ESKASONI, N.S. — Online learning has become standard as the world grapples with the COVID-19 pandemic and one Mi’kmaw immersion teacher hopes his community gets more reliable internet access to continue teaching online.
“We’re going to need better internet for our education and our online learning," said Pie’l Lallo San Paul, an immersion teacher at the Eskasoni Immersion School, Essissoqnikewey Siawa'sik-l'nuey Kina’matinewo’kuo’m.
The 37-year-old is a Grade 1 teacher at the school and has been adjusting to teaching immersion online. His curriculum covers everything from math, health to Mi’kmaw but reaching all of his students is difficult because of the lack of reliable internet in Eskasoni.
Paul said because of safety concerns he’s been hesitant to hand out worksheets to students to ensure he is following social distancing properly. Most of his work has turned to online teaching through platforms like Seesaw. But some of his students just lack internet access.
“We need better internet in Eskasoni,” said Paul.
The school was nice enough to provide students with tablets and laptops but the bandwidth can be strained in the community. He said some parents may struggle to read Mi’kmaw so helping their kids with their work is difficult.
“Parents are the core of what language will be used in the house,” said Paul.
He hopes more parents take on the task of learning the language and says it all comes down to encouragement. As far as online learning, he thinks the internet bandwidth may be more strained when classes start up in September.
Chief Leroy Denny said help is on the way. He knows some residents would rather use their cellphone data than the internet in the community but they’re getting their own internet provider sometime in the fall.
“It’s Eskasoni owned and will include phone, television and internet services,” said Denny.
He said it was a three-year fight to get approval but installation of the fibre op was halted by the pandemic. There are places in the community where the "internet just sucks," said Denny, who knows it can be frustrating. But he said there's no way to speed up the installation process. Mi'kmaw immersion courses are very important to Denny.
“Eskasoni is a fluent community and it’s a stronghold of our language and it is our duty to fight back against language loss,” he said.
Denny said some generations have so much technology available to them in English and that it chips away on the remaining number of Mi'kmaw language speakers.
Paul has noticed similar things but hopes sites like Google and Facebook start incorporating Mi’kmaw languages to their translation tools.
He also hopes to see a centralized translation hub to assist immersion teachers in their work. Paul said immersion teachers spend a lot of their own time translating the work for their students and a translation hub could ease their workload.
He also commends organizations like Mi'kmaw Kina'matnewey for their translation tools and apps. And hopes anyone wanting to learn, just goes for it.
“It means so, so much to Mi’kmaq people if more people started speaking it,” Paul said.
Note: The interview was conducted in English. Some words have no Mi’kmaq translation.
