Immersion is the way to learn Ojibwe language, says teacher Barbara Nolan

Barbara Nolan says she is grateful to have survived attempts by Canada's Indian residential school system to take her language away from her.

Nolan was born and raised in South Bay on the Wiikwemkoong Unceded Territory on Manitoulin Island. She didn't know a word of English until she was sent to residential school in Spanish, Ont. when she was five years old. She spent four years in Spanish until she went back to Wikwemikong where she was bused to school.

"We still spoke our language and we spoke English. We could write in English and all that," she said. "So we got English as our second language when we were in Spanish not in a good way, mind you but we still acquired that English language and we were able to read and write it," she explained.

From there, she went to school in Wiikwemkoong until Grade 11, followed by two years in North Bay, and then she went to work in Toronto. Marriage and two children followed and then she moved to Garden River in 1970.

"I started working on the language in 1973," she said. "The principal at the school I was working at asked me if I could write the curriculum for Ojibwe because the students were not happy taking the French language," she said.

"Not too many people know this unless I tell them that it was the very first NSL [Native as a Second Language] program in Ontario, probably across Canada at that time," she said. After that, other school boards wanted it for their students as well.

But Nolan says that the short periods of time offered in schools to teach the language are not enough. "We're teaching it as opposed to creating speakers," she said. "We're not going to create speakers by giving them a half hour of language a day," she added. "We need immersion programs."

"Somebody who makes you understand what they're saying simply by their body gestures, their facial expressions, drawing on the board, making you understand what it is you're talking about . . . you just need to get the message," she explained.