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INSTILS Activities

Since INSTILS began in 2024, its members have been working hard to find ways to connect, learn from one another, and begin meaningful collaborations on ILS-related issues. While each of the individual members of the Network is engaged in a wide range of ILS activities, on this page we highlight those times when INSTILS members were able to come together and work towards building the Network.

May 2026

Participants at DISTILS-01, University of Alberta, May 8, 2026
CILLDI and DRAGONS LAB hosted DISTILS-01 at the University of Alberta. This was the first international conference to focus on ILS skills and skills training. There were presenters from a total of 16 countries: Australia, Canada, Chile, Czechia, Germany, Namibia, Nepal, Pakistan, Poland, Singapore, Solomon Islands, Spain, Tanzania, Thailand, United States and Zimbabwe. There were a total of 30 presentations.

March 2026

The MIT Indigenous Language Initiative (MITILI) hosted Darren Flavelle and Jordan Lachler (CILLDI/DRAGONS) for a week in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The CILLDI team got to meet with the current group of MITILI students, and to participate in the weekly MITILI Seminar. Jordan gave a colloquium talk to the Department of Linguistics talking about ILS skills training, the CILLDI model, and the development of INSTILS. He was also able to do an ILS-themed interview with INSTILS member Cora Lesure and MITILI Director Norvin Richards.

February 2026

Pimnara Chanorn, Jordan Lachler and Darren Flavelle at the IMLD Celebrations at Mahidol University, Bangkok, Thailand, February 2026
The CDRELC team at Mahidol University in Thailand hosted Jordan Lachler and Darren Flavelle (CILLDI/DRAGONS) for a week. The CILLDI team had the opportunity to learn more about the Mahidol Model of Mother-Tongue Based Multilingual Education (MTB-MLE) that the team have been developing over the past several decades in conjunction with minority language communities in Thailand. CDRELC also hosted a large day-long celebration of International Mother Language Day, where the CILLDI team, along with Pimnara Chanorn form CDRELC, gave a presentation on INSTILS. The CILLDI team was also fortunate to reconnect there with INSTILS member, Kirk Person, who helpful provided some simultaneous Thai to English interpretation during many of the presentations that day.

January 2026

DRAGONS LAB team members attended the 2026 LSA Conference in New Orleans. They had a booth in the vendors' area to share information and raise awareness about INSTILS and ILS skills training.

November 2025

INSTILS held its first (virtual) get-together, the week-long Global Online Workshop.

September 2025

Early in September, Dr. Yohannes Adigeh, Director of the Institute of Ethiopian Studies, and his team at the Academy of Ethiopian Languages and Cultures at the University of Addis Ababa hosted Jordan Lachler (CILLDI/DRAGONS). The AELC team has a decades-long track record of documenting the vast linguistic and cultural diversity of Ethiopia, and that work continues today. Jordan, Yohannes and the team members discussed some of the unique challenges facing minoritized and endangered languages in Ethiopia, and the potential for international cooperation on those issues.
Later in the month, Jordan attended the Carrying Our Ancestral Languages Forward: We're in This Together Symposium hosted by AILDI and the West Regional Native American Language Resource Center. In addition to learning more about ILS in Indigenous language communities across the American Southwest, Jordan got to meet with Sheilah Nicholas, Director of WRNALRC, to discuss potential INSTILS collaborations.

August 2025

INSTILS members gave their first joint international conference presentation at PULiiMA in Darwin, Australia. The presentation, called Comparing Programs and Contexts: How to Improve Skills Training for Intergenerational Language Sustainability brought together INSTILS members from Australia, Canada, Nepal, Singapore and the Solomon Islands to share their on-going work in support of minority language ILS in their home countries, and their shared vision for a network of researchers, teachers, community language activists and others to support ILS efforts worldwide.
James Bednall, Laura Herfernan, Kate Paynter, Jordan Lachler, Kevin Martens Wong, Nabraj Lama, Leonora Rotomane Houma and Darren Flavelle after their presentation at Puliima, Darwin, Australia, August 2025
DRAGONS LAB and the CALL team at Batchelor Institute, Alice Springs, Australia, August 2025
The team from the Centre for Australian Languages and Linguistics at Batchelor Institute in Alice Springs, Australia, hosted the team from CILLDI, who got to learn about Batchelor's decades of work supporting ILS for Aboriginal languages across Central Australia and beyond. Although the two programs have operated in complete isolation from one another over the past several decades, many close parallels were found between the ILS skills training offered through CILLDI and through Batchelor.
In early August, Jordan Lachler (CILLDI/DRAGONS) met with Joana Jensen (NILI) in Juneau, Alaska, at the Our Languages Summit organized by Goldbelt Heritage Foundation. The summit highlighted the amazing ILS work happening across Southeast Alaska in support of Lingít (Tlingit), X̲aad Kíl (Haida) and Sm'algyack (Tsimshian) languages. Jordan and Joana were able to update each other on their recently completed CILLDI and NILI summer programs.  

May 2025

Darren Flavelle (CILLDI/DRAGONS) and Urtzi Urrutikoetxea (GARABIDE) with GARABIDE members and Kichwa language activists in Donostia, Basque Country, Spain, May 2025.
Urtzi Urrutikoetxea (Garabide) and the team at Garabide hosted Darren Flavelle (CILLDI/DRAGONS) in Euskadi (Basque Country) to share about how GARABIDE's ILS skills training supports Indigenous language activists from Latin America and elsewhere. The team were joined by a group of Kichwa language activists who were just completing their training at Garabide.
Dunlop Ochieng (Open University of Tanzania) hosted Darren Flavelle (CILLDI/DRAGONS) and Talent Mudenda (U Warsaw) in Dar es Salaam to discuss the prospects of ILS skills training programs for minority language communities in Tanzania. Dunlop also organized a one-day conference on language issues, bringing together researchers from across several different universities in the city.

March 2025

DRAGONS LAB members give an invited virtual presentation to the members of MITILI (Massachusetts Institute of Technology Indigenous Language Initiative) to discuss the development and goals of INSTILS.
DRAGONS LAB begins their interview series with ILS practitioners from around the world.