OKMULGEE, Okla.- The College of the Muscogee Nation (CMN) is the recipient of a three-year grant that will help revitalize the Mvskoke language. They have partnered with Emory University and the Mellon Foundation, which developed the “The Mellon Foundation Mvskoke Language Master Apprentice Cohort program”. This curriculum is different compared to the Mvskoke language certificate.
CMN President Dr. Monte Randall (Mvskoke) chose three Mvskoke language speakers to help eight apprentices become instructors. The goal is to increase proficiency in the langage.
“I’m confident in this master apprentice method, there’s research behind it and there’s evidence of success with the master apprentice program,” Dr. Randall said. “We brought together some second language learners, Mvskoke language teachers, public school educators, they were all familiar with the language and culture. But my main focus was to bring educators to work on proficiency tests and performance assessments.”
Throughout the selection process, Dr. Randall looked into each speaker’s background. He wanted to make sure they were highly proficient first language speakers. With the apprentices, he looked at their ability to dedicate themselves to learning the language and ability to commit to the long hours the program required.
Dr. Randall shared that he was ecstatic and anxious about what is to come within the year with this program, and the years preceding. There will be eight apprentices this year, the second year will include 12 apprentices. The year after that will feature 16 apprentices, by the end of the fourth year there will be a total of 36 new apprentices who have gone through the program.
“It’s a good opportunity for these speakers, it’s a good opportunity for the apprentices and the institutions. When you think about that term revitalization, it’s providing this spark to those students to those speakers to this college to this nation. That’s creating that momentum and stirring this movement up its building off of each other,” Dr. Randall said.
Mvskoke Language Curriculum History
There were some Mvskoke language classes back in the early 1970s, which were constantly being refined. Now, Dr. Randall wants to refine Mvskoke language teaching to meet college-level standards.
“It was somebody who knew the language, they were probably approached or probably took it upon themselves and said ‘hey I’m going to teach a class’. We didn’t know how to teach the language and teaching a language is tough,” Dr. Randall said.
During that time it was difficult for language teachers to teach who did not have a standard curriculum to follow. A Mvskoke language curriculum separate from English was not prioritized by outside colonizers.
“The way we learned the Mvskoke language was through reading and writing through a curriculum. The boarding school and the missionaries were designed to teach us language. That wasn’t designed by us, now here we are in the 1990s, 2000s to 2020s and we are still using a curriculum designed to teach us English that wasn’t developed by us,” Dr. Randall said.
Accuracy and meeting needs is why this program is important to Randall. “That’s the part of the struggle that we are in right now so that’s part of this revitalization effort is to create language teachers, redesign our curriculum by us, that’s going to meet our needs,” Dr. Randall said.
Later in the future Dr. Randall wants to continue seeking partnerships with other tribal colleges through American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC), and other academic institutions.
For more information you can contact CMN at 918-549-2800. To stay up to date on events, follow their Facebook page.
