The purpose of this curriculum is to create an awareness and appreciation of the Dene language and culture and to provide students with content and language. The Dene 10, 20, 30 curricula will help students develop the skills necessary to communicate in the Dene language. It will help to support the revitalization and enhancement of the Dene language. The ability to speak Dene becomes all the more valuable as the interest in revitalization and stabilizing the Dene language grows. Elders and leaders are voicing concerns about the problems faced by new generations of people without identity in their Dene or mainstream culture. This curriculum is an effort that directly addresses the pressing needs of Dene language and culture education.

Language is acquired through interaction with others. Dene 10, 20, 30 will allow the students to meet and use language in a variety of social and cultural situations, and offers students the opportunity to develop basic functional command of Dene. The curriculum provides a framework for instruction in teaching knowledge, skills and attitudes in meaningful contexts. The students’ contacts with people, things, events and ideas of the world around them serve as the base for language development. The Dene 10, 20, 30 curriculum covers content areas in human relationships, relationships to the natural environment and cultural lifestyles. Dene relates to aspects of the students’ immediate environment; and assists students to develop an understanding of community relationships and expanding their world view.

In the Dene custom, it is the oral tradition rather than documentation which people turn to when seeking direction or validation. The “keepers of knowledge” in the oral tradition are the Elders, and so it was from them that initial guidance was sought. In many contemporary instances, the Dene language use is not strong in the environment of the student, therefore this curriculum serves to help develop outcomes that captures the promise that language and cultures carry in creating identity and self confidence in students. This curriculum represents the commitment and hard work of all those who were involved in the development of the Western Canadian Protocol Framework for Aboriginal Language and Culture Program. The foundation of Dene 10, 20, 30 is based on the work of the Northern and Canadian Western Protocol Framework for Aboriginal Languages.