wałyaʕasukʔi naatnaniqsakqin at the home of our ancestors : Hesquiaht second language immersion on Hesquiaht land by čuucqa Layla Rorick [electronic resource] :

Project (M.Ed.) - University of Victoria, 2016.

Motivated by a desire to return a critically endangered Indigenous language to the land of its origin, the researcher, an adult second language learner and Hesquiaht woman delivered a four-day Hesquiaht place-based language learning outdoor course in partnership with extended family and Hooksum Outdoor School. Hesquiaht is a Nuu-chah-nulth (Nootka, Wakashan) language that has 13 remaining fluent speakers, most of who are physically unable to teach over a prolonged period in the outdoors due to their advanced ages. In order to reconnect younger, physically active Indigenous learners to Hesquiaht land, to Hesquiaht language, to Hesquiaht stories, to Hesquiaht kinship and to the responsibilities that come with being a Hesquiaht person, the planning and delivery of this project combined place-based education approaches with research supported language immersion techniques within a Hesquiaht framework. This project combined traditional and contemporary Hesquiaht ways of learning and teaching on the land guided by the past and present work of Hooksum Outdoor School and by the kinkʷaaštaqumł family participants. The result was a resolve by this family based group of participants to continue the work of language revitalization on Indigenous land by gathering for more language immersion courses together. Chapter 3 describes the language course daily activity and Appendix 4 contains the associated language immersion lessons.