.

Home page

Text size

E-mail this page

Aboriginal language instructor Mimi Akeeagok speaks to her class. Akeeagok is an experienced teacher and one of the first graduates of what is now Arctic College's Nunavut Teacher Education Program. - Gabriel Zarate/NNSL photo

IQALUIT - At 62 years old, Okpik Pitseolak is the oldest student in the aboriginal language specialist program. Through an interpreter, Pitseolak said she had enrolled in the program as soon as she found out it existed. She intends to become a substitute teacher of Inuktitut, which are always in short supply.

Less than a third Pitseolak's age, Maggie Aqpik came from Kimmirut to join the program. She is paying her own way until she receives her financial assistance from the college.

"I think it's important because a lot of young people are losing their language," said Aqpik. "I think it's best to keep it alive and keep them speaking it."

Mimi Akeeagok, the instructor of the course, said she appreciates the age range of her students. Her younger students pick up on the superior language skills of their elders. Akeeagok conducts her classes entirely in Inuktitut.

Additionally, older students are sharing their traditional knowledge with the class, an integral part of the program.

"These students have ideas similar to mine," said Akeeagok. "They know the school system in the North has to be changed to make education fit into our culture."

Although most of the students have been living in Iqaluit for years, almost all were born in one of the hamlets of the Baffin Region and speak a variety of Inuktitut dialects. Akeeagok said the different dialects have helped her students by challenging their language abilities.

Due to insufficient classroom space at Arctic College's Iqaluit campus, classes are being held at Nakasuk school. In coming months the aboriginal language students will help out in Nakasuk's classes to practice classroom procedures and how to relate to schoolchildren.

Once the students finish the program in October, they'll graduate as language specialists, qualified to help teachers in Inuktitut language classes. Jim Legge, Arctic College's co-ordinator of the program, anticipates some of the new language specialists will find work as teachers in some of the smaller communities if no Inuktitut-fluent professional teacher is available.

Legge has been pursuing setting up a similar program in Cambridge Bay for Inuinnaqtun, but there was insufficient enrolment there.