The fundamental goal of the Ucluelet First Nation Language Program is to contribute to restoring the mental, spiritual, physical and emotional wholeness of the community.

Ucluelet First Nation have very few fluent speakers in the community. When fluent speakers gather it is encouraged that they speak only in the language.

• will teach “listening, speaking, reading and writing” skills

The Elders feel it is important that the younger generations become competent in listening and speaking. Therefore it is crucial that immersion program emphasize “oral language skills”

They also stress the importance that young people who learn the language learn how to pronounce the often-difficult sounds to the fullest extent possible, and learn to preserve the richness of the grammar and its nuances of meaning by eventually mastering the language.

Ucluelet First Nation Principles that will guide the planning of an Immersion Program;

• Immersion programs must be combined with efforts and measures in the community and in the home, to use the language to the fullest extent possible.
• To reward the students for using the language in conversation with peers, parents and elders outside of the classroom.
• To provide “learning outcomes and assessment” for immersion programs and
• Will include incentives, rewards and measurements for the degree to which immersion students bring back the use of the language into the community.
• That immersion instruction will include ways to correct errors, for e.g grammar drills through games, and exercises to practice speech.
• There will methods that enforce and reward the correct use of grammar and words
• To develop curriculum; with a variety of written resources, and for the proficient speakers of the language, training in classroom management and language teaching strategies.

In order to maintain quality immersion programs, a vast amount of learning resources is required on an on-going basis.

In addition, an immersion program must progress beyond the early primary level; elders need to develop terminology to teach subjects, e.g. Math – beyond counting, addition and subtraction, Sciences, Social Science, Physical Education and other subjects. To develop a language that requires coining and adaptation of new terms… e.g. computer, refrigerator, etc.

To offer “Parallel Adult Language Program” - in order for parents to be able to keep up with their children in learning the language and be able to use it in the home.

• A goal for this project, is to eventually aim at training speakers to become language instructors.
• A positive outcome is, adults who are speakers have gained very good literacy – reading and writing skills.

The Ucluelet First Nation has an extensive “ Resource Library Centre” which houses written documents, which include; interviews with Elders, fishermen on video tapes, audiotapes and GIS maps. This will be developed into the curriculum for the Language Project. Topics vary from; health and healing, religion and philosophy, songs, speeches and stories.

One of the ways that curriculum will be developed is through;

• Traditional season: hunting, fishing, gathering food; berries and herbs, grass for basket-weaving, trapping.
• Adapting current activities – commercial fishery.

A crucial component of curriculum plans are “outcomes” not from the point of view of the teacher, but from the perspective of the learner (student). What have they achieved from the program. E.g. after this particular subject, i.e fishing: the student is expected to say the words for several kinds of traditional fishing gear when prompted in the language with pictures.

If reading and writing is taught, this will require the production of a great amount and variety of age-appropriate written materials. This will also require materials that teach children to read and write the language.

Modern products that integrate written language, sound – spoken language, music, video clips, photographs and graphics are multimedia CD-ROM’s. They are excellent resources that can help students learn and practice vocabulary, pronunciation and other things. However, they should complement the formal and informal teaching by elders and language teachers, never replace them. Computers and computer software such as databases also have a useful function in compiling dictionaries, word lists and other kinds of tasks.

The Ucluelet First Nation Elders have stressed;

The Importance of Being Able to Read and Write the language

• Reading and writing the language allows us to write letters, circulate and publish information.
• It can raise the status of the language in the minds of the community members and non-native people.
• Writing down the words is useful and handy in order to memorize words that you hear.
• Writing and reading skills in the language is very useful if you are planning to do research on the language – to collect terms and vocabularies, stories, nursery rhymes, etc.
• If you can read the language, you will be able to read stories and other information that linguists or others have collected from elders in the past.
• In order to develop materials that will help you to learn and preserve the language, you need to be able to write down words and sentences.

“The revival of the language should be seen as part of a process of strengthening the community. It should not be tied the past only, but must be connected to the present and the future of our community.”