are many culturally significant ways of using languages, such as speaking, reading, writing,and listening. Therefore, if a language does become dormant following a period of endan-germent or a significantly impactful event, languages can still be culturally meaningfulin their ‘afterlife’, even if no longer used in everyday spoken communication (i.e., Latin,Classical Greek, and Hebrew). While not the desired outcome of linguists and Indigenouscommunities, without intense intervention this may be the future of Indigenous languageswithin North America and worldwide.

Knowledge about geography is transmitted from generation togeneration and is extremely important to the way of life of many Indigenous commu-nities. For example, since many Indigenous communities moved seasonally to differenthunting and fishing grounds, they relied heavily on their lived experiences and storiespassed down through generations to navigate the landscape. In addition, the words usedto describe the landscape and specific geographical markers demonstrate a connection,further illustrating the correlation language has to cultural practices and geography.5

On the other hand, although the English language can describe these snow types,there are only a handful of words for snow or similar weather phenomena; however, withinInuktitut, there are dozens. This directly highlights that, given their environment, the Inuitdeemed that the varieties of snow and ice were things they needed to differentiate andtalk about, whereas this distinction is not so relevant to English culture. Ice and snowwithin their community influence how people “choose sledge routes, find water or snowfor drinking, select places where they can make a house, consider which surfaces are safeto walk or sledge across,”47 and more.

Specifically, they construct the “Whiteman” using jokes in English.Although “it is impossible to determine exactly when Apache’s living at Cibecue firstemployed English to perform joking imitations of Anglo-Americans,”50 Basso explainsthat jokes in English were a new phenomenon when writing his book, first exclusively usedby young children and then by adults as Anglo-Americans became recurrent characters intheir lives.51 Basso also asserts that individuals within the Western Apache communityonly make jokes in English around people that they are close with because jokes can bemisunderstood or offensive. This adverse reaction can destroy relationships unless theyare strong or long-standing. This example helps to reinforce the importance of languagerevitalization in relation to cultural identity. The Western Apache use joking in Englishto construct the white settlers with whom they interact and this joking became ingrainedwithin their cultural practices, resulting in bonding within the community and conse-quences if employed in the wrong setting or with the wrong people.52

How communities feel about their language can greatly impact whether theywish to continue speaking it. However, language suppression was one of the ways colo-nial powers attempted to assimilate Indigenous communities into Western society. Thishas led to an overwhelming perceived superiority of dominant languages within society,which along with many other factors, have inspired the decline of Indigenous languageswithin North America and worldwide.40 These linguistic ideologies continued to evolvewithin Indigenous communities because of often unspoken and unconscious trauma andintergenerational trauma. These beliefs are ‘naturalized’ or ‘normalized’ within societies,leading to the eventual endangerment or dormancy of languages.

the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis of linguistic relativity or linguistic determinism. In its weaker form(linguistic relativity), this hypothesis “asserts a correlation between language and thinkingeither with regard to the specifics, the structure, the categories, or some other generalitiesof each.”42 Then, in its stronger form (linguistic determinism), this hypothesis postulatesthat “in some way, the language of any given culture is the causal determinant of thepatterns of thinking in that culture.”43 The hypothesis argues that the language we speakinfluences how we, as speakers, perceive and conceptualize the world.44In addition to the case studies cited herein, this hypothesis can also be applied to theInuit who live in what is known as Northern Canada, the United States, and Greenland.45For example, in Inuktitut, a language spoken by the Inuit, there are many words forsnow/ice. This can influence how speakers conceptualize reality or are predisposed to

Additionally, as indicated in the three case studies, all these communities are focusingtheir efforts on children. It can be argued that this is important; as, according to thecritical period hypothesis, there is a limited period of time in childhood development

Although on the brink of dormancy, the Lakota Nation is actively working to revital-ize their language with a strong emphasis within their community on teaching childrenthe language. They have implemented immersion language nests, including daycare fortoddlers33 and immersion elementary schools.34 In both these environments studentslearn all the same concepts as in traditional schools, but classes are taught in Lakota

Oftenreferred to as the Great Sioux Nation, the Lakota people can be divided into three distinctgroups based on their language and geography: Dakota (Santee, Eastern Dakota), Lakota(Teton, Western Dakota) and Nakota (Yankton, Central Dakota).”

Additionally, many of the film’sspeakers highlight how influential language is to their community, arguing that languageloss has contributed to issues of drugs and alcohol within their reservation

y eradicating Indigenous languagesin children in an attempt to Americanize Indigenous populations, the government waseffectively cutting off the cultural pathway between these children, their ancestors, andfuture generations.

