In Alaska, where Alaska Native students constitute the largest racial/ethnic group of English learner (EL) students, it is an open question whether and how EL policies and services meet the unique needs of Indigenous EL students. A stronger understanding of how Alaska Native students experience EL identification, classification, service provision,…

Indigenous peoples have rightful aspirations for their languages and cultures, supported under international conventions, jurisdictional treaties, laws, policies and enquiry recommendations. Additionally, the inclusion of Indigenous languages in education can impact positively on Indigenous students' learning, engagement, identity and well-being,…

Mi'gmaq, an Algonkian language of northeastern North America, is one of nearly 50 surviving Indigenous languages in Canada that are usually not considered to be viable into the next century. Only Inuktitut, Cree, and Ojibwe presently have enough younger speakers to provide a critical mass for long-term survival. In one Mi'gmaq community, however,…

In this column, the author relates her experience as a teacher in a K-12 school in Point Hope, Alaska, where most of the students spoke "village English," a form of nonstandard English mixed with the village's native language of Inupiaq. She relates how the students' reading test scores, which had been below the 25th percentile, were…