One ice cube at a time

Live as if you were to die tomorrow
Learn as if you were to live forever

—Gandhi

Another core aspect of the BQ program that is also highly unusual is how student-centered it is. The program coordinators believe the best language learning for students comes from students. So they encourage us to come up with situations we want to learn the words for. This means we have a pivotal role in our learning, with the onus squarely on us individually, for better and worse (mostly the former so far, I’d say). At first, I was unprepared, having never done it in a school setting. I recently joked that maybe they should have "warned" us, although maybe I wouldn't have come if they had. :)

But it will be a challenge, no doubt about it. Consistency and self-discipline are not what I'd exactly call complimentary concepts in my educational history. I'm not the worst, but I'm far from the best. I tend to cram, so it will take a tectonic-scale shift in my habits to achieve what one friend called the necessary "relentlessness" of language acquisition.

Now, for those who might be curious, here's how my week works:

...............................................

MONDAY

Cree Grammar > 3 hours

Home Visits with language helpers > 3 hours

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TUESDAY

Cree Immersion > 3 hours

Cree Worldview > 3 hours
(mostly non-language class on Cree belief systems)

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WEDNESDAY

Cree Immersion > 3 hours

Language Learning Processes > 3 hours

...............................................

THURSDAY

Home Visits > 4 hours

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FRIDAY

Home Visits > 4 hours

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SATURDAY

"Advanced Grammar" > 2 hours
(informal study group I take part in)

...............................................

SUNDAY

e-nipâyân (I am sleeping!)

...............................................


It adds up to 23 language hours a week, 12 of them in-class. Does that seem like a lot or a little to you? At first, I only knew about the classroom time; no-one told me about the home visits. In fact, that's one area I wish Blue Quills had told me more about when I was deciding whether to take the program. My impression was that it was just the 12 hours a week, which brought me perilously close to not even coming at all. Luckily, as I wrote last time, my intuition said try it out anyway, and I am very glad I did.

And if you factor in our homework — 60 to 90 minutes a day — well, geez, I actually started to wonder at one point if it was too much. Careful what you wish for, nitotem (my friend). So put it all at somewhere around 30 hours, give or take.

Before I go, another organizing metaphor I came up with to help me understand the needs of second-language acquisition is a glacier. And since, like language, no one can swallow a whole glacier in one gulp, how do you take it all in? You guessed it: one ice cube at a time, baby, one cube at a time. Now, that's truly a mouthful!

And with that, I bid you miyo-tipiskâw.

Rick