One program is a Cherokeeschool where children are educated in all the same areas they would be in a traditionalschool, but classes are taught in Cherokee

nother initiative is the language documentation program where L1 and L2 speakersare recorded using their language as a means of building resources for language documen-tation and acquisition.21 Language documentation programs like this one are valuable asthey create resources that “serve to link language users to past practices, affirm identityand support language revitalization and reclamation.

For example,they created the Tahltan Language Revitalization Program, a working group inspired bythe desire to restore interest in the language, whose mandate is to create programs thatencourage language acquisition and maintenance. One of the programs developed by thisgroup is called language nests. Language nests are daycare programs in which babiesand toddlers are immersed in the language to encourage L1 and L2 language acquisi-tion.19

this paper focuses onthe Tahltan Nation of what is now known as northwestern British Columbia, the CherokeeNation of what is now known as Oklahoma, and the Lakota Nation of what is now knownas North and South Dakota.

One of the catalysts sparked by colonization and globalizationthat impacted the vitality of Indigenous languages in what is now known as Canada andthe United States is the residential ‘school’ system. Through these programs, Indigenouschildren were taken away from their homelands and punished for using their language(s),among many other things, resulting in intergenerational trauma, causing a direct declinein language use.6

The United Nationspresents that “out of the 6,700 languages spoken worldwide, forty percent are in danger ofdisappearing [and of that] most of the languages that are under threat are Indigenous lan-guages.”5

For many people, theirancestral language is integral to cultural expression and continuity.”2 Therefore, whenlanguages become endangered or dormant, this directly impacts culture and culturalpractices. This is specifically true for Indigenous cultural practices since traditions andcustoms are passed down orally from one generation to the next.3 Consequently, if theselanguage(s) were to become endangered or dormant, not only would Indigenous peopleslose their language, but they also risk losing the cultural knowledge that is deep-seated inthe language.

Historically (and currently) Indigenous languages have been suppressed and marginalized within so-ciety, inspiring declining levels of language usage and L1 and L2 speakers. It can be argued that thesedeclining levels of speakership have impacted the tangible and intangible elements of Indigenous culturalpractices. Although Indigenous peoples have faced punishment for using their languages, the reclama-tion or revitalization of Indigenous languages can lead to the recovery of cultural knowledge and, in theprocess, help heal the trauma caused by colonization. This article seeks to address the impact languagerevitalization efforts can have on maintaining the cultural practices of Indigenous communities byexamining three case studies of ongoing revitalization efforts: the Tahltan Nation, the Cherokee Nation,and the Lakota Nation. Moreover, a theoretical analysis will be conducted following the Sapir-WhorfHypothesis of linguistic relativity and linguistic determinism. A review of these practical and theoreticalexamples demonstrates that the language we speak can shape our thinking patterns as well as how weare predisposed to view the world.

it th

xample of k'é in practice inthe sense that the goal of education in this framing is to create educationalsystems where families, teachers, and community work together so that allchildren blossom from the roots of their cultural homelands.

n my heritage community (Dine), we value a practice called k'é, whichis how a family and community support, care, love, and are responsible forone another's well-being. K'é creates positive relationships, builds sustain-able communities, and ensures cultural co

). Kana'iaupuni et al. found that even amongHawaiian-language schools, there was no effect of these schools on their stu-dent outcomes unless the language was taught through culturally rich meth-ods, such as in the immersion schools. In other words, teaching themechanics of Native languages does not automatically infuse culture if thelanguage is taught only as a language, like a foreign language, devoid of cul-ture, community, and worldview

ic. Kana'iaupuni et al. worked collaboratively with Hawaiianscholars and practitioners to develop a Hawaiian Indigenous Education(teaching) Rubric to map tangible teaching practices that are culturally basedin Hawaiian contexts, making CBE palpable and concrete to identify and toput into practice for teachers. The scope of their study (62 schools, 600teachers, and 2,600 students) is remarkable and provides large-scale evi-dence of the impact and effectiveness of CBE. Their findings provide furtherindication and support of the role CBE can play across cultural contexts andacross ethnicities, thus creating a double win for students who benefit fromboth CBE and effective teach

essment. In my work and conversa-tions with many teachers, CBE is often viewed as an esoteric concept oreven as just a metaphor (Lee, 2015). Teachers are unsure how to put itinto practice, signifying the lack of such focus in their teacher training pro-grams. They see it as "teaching culture," and it becomes a stagnant and staticcurricular to

tes counterhegemonic opport

. Stories are our theories (Archibald, 2008; Brayboy, 2005), and asArchibald (2008) asserts, stories are our teachers. They represent our knowl-edge systems and our evolving cultures. In this sense, cultural advantage pri-oritizes our stories and knowledge and recognizes the fluidity of our culturesfor informing and transforming Indigenous educatio

The rationale for the study was that 16-25-year-olds have been over-represented among refugees resettling in Australia. They have been identified as 'falling through the cracks' of formal education and are significantly under-represented in the further education and training sectors. This under-representation has major implications for young refugee people's educational outcomes, social inclusion, life opportunities, and those of their families and communities. The primary research question asked in this study was, 'How are everyday spaces employed by refugee youth to support the development of information literacies and learning practices?'

