NEWS :: Red Cloud Indian School

Students ditch rock stars for their own language
posted on December 09, 2009

If you’ve passed any of the more than 100 students from Red Cloud Indian School traveling to Rapid City, South Dakota, next week for the annual Lakota Nation Invitational recently, you may have questioned why they were so attached to their iPods.

No, they weren’t ditching their books for the latest top 40 hits from around the globe. Instead, they’ve been preparing for LNI thanks to some creative use of the popular Apple technology.

Members of Red Cloud’s Lakota Language Bowl Team, with the assistance of their teacher, Peter Hill, have created and downloaded audio versions of the LNI Study Guide to their iPods to give them an edge up on the competition next week.

“These audio files have been a great resource for our students, allowing them to truly hear and register the correct pronunciation of Lakota words and sentences,” explains Hill, a Lakota language teacher at Red Cloud. “This ability is crucial when learning any language.”

The audio files include more than 800 words and phrases recommended as study material by the LNI committee specifically for the Lakota Language Bowl. The new approach to language preparation has been completely embraced by the students.

“We’re young, and a majority of our time is spent listening to our iPods,” says Vonna Blacksmith, a senior. “This method to studying for LNI has been much more effective for me. Plus, it allows me to study at my own convenience. All of us really want to do our best at this year’s tournament.”

Once the LNI competition is completed next week, Blacksmith says her “tech partner” to learning the Lakota language will live on.

“We’ll use these files for years to come, continuing to learn the beautiful language of our people,” she says.

For the past 10 years, Red Cloud has finished in the top three of the Lakota Language Bowl, a tournament that involves as many as 16 schools every year.

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