I am in my final year of the Ph.D program. The purpose of my doctoral research is to document and examine the processes undertaken in the Oneida Language Regenesis Project. Particular attention will be paid to the ongoing work to align the Oneida second language teaching and learning with the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). Using an ethnographic case study approach, I will trace the process by which the Oneida language practitioners at the Oneida Language & Cultural Centre have created an Oneida Language Portfolio by considering specific adaptations and revisions to the CEFR and discuss why these solutions were deemed appropriate for beginner level adult learners and teachers. The ways in which the Oneida epistemology mediates and declares its presence in the resultant framework for teaching and learning will be examined, in light of Oneida goals for language regenesis. My thesis will be a study of an on-going process win which I am both a language apprentice and a participant researcher.

As the Director of the Oneida Language & Cultural Centre (OLCC) I am in the unique position of carrying out my research in my workplace and in the community where I have lived my whole life. I am Kaliwaloloks, a member of the Turtle Clan and have served as the Director at OLCC for the past 16 years.

I have focussed my study on second language teaching and learning in the hope of helping to re-establish an Oneida speaking community while we still have mother tongue speakers among us. With only 75 mother tongue Oneida speakers remaining in the world, 60 of them in my community, the Oneida language is clearly in a critically endangered state and this work may contribute to preventing the loss of not only the Oneida language but of all of the cultural knowledge embedded within it.

An examination of the processes undergone in the Oneida Language Regenesis Project will bring understanding and a measure of worth to the revitalization activities undertaken to date, and to the Oneida Language Portfolio in particular. It is hoped that this research, when completed, will provide a well-rounded basis and model for inquiry and discussion, particularly for language revitalization projects in other First Nation communities.

Brent Debassige, PhD

Supervisor

Rebecca Coulter, PhD

Supervisor