Language Emergency Impact Outcomes
Language Emergency
Students in the Language Emergency Lab, with assistance from the English Department, the School of International Letters and Cultures, and the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community O'odham Piipaash Language Program, investigated the state of local Indigenous languages and cultural practices. Eventually splitting into separate language documentation and cultural preservation efforts, they gained a new perspective on Indigenous practices and produced a wealth of linguistic and cultural data. All groups then reconvened at the end of the semester for a public exhibition of their outcomes.
Student Outcomes
Piipaash Storybook Teaching Guide
Recognizing a need to help teachers and students learn Piipaash efficiently, a trio of students created a teaching guide for a Piipaash-language storybook. The guide included lesson plans, teaching materials and activity worksheets based on the current research from the field of applied linguistics, second language acquisition, early childhood education, methods of teaching bi/multilingual students, and language assessment.
Subsequently, two students from the Lab have since been working to extend this initiative into the Fall 2022 semester through the interdisciplinary Beyond the Lab program. Read more about their work here.
Cultural Arts Teaching Kits
A team of students assembled teaching kits on the traditional pottery-making and basketry practices of the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community. The kits emphasized the practices' cultural significance and provided step-by-step guides on how to create these unique pieces of art.
Language Emergency Presentation Event
Partnering with the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community O'odham Piipaash Language Program, the Language Emergency Lab invited the public to Hayden Library for an end-of-semester exhibition event in which students presented their language documentation projects, cultural preservation efforts, data collection initiatives, and research. See below for images from the event.
Grants
In order to earn the funds needed to initiate these projects, our Language Emergency students applied for and received the following grants:
– Shahzadi Laibah Burq, Hannah Lent, and Addison Wagner were awarded an Amplifier Mini-Grant for their Piipaash Storybook Teaching Guide outcome.
– Rhys Hughes, Cielo Cuevas, Jibril Ibrahim, Laura Sandoval, and Xinya Kou were awarded an Amplifier Mini-Grant for their Cultural Arts Teaching Kits outcome.
This is the second Humanities Lab I have taken part in, and it has been one of the best learning experiences. The Language Emergency Lab (...) is an example of the unique opportunities we are afforded to work on different projects, make new connections, and gain essential skills from which we will benefit in the years to come.
-- Gina Scarpete Walters, Third-year Ph.D.student in Comparative Culture and Language & Language Emergency Humanities Lab student
Media Coverage
O'odham Action News. O’odham Piipaash Language Program and ASU Humanities Lab Collaborate on ‘Language Emergency.’ By: Chris Picciuolo (5/18/2022)
Collaborative Partners
- Cultural Resources Department of the Salt River Pima Maricopa Indian Community
- Matthew Toro, Geospatial Hub, ASU Library
- Motoki Nomachi, Professor of Slavic Minority Languages
- Labriola Center, ASU Library
- Joseph Buenker, ASU Library