Appendix A: Glossary

The following definitions and explanations are intended to help teachers use this document.

Animate/inanimate “Dene divide everything according to a life principle. If it has an inner life force, it is said to be animate. If it is sedentary and has no evident life principle in it, it is inanimate. However, this generalization sometimes breaks down. It is not always possible to predict whether a word is animate or inanimate. For example, water is described as a living thing (tu) meaning “something people need to live” whether it is to travel on, to drink, to eat from and to wash with. Whereas table is described as non-living (bek’eshélyi) meaning an object used to eat on, but a person can do without. Any type of man-made object that is not made out of wild game origin or of the environment is considered non-living. (Denesuline Level 1 Curriculum Guide)

Assessment is the act of systematically gathering information with respect to curricular outcomes on a regular basis in order to understand individual student’s learning and needs. Assessment for learning occurs throughout the teaching and learning process, assessment of learning occurs at the end of a unit or learning cycle, and assessment as learning engages students in reflecting on their learning and occurs throughout the learning process.

Audio-lingual method is based on the behaviourist belief that language learning is the acquisition of a set of correct language habits. The learners repeat patterns until they are able to produce them spontaneously. Once a given pattern, for example, subject-verb-prepositional phrase is learned, the speaker can substitute words to make novel sentences. The teacher directs and controls students’ behaviour, provides a model, and reinforces the correct responses.

Broad Areas of Learning are three big ideas that reflect and encapsulate Saskatchewan’s Goals of Education.

Communicative teaching is an approach to teaching an additional language based on providing opportunities for learners to use the specific language to communicate in a wide range of interactive socio-cultural activities and situations. Learners are taught strategies that enable them to interweave knowledge of content/topics, sociolinguistic rules pertaining to situations, and the language system, in order to find and express meaning in language-use situations.

Competence is defined in Canadian Language Benchmarks as “communicative competence, demonstrated through the ability to communicate and negotiate meaning and through the ability to interact meaningfully with other speakers, discourse, texts and the environment in a variety of situations” (Citizenship and Immigration Canada).

Cross-Curricular Competency is a competency that students will develop through each of the areas of study.

First Nations the term First Nations is preferred by many First Nation peoples and is used to refer to various governments of the first peoples of Canada. The term First Nations is preferred over the terms Indians, Tribes or Bands, which are used extensively by the federal, provincial and territorial governments (The Common Curriculum Framework for Aboriginal Language and Culture Program p.131)

Goals are broad statements that are a synthesis of what students are expected to know and be able to do in a particular area of study upon graduation. Goals remain constant throughout K-12. The outcomes specify how the goals are met at each grade level.

Indicators are a representative list of what students need to know and/or are able to do in order to achieve an outcome. Indicators represent the breadth and depth of the outcome. The list provided in the curriculum is not an exhaustive list. Teachers may develop additional and/or alternative indicators but those teacher-developed indicators must be reflective of and consistent with the breadth and depth that is defined by the given indicators.

Inquiry involves students in some type of “research” on a specific topic, problem, or issue for learning and action. Inquiry is a way of opening up spaces for students’ interests and involving them in as many different aspects of a topic, problem, or issue as they can find.

Laws of relationships is the shared belief of Aboriginal cultures that “people must live in respectful, harmonious relationships with nature, with one another, and with themselves. The relationships are governed by what are understood as laws, which are gifts from the Creator. The laws are fundamentally spiritual, imbuing all aspects of life. As fundamental as this perspective may be, each Aboriginal culture expresses it in unique ways, with its own practices, products, and knowledge” (The Common Curriculum Framework for Aboriginal Language and Culture Program 5).

Lifelong Learning is the idea that learning will continue throughout one’s lifetime and occurs as a result of formal or informal learning situations.

Metacognition is the ability to think about and reflect on one’s own thinking and learning processes.

Metacognitive strategies higher order skills that learners use to manage their own learning. They include planning for, monitoring, and assessing the success of language learning. (Taken from Kindergarten to Grade 12 Aboriginal Languages and Cultures: Manitoba Curriculum Framework of Outcomes 130).

Outcome is a statement of what students are expected to know and be able to do by the end of a course in a particular area of study at a particular grade level. Outcomes are not optional.

Portfolio Assessment is a compilation of evidence collected over time of a student’s learning. It demonstrates the student’s efforts, progress, and achievement. A portfolio can be cumulative, working/developmental, or showcase in nature.

Reflection means to look back at what one has done or thought for assessment purposes.

Register the kind of language that is used in a particular situation, such as formal register, storytelling register or informal register.

Reporting is communicating an individual student’s progress.

Rubrics offer criteria that describe student performance at various levels of proficiency; they provide guidelines for judging quality and makes expectations explicit. Holistic (yield a single score or rating) and analytic (yield feedback on specific dimensions for features) rubrics can be used to judge the degree or understanding or proficiency revealed through student’s products or presentations.

Student Learning Outcomes are clear, observable demonstrations of learning that occur after a significant set of learning experiences. These demonstrations reflect a change in what a student knows, what a student can actually do with what he or she knows, and that student’s confidence and motivation in carrying out the demonstration.

Success is when the desired outcomes are obtained from one’s actions.

Text, text form “Any connected piece of language, whether a spoken utterance or a piece of writing, that language users/learners interpret, produce, or exchange. Texts consist of all language forms that can be experienced, discussed, and analyzed. These include print texts, oral texts and visual texts. There can, thus be no act of communication through language without a text” (taken from Kindergarten to Grade 12 Aboriginal Languages and Cultures: Manitoba Curriculum Framework of Outcomes).

Total Physical Response Method begins by placing primary importance on listening comprehension, emulating the early stages of mother tongue acquisition, and then moving to speaking, reading, and writing. Students demonstrate their comprehension by acting out commands issued by the teacher. The teacher provides novel and often humorous variations of the commands. Activities are designed to be fun and students assume active learning roles.