Noah carries Inuktitut torch
'It's your language,' says Nunavut Teacher Education Program instructor
Michele LeTourneau
Northern News Services
Published Monday, November 17, 2014
KITIKMEOT/KIVALLIQ
Eva Noah can trace her love of Inuktitut and her desire to teach all the way back to her six-year-old self and her introduction to the English language.
"When I started school I only had the Inuktitut language at home. Both my parents didn't speak English. When I went into a school we had English teachers and so I thought, 'Some kids understand and we don't.' That made me want to become a teacher," said Noah.
For 27 years, Noah has taught Inuktitut 100, now a transfer credit course through the University of Regina.
"I'm now going third generation in a community and second generation here in Taloyoak. Time goes ..."
But she didn't always know that she would travel and teach adults.
"I didn't know I was going to train teachers."
Noah got her first taste when an Iqaluit instructor travelled to Baker Lake and she was asked to assist.
"And from there, every summer they hired me for the summer school to teach phonology and orthography."
It was a natural fit.
Born and raised in Baker Lake, Noah graduated from Yellowknife Territorial High School, then went on to complete the Eastern Arctic Teacher Education Program through McGill University when it was in Iqaluit. She obtained a bachelor of education degree in 1990, again by affiliation with McGill. Finally, Noah received her master's degree in educational leadership from the University of Prince Edward Island in June 2013.
As a Nunavut Teacher Education Program (NTEP) instructor, Noah travels throughout the Kitikmeot and Kivalliq communities. This school year alone she will have three-week teaching stints in Taloyoak and Gjoa Haven, twice in each community, and Rankin Inlet and Arviat twice each.
"Last year, somebody said, 'I'd be afraid to teach adults.' I said the only thing that's scary is when they don't do their work."
Teaching adults differs from teaching children, mostly because adults come with adult-sized problem.
"When there is a personal problem, like death or family problems, it's emotionally draining. But we always have professional guidelines for the NTEP students.
"Every course is three weeks, every course we go through the professional guidelines. I make it clear I am a part of the Nunavut Employees Union and they are training to be members of the teachers association and I say, 'After five, I'm myself.' For example, if they're my cousin, I say, 'After five, you're my cousin.' "
Standardized written Inuktitut is her passion, "especially the little finals, those little finals are the consonants. Which consonants follow, which is basically the standardized writing system."
She teaches about the history of syllabics from Cree, how syllabics were adopted from the Cree language.
"In the 1800s, it was taught to the Eastern Arctic Inuit. And then it spread this way (to the west)."
Noah says language fascinates her. Her master's thesis was on the oralcy of Inuktitut - from rhymes to chants to fairy tales to how things became. She says those are what should be taught in the classroom to keep the Inuktitut language strong.
"We've been working with the bilingual language for 30 years in the schools, now. But them saying bilingual - it's just English translated into Inuktitut. And that's not true Inuktitut. It's like the mirror language of English. Like when they translate English nursery rhymes to Inuktitut, that's not what Inuktitut was. It's not Inuktitut."
This class in Taloyoak has eight students. The objective is to ensure that these future teachers will then have the ability teach Inuktitut in school.
Her favourite moment in a classroom is when students say: "Ah ... I get it now!"
"Most of the communities I go to, I say, the language is there. You hear it on the radio station. It's with the elders.
"It's your language."
Noah explains that language loss is visible, it's in the syntax.
"A word in Inuktitut is a whole sentence in English. Some people break up by word - noun root, verb root, noun chunk or verb chunk - instead of a verb ending or a noun ending. That's the difference between real Inuktitut and English translated into Inuktitut."
Noah's students get as excited as she does "once they start to learn how to polish the written language."
"They're uplifted."
