our rate of acquisition through maturing gains in proficiency. This itself is a clear indicator of the efficacy and usefulness of the content and instruction we have received from our coursework.

My personal struggles have bled over to my work with the digital portfolio. This is not to say that the project itself is problematic, only that my own experience has been colored by the challenges I initially faced in the spring of 2020. Finally, I feel able to meet the challenge of our final project and I am confident in this endeavor. Despite my struggles, I feel like I can reasonably see both the reasons and the practical value of the digital portfolio. Showcasing a broad array of our writings from our coursework, while allowing for us to remark on the applicability of our works help showcase the width and breaths of the program’s coursework and what KU has to offer potential educators, it also showcases what we as students have re-enable to achieve and advertises our skills and abilities to the job market and potential employers. Further the portfolio itself can be used as a learning tool as graduates of the program can use it as a well polished tool to more easily bring across the content that we have already illuminated in our digital portfolio. The process is fair, comprehensive, and fully supportive. I have been able to get a great sense of compassion, respect, and enthusiasm for my professional and educational success, and I even feel that the personal touch is exceptionally motivational. I also learned that my own accuracy in writing style and academic skill has improved since beginning this program, showing growth due to the efficacy of much reading and writing. The only critique of the portfolio or this final project’s process is the incredible speed at which it progresses in the module, and the urgency of its finality may be a large influence in that regard, however a sense of panic was certainly felt by myself at the close of the first week of the module and definitely overwhelming by the second week. As was pointed out previously, my own emotional state may be the largest factor in that assessment, but otherwise I am most pleased with the Digital Portfolio project and the opportunities it provides.

References

Brown, H.D. (2014). Principles of Language Learning and Teaching: A course in second language acquisition. (6th ed.). Englewood

Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Echevarria, J., & Graves, A. (2003). Curriculum Adaptations. In Sheltered content instruction: Teaching English-language learners with

diverse abilities (2nd ed., pp. 224-247). Boston, MA: Pearson Education.

Doll, W. (1993). Curriculum Possibilities in a “Post”-Future. Journal of Curriculum and Supervision, 8(4), 277-292.

Moll, L., Amanti, C., Neff, D., & Gonzalez, N. (1992). Funds of knowledge for teaching: Using qualitative approach to connect homes

and classrooms. Theory Into Practice, 31(2), 132-141.

Peregoy, S. F., & Boyle, O. G. (2017). Reading, writing, and learning in ESL: A resource book for teaching K-12 English learners.

Boston, MA: Pearson.