What kind of organization is SAIVUS?
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SAIVUS is a non-profit organization. Currently, there is no money going in nor
out of SAIVUS, just our products which are made possible through volunteer work.
In about one year SAIVUS will expand into a 501(c)-3 official non-profit. This
will enable us to receive tax free donations, which would allow us to offer more
services and to increase the quality of our products.
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How is SAIVUS funded?
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The only expenses of SAIVUS are web hosting fees and the cost of books.
Currently, web hosting costs have been covered under a small cash award from the
Robert Jeffers Prize. Some materials are borrowed free from college libraries,
but since American Indian linguistics is a small domain of research, typically
the number of sources available is slim. We currently are in the process of
applying for additional grants and prizes to help us cover future hosting costs
and additional sources.
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Can SAIVUS help my language?
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The amount of time it will take to commence and complete tutorials depends on
several factors:
A) Does the community want knowledge of their language available online?
If not, we will not make a tutorial.
B) How much published literature is there on this language? If there is a
lot, much time has to be spent gathering and reading these sources. If there is
little, there may not be enough information available to write a resource at
all.
C) How many projects SAIVUS is committed to at the moment? If SAIVUS is
already undertaking many projects, we may not have time to begin on
your language for a while, unless our funding or staff increases.
Note that SAIVUS is only designed to help American Indian and Polynesian
languages. Other organizations exist for helping other types of languages.
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Why does it take so long to update and make language lessons?
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Making language lessons is more arduous than many people realize. Even writing a
small pronunciation guide can be highly demanding; in particular it is difficult
to find the absolute clearest way of explaining the subject matter. Reports of
languages may conflict, they are sometimes outdated, and may be influenced by
politics, not to mention certain linguistic theories. Therefore, authors spend
countless hours not only writing, but also reading, fact checking, and sometimes
performing small-scale research of their own.
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Does SAIVUS take the immersion approach to teaching language?
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There's no doubt immersion (being placed in a speaking environment for a
prolonged time) is the best way to learn a language. Recently, instructors have
started to take a less grammar intensive, more participation oriented approach
to foreign language instruction, which is meant to simulate the immersion
experience. This is proven to work best for the majority of students.
However, be chary that simulation of immersion is not the same thing as
immersion. Several instructors are under the impression that the immersion
approach works best for everyone, when really there are different learning
styles at work. A minority of students take a very structured, rule-based
approach to learning language. These students tend to learn language quickly,
and playing little games or working in groups is an excruciating waste of time
for them. These students often opt out of classes that take the immersion
approach, adding to the illusion the immersion approach is perfect.
Another drawback to the immersion approach is that if a language resource is too
flashy, the student can get tricked into thinking they're learning, when really
they're just getting better at saying specific things (memorizing phrases
instead of grasping ways of phrasing things). Some students think by just
breezing through an interactive lesson they've done enough, as if reading the
back of a cereal box counts as reading practice.
Thus, we try to cater to the learning styles of both types of students by
harmonizing the two styles. We try to provide a ton of exposure to the language
from stories, but also explain grammatical concepts at work for those who want to
know, with the disclaimer "don't worry too hard about understanding x concept;
it will sink in sooner or later."
Contrary to popular belief, neither teaching strategy was intended to create
fluent speakers classroom setting. Fluency can only be obtained through actual
immersion.
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Can making language tutorials actually save languages?
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The short answer is: no, it cannot. "Language revitalization" takes an enormous
amount of work on behalf of several professional linguists in direct
collaboration with native speakers. All we're attempting to do is produce
language lessons, which is a type of "language maintenance". Language
maintenance is a very small part of language revitalization.
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Does SAIVUS offer a certificate or degree in Native American languages?
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While SAIVUS is academically oriented, we are not an academic institution, thus
we not able to offer certificates or degrees in Native American languages. If we
did offer online classes for college credit, we would have to charge tuition and
fees. Thus, by remaining as a non-profit, rather than an academic institution,
we can continue to offer language resources that are free for the student.
Nevertheless, completing one of our online academies should provide you with as
much information and training required to successfully attain a Native American
language certification or to pass a college level Native American language
course.
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