Diigwandak: stories from a Gwich'in language classroom

Allan Hayton
Wed, 22 Apr 2026 17:57:24 PDT

This study describes a semester in an Indigenous language high school classroom during the spring of 2011. The goal of this research is to capture the experiences of a novice Indigenous language teacher, and his students. High and low points are shared as the researcher seeks to find his place in the work of Indigenous language revitalization, and students strive to learn a second language. Data for this qualitative research was collected through teacher auto-ethnographic journal entries, lesson plans, student journals and projects, exit interviews with students, and two recorded classroom observations. Emergent themes of Time, Responsibility, Community, Fluency, Emotions, and Self-Doubt capture significant moments in the classroom, and reveal close connections between teacher and student experiences. The purpose of conducting this research is to provide insights for novice Indigenous language teachers into their classroom dynamics. The researcher also discovered areas of possible future research for Indigenous language teaching and learning.