Teaching English to the Indian of the Plains and the Northwest

Abstract

The thirty-six participants at the NDEA Institute in English for speakers of other languages at the University of Montana in the summer of 1967 came from eight states in the western United States, and for many of them it was their first contact with ESOL. Indeed, some had never heard of ESOL prior to the winter of 1966-67 when the institute announcement came to their attention, and two had had any previous training in this field. Together they taught children from sixteen Indian tribes, ranging from Navajo, where many children come to school knowing no English, to Salish and Kutenai, where most children speak English when they begin school. All the participants were closely involved in the problem of Indian education. By definition a participant in this institute came from a school where at least 20% of the enrollment was Indian. Some came from schools where the enrollment was 100% Indian. The percentage of Indian enrollment and the question of who is Indian and who is not, however, is blurred by the fact of considerable intermarriage with whites in some areas, and differing criteria for determining Indian and non-Indian status. According to the best estimate available, eleven participants came from schools where the enrollment of Indian children ranged from 25-50%; five came from schools where the Indian enrollment varied from 51-94%; but the vast majority (twenty participants) had an Indian enrollment of 95-100% in their schools. Schools sending teachers to the institute were public, private, and Bureau of Indian Affairs schools. As might be expected, the BIA schools had the highest percentages of Indian children enrolled, six of them with 100% Indian enrollment. Four of these all-Indian schools enrolled Navajo children, one enrolled Navajo and Apache children, and the sixth school enrolled Sioux children. A BIA school in North Dakota had the lowest Indian enrollment, with an estimated 87% of its enrollees being Indian. Three teachers represented two private schools. One of these schools was in Idaho and 98% of its enrollment was Indian. The other school, in Montana, was an all-Indian school. While it might be anticipated that most Indian children attended BIA or private mission schools, one public school in Idaho enrolled 98% Indian children, and another in Washington was 97% Indian. In Montana it was particularly interesting to note that six participants came from public schools where Indian enrollment exceeded 95%, and another Montana school was 80% Indian. These figures regarding enrollment percentages, as well as all other such figures in the report, must be viewed as approximate, as each participant was asked to estimate not only the percentage of Indian children attending his school without recourse to