Jason Lewis

Citizen of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma

Jason Lewis has worked at the Choctaw Language Program for the Mississippi Band of Choctaw for nearly ten years. As a staff member, he continually organizes community feedback sessions to create and developed community-based early elementary Choctaw language curriculum for the Choctaw Tribal Schools in Mississippi. Beginning in 2012, he developed a partnership with the University of Oregon to organize Choctaw language teacher certification courses, and the continuing training of Mississippi Choctaw language teachers. Since 2016, he has worked in-depth with the Center for Applied Linguistics to develop and implement a language assessment tool and schedule for school-based Choctaw language learners. Currently, he is part of a National Endowment for the Humanities Documenting Endangered Languages grant project, which is conducting interviews and community checking sessions to publish a Modern Choctaw dictionary with dialectal and modern variations among the eight Mississippi Choctaw communities. Jason rates his Choctaw reading and writing proficiency as advanced mid, listening as advanced low, and speaking as intermediate high with the ACTFL proficiency guidelines.

Four Learners' Experiences Learning Their Native American Language

Learners of the language of their tribe share the experiences, challenges, and rewards of their learning journey.

This presentation will be available for on-demand viewing on December 2nd during Global CRED. Register for Global CRED below, it’s quick easy and free!