Sauk Language Master Apprentice Program

A core group of Sauk language learners, or apprentices, have dedicated their careers to becoming fluent speakers of the language, and to developing a community-wide language immersion school.

Master Apprentice Project Goal: To develop a team-based Master Apprentice learning program that enables significant acceleration of the pace of learning and fluency levels for second-language acquisition (SLA) teachers, and leads in 2012 to the establishment of an immersion school staffed by fluent, qualified Sauk language instructors that will produce new generations of fluent speakers.

Project Summary: Today only five conversationally fluent Sauk speakers all over the age of 70 survive. The Sauk language is in imminent danger of extinction unless the language is transmitted across the wide gap between the eldest and youngest generations in the community.  This can only be accomplished through an intensive Master Apprentice grassroots effort within the Sauk community that prepares second language learners as immersion teachers and language mentors to open a community-wide Sauk language immersion school within three years.  Three Sauk Language Department staff members will be funded to serve as language apprentices to Sauk speakers for a minimum of 20 hours per week.  By the end three-year project period, two apprentices will be capable of maintaining a Sauk immersion classroom environment, while one additional apprentice will be capable of serving as a Master for new second language learners.