I also went and visited some Iñupiaq classes. I learned that good day is "uvlalautaq", the last q being one of those sounds produced low down in the throat - needless to say I can't pronounce it correctly! Iñupiaq also has a variety of dialects. Rosie, the Iñupiaq teacher in Buckland, actually said that she took university classes to learn the region's dialect. Sadly, like most native languages, Iñupiaq is dying out. There are only few people left that speak the language fluently and most of them are of a proud age. I met some people that said they still speak Iñupiaq to their children, but the number of fluent speakers is dwindling...
In return to learning some Iñupiaq, I taught a Spanish lesson to one of the high school classes. They learned how to introduced themselves in Spanish and 11 colors. It was great! It was very interesting to see how the students dealt with my teaching style. I made them get up, move around the classroom, hold up color cards and so on... (Long live Keagan!:) After a little bit of initial frustration "I don't even understand what you're saying!", the kids went with it and had fun. To round off the lesson, I actually tried out Larry Meath's gambling game - a review game that is played in groups and includes gambling with the group's points. The students had so much fun (even though some had troubles calculating their bets) that they tried to get students to hurry up towards the end of the lesson so we could play one more round. It was awesome - great student involvement especially considering it was the last period on Friday afternoon.
So, after teaching high schoolers and some younger kids, I am now sometimes greeted by Spanish, German or French phrases around town! :)
Looked like the students had fun!
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