* Ask each student to provide examples of digital media resources from their everyday literacy practices that can promote learning in the classroom and facilitate opportunities for students to incorporate these resources to support content-based learning. * Engage students in critical media and literacy discussions around digital content that students identify as relevant in their daily lives. * Facilitate learning opportunities that reflect daily experiences in digital spaces and encourage students to include multimodal, multilingual and translocal materials, such as music, images and videos they each find meaningful in content-based projects. * Provide opportunities for students to work on collaborative digital projects using their translocal and technological skills in creative ways. * Share with students additional ways in which social media can support learning, such as collaborative remix and production of multilingual and multimodal content.

The study discussed in this article is framed within the heightened media discourses around asylum seeker and refugee intake, population growth and jobs. Australia considers itself multicultural but favours assimilation over genuine cultural diversity. According to the Challenging Racism Project 2015-16 National Survey Report, 32% claimed to have 'negative' feelings toward Middle-Eastern Australians, 60% 'positive' feelings toward Anglo Australians, and 53% 'positive' feelings toward Asian Australians (Source: Challenging Racism Project 2015-16 National Survey Report). Significant 'outgroups' identified by the survey included Muslim Australians (51%); African Australians (44%) and Southern Asian (38%).

Teachers become anthropologists, collecting and analysing empirical data (from photos, focus groups, videos) to provide an important body of evidence about the actual practice conditions shaping learners' practices. Ask the children to take photos of what, where and how they learn and who and what helps them in this process. Further, ask them to select three to four photos and talk with you about why they've selected them. Share this learning with other teachers and you may be surprised at what you find out.

In relation to everyday spaces for learning, refugee background youth learn how to map the landscape and, making sense of the landscape, identify where knowledge sites are located and the primary and secondary affordances. They come to understand the unwritten rules of the Australian social 'game' as they mix with a variety of people from a range of walks of life at church. They learn that playing sport means taking turns and working together as a team rather than as an individual. These spaces foster their social capital--they build useful socially legitimised connections into education and employment.

In a discussion with Michele Knobel a year or so after leaving Australia to live in Mexico (Faulkner & Knobel, personal communication), Michele explained how she learned Spanish. She might have attended lessons and systematically extended her language learning, but she detailed how her conversational language had grown through cooking with her neighbour. From a very limited Spanish language base, she acquired second language vocabulary and fluency. This is how community learning often works, horizontally, organically and in a motivated and purposeful way.

The young people met for three sessions to familiarise themselves with the project, taking and discussing photos which meant something to them and engaging with peer comment over their choices. The final session heard the researchers present situational maps which represented how the refugee youth had experienced their learning in these everyday spaces, their key information sites and sources. Domestic and digital spaces were important sources of social capital where the young people established and maintained social links; kept in touch with family and home communities; and made new contacts into the wider Australian community. In turn, these provided them with links to employment opportunities and rendered explicit the hidden curriculum of accessing jobs and navigating education pathways.

occur naturally in social life, taking account of the context and their different meanings for different cultural groups. [Literacy includes] the variation in meanings and uses that students bring from their home backgrounds to formal learning contexts, such as school and the classroom. (1997, p. 47).

If mass schooling is a middle-class enterprise, minority group learners, especially those from low socioeconomic backgrounds, will find themselves on the margins (Campbell, 2015; Teese & Polesel, 2003; Freebody et al., 1995). Community literacy practices are always social, always situated. Honan observes how formal literacy practices are generally monolingual and print-based, in stark contrast to the multimodal and 'rich translingual and codemeshing practices' (Honan, 2019) in young people's everyday lives. In this sense, it is the school discourses that are narrow and lacking, rather than the communicative patterns of the users. How then might educators come to understand and build on the literacy practices of a community? As Honan argues, school literacies need to change into something ... more connected, more 'authentic', more engaging (2019). Yet, she also argues that we should be careful not to discard what is of value when we critically examine the 'predictable discourses' and normative practices of schooling.