Teach Yourself

The Teach Yourself Curriculum was created thanks to funding from the Vadon Foundation, the Alqi Legacy Foundation and the Global Civic Policy Society. Much gratitude to the Board Members of Global Civic for their longterm support. Thank you to Jay Powell who inspired us by writing the first curriculum for BC Chinook Jargon in the early 1970s!

 

Teach Yourself Northern Chinook Jargon Curriculum
By David Douglas Robertson, PhD

Tlahowyum! “Hi!” This course will let you “teach yourself” the unique Northern Dialect of the Chinook Jargon language. (Call it “CJ” for short.)

You can do that in a literal way, without anyone else. Or, you can use this course along with a friend, a community member, a teacher, or in our free online Zoom classes and videos.

This is set up as a 3-year course, having 10 units in each year, so there are 30 units total.

Every unit in this course will have 6 parts in it:

  1. A Lesson in how the language works,
  2. “Wawa Chinook”, which is a conversation between 2 or more people,
  3. Discussion Notes, to get you (and any other students / teacher) talking and thinking about what we’ve shown you,
  4. Reading/talking exercises to practice that knowledge (this is the core! You’ll be learning CJ by talking!), and
  5. Check Your Understanding, on a real example of the language being used.
  6. Vocabulary (Chinook to English, and English to Chinook) of all the words taught so far,

Year 1 will focus on giving you basic conversation skills.

Year 2 will show you the simple patterns that you can use to say practically anything in this language.

Year 3 will guide you to a full, independent understanding of whatever people say in Northern Chinook Jargon.

@learners and @instructors, please send me sound recordings, or videos, of yourselves! You can record the Wawa Chinook conversations, and/or the Vocabulary words, and/or your answers to the Reading/Talking Exercises!

We might put you into the podcasts & videos we’re making of these lessons! I’m at spokaneivy@gmail.com

Additional Resources

Chinook Jargon: Word a Week with video, downloadable worksheets and answer sheets.