We’re shipping! The most advanced Lakota language textbook ever published is moving out of LLC offices now.   Lakȟótiya Wóglaka Po! Speak Lakota! Level 5 is the turning point for Lakota language education, something LLC’s founding Board and leaders have envisioned since 2004 — when mastered, these lessons establish the student as a proficient speaker, able to initiate and hold original conversations in the language, with correct grammar and male-female word usage.

First recipients are the schools, stores and individuals who set up pre-orders ahead of time.  The Textbook can be ordered through the LLC Bookstore.

The Level 5 textbook breaks from the previous textbooks’ design in two important ways.  First, there is no accompanying Audio CD – students are expected to have a good grasp of pronunciation, vocabulary and verb forms already.

Second, the Level 5 textbook creates a storyline that puts modern Lakota teens into the life of a pre-reservation camp.  The modern teens find they can form friendships and contribute to the life of the traditional camp because they can speak Lakota.  The lesson units derive from this storyline.

The Level 5 will be introduced to Lakota language teachers at the 2014 Lakota Summer Institute, June 2-20, at Sitting Bull College in Fort Yates, ND, in partnership with the  Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. The teachers will go through all of the book’s units and practice-teach with their colleagues, using the Total Physical Response method of second-language education.

From here on out, Lakȟótiya Wóglaka Po! Speak Lakota! textbooks will contain more Lakota than English, and will lean on the in-depth grammar study that will soon be available in the Lakota Language  Handbook in progress at LLC.