Cedar Elementary’s new language board that helps to incorporate Hul’q’umi’num into everyday school life.
By Mandy Moraes, NLPS Staff
When you press one of the colourful buttons on Cedar Elementary’s new language board, a Hul’q’umi’num word fills the room.
Press another button, and a new word plays for students to learn and practice.
It’s a simple idea, but staff hope it will help make Hul’q’umi’num a more familiar part of each day.
The recordable speech buttons are part of a mobile language board created after staff met with Indigenous Cultural Student Support Worker Adam Manson to explore ways of bringing more Hul’q’umi’num into their school.
For vice-principal Katie Quinlan and the Cedar team, the main question was how to make this learning meaningful for their students and school community.
They started with something students already know well: Cedar’s PACK values, which stands for peaceful, aware, cooperative, and kind. Blue buttons say the word in Hul’q’umi’num and pink buttons offer the English word.
These familiar words became part of the board, along with others students often hear and use at school, like proud, Timberwolf, and cedar.
Manson helped staff with the Hul’q’umi’num translations and pronunciation, and gave permission to use his knowledge on the board. Staff then recorded their own voices on the buttons, practicing the words with Manson’s videos first.
The hope is that, in time, some of the voices heard when a button is pressed will be students’ voices too.
For now, pressing a button lets students hear a word, try saying it themselves, and return to it whenever they need help with pronunciation. It also turns what could have been just a poster into something students can touch and explore.
Quinlan said this has been especially appealing to some of the younger students who have been eager to interact with the buttons.
The board is designed to be mobile, with wheels so it can move from classroom to classroom. There are no intentionally set instructions for how teachers use the board in their classrooms.
Since the project started just a few weeks ago, staff are still watching how students and teachers use it, and are thinking about what could come next.
Games are one idea. Another is to create a set of grab-and-go activities that can travel with the board, giving teachers lessons they can adapt for different grades and abilities.
“We want to hear more language in the school,” said Quinlan. “We want to hear it being used and we want to hear it every single day.”
The idea at Cedar is already getting attention, with other schools in the district reaching out about the board.
But at its core, the project is still very simple.
A student presses a button. They hear a Hul’q’umi’num word. Then they try saying it themselves.
Little by little, the language becomes a regular part of what students hear at school each day.