ULUKHAKTOK/HOLMAN - Teaching Inuinnaqtun is one of Jean Ekpakohak's passions in life.

Jean Ekpakohak teaches Inuinnaqtun at Helen Kalvak school in Ulukhaktok. - Louise Brown/NNSL photo

Passing on her culture to a younger generation is very important to her.

"I wanted to preserve my language and my culture," she said. "We cannot have a culture without the language."

Ekpakohak is a native Inuinnaqtun speaker and enjoys sharing her language with the children at Helen Kalvak School and her colleagues appreciate her efforts.

"She’s very good at what she does," said Rose Mary Kirby, the Inuvialuit aboriginal language and culture co-ordinator with the Beaufort Delta Education Council.

Kirby also praises the way that Ekpakohak has adopted the use of new technology in her classroom.

She uses a "Phraselator" gadget to help kids learn how to pronounce new words.

Kids love playing with the device and English words can easily be translated into Inuinnaqtun, even by teachers that are not familiar with the language.

Even though the education council does not have a curriculum for grades 8 to 12, Ekpakohak worked hard to expand the curriculum to apply to older children.

"She’s very knowledgeable in Inuinnaqtun and she’s knowledgeable in other dialects in our region," said Kirby.

According to the last census, Inuinnaqtun is spoken by 580 people in Canada, but Ekpakohak is helping the language grow right in her classroom.

"It’s catching on, but slow yeah," she said.

She estimates up to 12 students at Helen Kalvak are fluent in the Inuit language, but more of them are learning as time goes on.

Ekpakohak teaches seven classes from kindergarten to Grade 12.

Last week, after completing a successful sewing class, she took a moment to discuss her teaching methods.

"We learn the language by writing it and translating it," she said. “We sing with the words that we learn, we play games with the words that we learn, using real life experience to make it into a song or a poem.”

The routine in her classes is simple, they begin with a prayer and follow that up with a discussion about that traditionally Canadian topic, the weather.

"Because the only way people started communicating before, was to talk about the weather," she said.

Then she will expand the children's vocabulary and continue with the daily curriculum exercises.

"Every day we learn a new word and it keeps adding and adding and we do words from the year before and try and make sentences with the words we’ve learned," she said.

Ekpakohak is a passionate advocate for aboriginal languages and it shows in her daily lifestyle.

"All my life I speak Inuinnaqtun, from the day I was born right to this very day," she said.

Ekpakohak has taught her five children and 12 grandchildren the language by creating an immersion experience for her family in their home.

Even with her great efforts, they're not all fluent, but they're learning, she added with a laugh.

March has been designated aboriginal languages month by the NWT Literacy Council.

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