NEAR NORTH DISTRICT SCHOOL BOARD
NNDSB first to offer senior virtual Indigenous language courses to students across Ontario through eLearning Consortium

Near North District School Board (NNDSB) is offering a first-of-its-kind opportunity for secondary school students through the Ontario eLearning Consortium (OeLC). Students in the 56 school boards who are members of the OeLC can now earn upper-level Indigenous language credits through the virtual courses offered by NNDSB.

Previously, Level C and D Ojibwe language courses have only been offered through in-person learning. However, due to timetable conflict, students often faced the difficult task of having to select courses that are pre-requisites for post-graduation opportunities over language. Starting in January 2025, the availability of the courses through e-learning eliminates the issue of timetable conflicts, low enrolment, and potential course cancelation. This is not only a benefit to students in NNDSB, but across the province.

NNDSB teacher Falcon McLeod, who will be teaching the online courses, explained that a crucial aspect of learning Ojibwe is to gain proficiency in navigating resources (such as dictionaries and grammar resources of various dialects). The online courses NNDSB offers can inspire and support students in their learning experience and language learning goals.

McLeod has developed meaningful and authentic course content that can be used effectively to reach more students. With his dedication and focus to language revitalization, he supports the employment of strategies and resources that can best support language learners.

McLeod's Nishnaabe name is Nishnaabemwin Bemwidood which means Keeper of the Language, and so, he has been learning the language since the age of five. He sought out every opportunity available to study Ojibwe while in school and studied with many notable language instructors along the way. The real turning point in his language education came when he attended his first immersion camp Ojibwemotaadidaa Omaa Gidakiiminaang (OOG) in Cloquet, Minnesota.

"Ever since that experience, I have been slowly trying to emulate all those experiences in my home community of Nipissing First Nation and recreate several of those resources in the Nipissing dialect," McLeod said. "These resources have ultimately become what I use to teach Ojibwe in my classes and plans for future materials."

The courses build on learned skills from week to week. McLeod said students will cover one grammar concept per week and the following week will build on that knowledge in a way that has students learning Ojibwe at an exponential rate.

"For example, first week we introduce a set of nouns to be the actors for our sentences. The next week we have those same nouns doing actions and that's how we introduce verbs," McLeod said. "From there we introduce commands, then prepositional phrases, etc. Within about four lessons we've gone from no language knowledge to nearly story-telling abilities in Ojibwe."

Each lesson consists of a pre-recorded video of the in-class lesson available on YouTube, a PowerPoint presentation from the video going over the lesson, a worksheet to get learners situated and aware of what to do for the work and an opportunity for them to seek help. Students also receive audio files of McLeod speaking Ojibwe at regular and slow speeds for learners to transcribe and translate.

"Upon entering the online classes and following along attentively with the materials I share, students can go from no awareness of the Nipissing dialect to being able to express conservatively hundreds of thousands of sentences in Ojibwe with one out of four types of the verb classes," McLeod said.

"At NNDSB, we recognize the importance of Indigenous language revitalization and preservation, in fulfilling the Calls to Action related to language and in forwarding Truth and Reconciliation," said Sarah Spence, NNDSB Principal of Student Achievement and Well-Being. "The board is situated on the Robinson Huron Treaty Territory, specifically on the lands of seven Anishinaabe First Nations. We are honoured to have exceptional language holders who can offer such calibre of language teachings to not only students in NNDSB, but across all of Ontario."

Students from across the province that are interested in registering for the courses can do so through their school guidance departments.