Naatosi Fish
Naatosi has centered revitalizing Blackfeet language and culture in his educational and career endeavors his whole life; Naatosi attended Nizipowahsin, the Blackfeet Immersion School in Browning Montana and continued his pursuit through his research at the University of Montana, teaching Blackfeet history and language at Blackfeet Community College, and developing Blackfeet language learning resources for educators. Naatosi co-published his research on Blackfoot prosody with Dr. Mizuki Miyashita in the 2017 Honoring Our Teachers monograph by Northern Arizona University. Naatosi currently works for Indigenous Impact Co. as a Communications and Marketing Manager, and is pursuing a master's degree in Native American Linguistics at the University of Arizona, Tucson.
Tools for learning Blackfoot word melody: Pitch Art, Praat and MeTILDA
1. Rhythm and Melody in Blackfoot (Mizuki Miyashita) It is challenging for English speaking learners to perceive the rhythm and melody of Blackfoot words. To address this, my team has been developing a tool to help learners perceive the unique rhythm and melody of Blackfoot called MeTILDA. This tool allows users to extract the rhythmic and melodic elements from actual words and play them back in isolation (without vowel or consonant sounds). This tool can be utilized by teachers when instructing pronunciation. I will describe the unique rhythm and melody of Blackfoot and how second language learners may make pronunciation errors with respect to rhythm and melody. Then I will explain how MeTILDA works and potential impact on pronunciation teaching. 2. How to use Pitch Art in pronunciation instruction (Naatosi Fish) Pitch Art is a visual teaching tool that represents the word melody of Blackfoot words. By illustrating how pitch rises and falls across syllables, it helps learners sound more native-like. This workshop introduces the use of Pitch Art with learners of Blackfoot to support pronunciation. Participants will receive a brief overview of the online tool used to create Pitch Art, an introduction to the concept of word melody, and strategies for using Pitch Art in the classroom. 3. Praat and MeTILDA workshop (Mizuki and Naatosi) This workshop is offered for participants interested in using MeTILDA to create Pitch Art images for Blackfoot Word Melody. Participants will receive a brief introduction to understanding word melody, followed by have hands-on training in MeTILDA to create pitch art