Update

It's been a while since I've done a update so thought I would do one to keep everyone posted on my progress. While since I've finally got in touch with the professor in charge of the exam, I've been preparing for it. One of the criteria he mentioned was wanting to see me read in Navajo so now I have to find some material in Navajo to read to him....Not sure if that excludes something I wrote and I read to him or if that only means reading a published piece of work....then explaining it? I'm not sure....


Nonetheless this means that I've been reading a lot more Navajo so that's good. In Dine Bizaad: Speak, Read, Write Navajo by Irvy W. Goossen, I've been able to read and fairly comprehend the little conversations that are at the beginning of each lesson, so that must be a good indicator. I'll have to post/compose a little demonstration conversation soon. (I do no have the font to type in Navajo but once I do I'll try it out) 


But although I can read it my pronunciation is another story. I've been struggling with some words and sounds particularly if they have a "T+slash L" which makes a kind of clicking noise. Almost all the people I've asked for help have made the clicking noise and I would try to imitate them to no resemblance. Then they make more clicking noises at me then just tell me to practice more. So, that's definitely one sound I need to work on. Hopefully it'll be better by examination time. 




In other news, I've started using a third little notebook for my notes from studying, which I'm happy to say it's my Sailor Moon notebook I got when I was 11 in Japan :) lol I have never used it and now seems like a good time. I'm happy. 

But actually all the notebooks I have used for studying has been a trip down memory lane. For example the first notebook, the Badtz Maru one, reminds me of elementary school because I was into that Sanrio character. It also has neat paper inside which I guess in a way made note-taking a little bit more fun.

Then my second notebook was actually a old Navajo notebook I made in elementary for my Navajo language class. 

The sad thing about this one was that although I made the notebook with the phrase "Dine Bizaad Bahoosh'aah" (I am learning the Navajo language) all the pages inside were blank :/ So, I thought it would be appropriate that I actually use to learn Navajo so now it's all filled :) Which is nice to see now but makes me wonder what exactly were we being taught in our Navajo language classes in school. The class time allowed was bad enough, I believe we only had about 30-60 minutes of Navajo language lessons a week or over several days. And there usually was only one Navajo teacher to oversee all the Navajo students in the whole school, which could be over 100 students. But this was considered normal, however, because I grew up in town that is NOT on the reservation, therefore the schools were not required to exclusively cater to the Navajo language OR the teachers. 


But for the schools that are on the reservation, where you would think Navajo language would be more of a priority, some schools have a similar make-up as those schools NOT on the reservation. So, that's been a big debate for some communities on the reservation, particularly if the schools have scored low on standardized tests. Such debates have often resulted in administrators viewing students as only test scores and the Navajo language being further ignored.