Learning through an Aboriginal Language: The Impact on Students’ English and Aboriginal Language Skills

Usborne et al. explore how learning through an Indigenous language impacts student language skills in English and in the Indigenous language, by contrasting a Mi’kmaq immersion program with a Mi’kmaq as a second language program in a Nova Scotian public school. They provide an example of how community-anchored assessment-based longitudinal research can serve the language needs of an Indigenous community and they find that Indigenous immersion language programs can actually correlate to higher language skill development in both the Indigenous language and English.

Usborne, E., Peck, J., Smith, D.-L., & Taylor, D. M. (2011). Learning through an Aboriginal language: The impact on students’ English and Aboriginal language skills. Canadian Journal of Education, 34(4), 200-215. https://www.jstor.org/stable/canajeducrevucan.34.4.200