A language revitalization plan includes the following parts:
Spring (Pre-planning)
Values: A set of clear values that ground the language plan in important cultural teachings. Values guide the plan’s priorities and the way work is done.
Language profile: An overview of the language situation in the community.
Summer (Planning)
Vision statement: A bold, yet realistic picture of the community’s future language situation; the hopes and dreams the people have for their language. A powerful vision statement is simple and concise.
Goals: Broad results the community wants to achieve in order to make its vision a reality.
Strategies: Approaches the community will use to achieve its goals.
Actions: Specific steps the community will take to implement each strategy.
Indicators: How the community will measure the impacts of the plan and assess progress towards its goals.
Autumn (Pre-implementation)
Year-by-year summary: An outline of which actions will happen each year.
Implementation plan: Identification of who is responsible for each action, with tasks that break each action into more detailed steps.
Budget: Detailed outline of how much it will cost to implement each action and the total cost to implement the language plan.
Monitoring and evaluation plan: A plan to assess progress towards meeting the goals and note what is working well and what needs to be adjusted.
Winter (Implementation)
Community endorsement: Approval or review from the community and/or leadership.
Reflections: Thoughts on the language planning process, its outcomes and lessons learned that can shape future planning.
Celebration: A community event to mark this important milestone, the end of a planning cycle.
Once the spring, summer and autumn parts of the planning cycle have been completed, the final outcome could look something like this:
| Our Vision |
|---|
| Our community members are learning our language and passing it on to future generations. |
| Our Language Planning Values |
|---|
| Community / culturally driven; Honours our Elders / fluent speakers; Honest; Respectful; Inclusive; Accessible |
| Goals | Strategies | Actions | Indicators |
|---|---|---|---|
| Young adults, including young parents, are learning the language | Start a Mentor-Apprentice cohort with three teams and add three new teams each year | Secure funding Designate administrator to coordinate program Post advertisement for teams Recruit fluent speakers to be mentors | The number of young adults that have done intensive language learning and achieved novice-high or intermediate-low proficiency levels Feedback from Mentor-Apprentice participants on how the program has impacted their lives |
| Existing language resources are accessible to the whole community | Develop a resource library for in-person and online use | Create inventory of all resources Set up reading room in band office to store resources and create a lending program Make copies of resources for sharing Add language section to website and upload digital resources | The development of a dedicated space in the band office and on our website for all language resources The number of language resources available to all community members |
| Digitize existing language resources for sharing online | Create inventory of resources that need to be digitized Secure funding and training – hire digitization tech to digitize resources | The total number of hours of digitized language recordings Recordings made available on FirstVoices | |
| Start a FirstVoices.com language site | Secure funding and training Create a FirstVoices team, including coordinator and technician to develop language site Upload current wordlist to site; begin adding words from other resources | Number of entries on FirstVoices language site |