Glen Korstrom
Northern News Services

NNSL (Jun 12/98) - When Inuvialuit elder Rosie Albert says she is retiring so she can enjoy life for a change, it is difficult to know whether she is joking.

"I want to be alone," she says.

"No, I don't want people visiting me, I want time for myself."

Then she lets loose with a loud, infectious and well-practised laugh.

The lively 64-year-old began training to be a teacher in 1980 before starting to teach Inuvialuktun to SAMS students in grades 1 through 6 in 1985.

Part of her training to be a teacher included learning some German. The point was not to learn German but to see different techniques the instructor used to teach a language.

"Being able to teach in my own language is like I'm in my own home. That's what I'm going to miss -- no one to understand me."

Rummaging around behind her desk, she finally flops a book down and turns to a page near the beginning where there is a list of acknowledgements.

In the basic dictionary and the grammar book for the Uummarmiut dialect of Inuvialuktun, author Ronald Cook notes Albert's "invaluable contribution to the study of the language."

He also thanks her for her patience and exactness.

Once Albert is comfortable in her retirement, younger teachers will impart Inuvialuktun knowledge. And Albert is confident the quality of language instruction will stay the same.

"Do they speak it well? Yes, they do," she says assertively.

But the immediate obstacle to growing usage of Inuvialuktun is no one to speak it with at home, she says.

Pointing to the front doors at SAMS, Albert says the school entrance is as far as her students go with Inuvialuktun. When they get home they are usually in an English-only environment.

"It is hard for the students because their parents lost their language in residential school."