About INSTILS
- One of the key insights to emerge from the literature on global language revitalization over the past half century is just how complex an enterprise it is, with no quick fixes or one-size-fits-all solutions. Revitalization is a multi-faceted and multi-generational social project, requiring communities to draw on a wide range of knowledge, skills, and resources in order to design, implement, and sustain successful programs.
- When we consider the full range of activities that communities commonly undertake in an attempt to maintain, revitalize, or revive their languages—from designing community language surveys to creating language immersion curricula for local schools, to developing a digital archive of language resources, to writing a bilingual dictionary, to carrying out online language classes for community members living away from home, among many others—it quickly becomes apparent that the set of skills that communities need to call upon to achieve their objectives is both large and diverse. For many communities, however, it has been a challenge both to identify the skills needed to carry out specific activities, as well as to gain access to the specialized training that would allow them to acquire those skills.
- This need for increased local capacity in relevant skills has long been recognized among language revitalization practitioners, and has been the motivation for various academic institutions, non-profit organizations, and other groups to develop a wide array of training programs aimed at providing community members with the skills they need to support Intergenerational Language Sustainability (ILS).
- While this work has been carried out in many corners of the globe, there has not been a forum where ILS skills trainers and the communities they work alongside of could share experiences, exchange ideas, or carry out research on ways to improve their practices. This was the motivation for the members of DRAGONS Lab at the University of Alberta to found INSTILS in 2024.