If you browse the College of Menominee Nation’s (CMN’s) website this month, you will see a new page option under the “Community & Culture” header. The dropdown bar contains a hyperlink titled “Let’s All Speak the Language Library.” Clicking on that link brings you to a page containing videos that could enrich classrooms anywhere in the world. The page notes that “College of Menominee Nation endeavors to be a conduit for Indigenous language and culture.
One way in which CMN fulfills this undertaking is through the perpetuation of spoken Indigenous languages in our classrooms.” It continues, “In partnership with community language groups, CMN invites students, staff, and the community to enjoy the ‘Let’s All Speak the Language’ video series listed below.” What follows are classroom language lessons from some of Wisconsin’s First Nations’ teachers. In effect, CMN’s website now offers the tools to turn every classroom into a language classroom. 

Every tribal college or university (TCU) has a charge to offer exemplary secondary education courses enhanced by the wisdom of tribal cultures. At CMN, this endeavor is articulated in the school’s mission statement, which declares, “the College of Menominee Nation infuses learning with American Indian culture and prepares students for leadership, careers, and advanced studies in a multicultural world. The College commits to research and promotion, perpetuation, and nurturance of American Indian language and scholarship.” Like many TCUs, CMN offers courses in Indigenous languages, but the teachings housed in those languages do not always transfer into other disciplines’ courses. In his TEDx Talk, Ron (Muqsāhkwat) Corn Jr. affirms the role Menominee language plays in his nation’s culture. Corn is one of the founders of the thriving grassroots language nonprofit MenominiYou whose mission “is to dedicate our time, effort, and energy to the revitalization and renormalization” of the Menominee language. In the TEDx Talk, Corn quotes one of his elders as stating, “Language is the key to everything.” CMN recognizes the profound lesson contained in that single sentence.

The “Let’s All Speak the Language” videos hold the tools to host many classroom conversations. Partnering with MenominiYou, their Mohican counterpart, Speak Mahican!, and Wisconsin’s other tribal college, Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe University (LCOOU), CMN has created video series in the Menominee, Mohican, Oneida, and Ojibwe languages. Sponsored in part by the Scott Zager Venture Fund, each of the series contains eight videos that demonstrate how to use the language from the beginning of a class meeting through its conclusion. With just a few mouse clicks, learners are shown the basics of how to introduce themselves in an Indigenous language, utilize classroom discussion prompts, offer compliments or critiques of ideas shared in course materials, ask for a break, and share what they intend to do once class commences.

A CMN class utilizing the series will announce that the course will offer “Optional Indigenous Language Usage.” The syllabus description states, “As evidence of CMN’s faculty answering the call to be ‘conduits of language and culture,’ your instructor will use some Indigenous language in classroom instruction, Canvas coursework, and digital correspondence.” Together, the students and instructor will select a language during the initial course meeting and the class will strategically explore each of the videos throughout the semester. Menominee was piloted over the summer of 2023 semester and released to the public through social media in fall 2023. The Mohican series followed suit, piloting in fall 2023 and being freely available to all in spring 2024. Oneida is being rolled out simultaneously in classrooms and online in the fall of 2024. Ojibwe will follow suit during the spring 2025 semester. Student participation in the series is optional, offering extra credit to those who choose to do it. One student anonymously stated, “It’s like the opposite of the boarding schools. Here we get rewarded for using our language.”

Since fall 2023, 90 students have submitted anonymous feedback surveys on the video series their course utilized. The majority of answers for that 67% stated that they watched the videos both during and outside of class meetings, with 75.5% noting they participated to learn some language and earn some extra credit points. Tallies revealed that 64.4% of students surveyed claimed they would use the language taught in the videos outside of the classroom and 63.3% thought that the video series should be used in all CMN classes. Perhaps most fortifying for project administrators is that 73.3% of students revealed they would be interested in partaking in a similar video series with a different Indigenous language. One student wrote, “I think all CMN classrooms should use these, because it could be life changing. It could inspire someone to want to learn more, even if it’s learning some basics and using them daily. Menominee language will be still on a rise and the awareness will be as well. Any language use is good.” Another student shared, “I really enjoyed the videos, even though I am an immersion teacher, some of the words were new to me. Every day with the language is something new and comparing old generations to new generations, it will only change but change for the better.”

CMN’s “Let’s All Speak the Language Library” is designed for everyone to use to enhance any classroom regardless of the instructor’s familiarity with an Indigenous language. The teachers in the video series pronounce and translate the words and phrases and all the instructor has to do is reinforce the lessons. During a presentation at the “Seven Generation Inter-Tribal Leadership Summit” announcing the new website in October 2024, LCOOU’s Native American studies director Dr. Michael (Migizi) Sullivan stated, “People keep asking me how we can get language and culture into more courses. This video series offers a way to do it.”

To turn your classroom into a language classroom, check out CMN’s “Let’s All Speak the Language Library” for yourself at: https://www.menominee.edu/community-landing/lets-all-speak-the-language-library

Ryan Winn, PhD teaches in the Liberal Studies Department at College of Menominee Nation.  

Editor’s note: The opinions expressed in the Inquisitive Academic or any other opinion columns published by the Tribal College Journal (TCJ) do not necessarily reflect the opinions of TCJ or the American Indian Higher Education Consortium.