The purpose of the Save your language Conference is to answer one of the major problems faced by language revival, which is that communities are not producing new teachers fast enough. At this event, a series of workshops and events will provide the participants with the tools to handle themselves the preservation and transmittal of their own languages.

Among other highlights, participants will have the opportunity to familiarize with the « Where are your keys? » fluency method, created in 1993 by Evan Gardner, who will be attending the conference. Gardner has been working for the Oregon School for the Deaf, International Red Cross Youth, and has taught English throughout Central and South America. He is also an activist of endangered languages,and has been teaching Chinuk Wawa locally since 2002, and training teachers for the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde and Chinuk Nation.

« Where are your keys? » is a playful language instruction method based on the combination of different senses, especially auditory, visual and kinesthesic.

The organizers believe this method to have yielded unparalleled response in the past, and consider that within just a few years, languages have been revitalized, with the rise of new speakers who themselves have become teachers.

The Save Your Language conference is designed for indigenous language speakers, whether they are individuals willing to acquire the tools for teaching, or educators and teachers currently working on language revitalization strategies within their own communities.

Programme details available here.

For more on « Where are your keys? » please visit www.whereareyourkeys.org