Voices from the Field

LANGUAGE

      1.    We have what we call the oral 
language program to provide
English instruction 
to the Navajo in order to teach them
English as rapidly 
as we can. We teach
English to the Indians, hoping
they will learn 
the language well enough 
to help their parents
be understood. The program
was designed first 
to help the Indians 
understand a bit 
of newspaper or what
they hear on the radio, to have 
a little more of a pleasant 
life. But then the program shifted 
towards making them 
employable. But these people
are not dumb. They're
smart enough to know 
they're never going to get 
a job like you and I 
have got. So why
are they now learning English 
except to insist 
their children become 
better educated than they are? 
Sometimes I feel our programs
fail because when we 
wrote up the guidelines
we built failure into them. 

2.       As there are no Diné 
words for 

radon progenies, radio
activity

Alpha and beta 
particles

we are constructing

a new Navajo 
glossary

of radiation     words
 

<

 

>

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33  34 35 36 37 38