Episode 2
Air Date: June 20, 2025
Summary
In this episode, we hear from a guest who shares their professional experience in supporting adult silent speakers from an organizational perspective and the best practices learned from within community programming to best support silent speakers. Dr. Suzanne Gessner’s research interests are focused on community-based Indigenous language revitalization in several areas: language policy and language rights; program evaluation and fluency assessment; and latent speakers (receptive bilingualism). We are honoured to have Suzanne with us to share her experience with silent speakers in BC First Nations with a program developed called ‘Reclaiming My Language’ - https://fpcc.ca/program/reclaiming-my-language/
SERIES
Adult Silent Speakers: A Cree Perspective
HOSTS & PRODUCERS
Charlotte Ross
Episode Guest
Suzanne Gessner is Research & Development Linguist at First Peoples' Cultural Council. As part of the language team, she assists with community-driven language revitalization initiatives across British Columbia. Suzanne has also taught courses in Indigenous language revitalization, linguistics and anthropology at several universities in British Columbia. Suzanne grew up in Treaty 4 territory in southeast Saskatchewan.
More Episodes
In this episode, we extend a warm welcome to an honoured guest, Diana Steinhauer, who was a participant in my doctoral research with an online survey and an online focus group. She shares her insights on being a silent speaker who is working to regain her spoken language, and we learn about the hurdles and obstacles she has faced along with the successes and breakthroughs that she has experienced. Hearing from an adult Cree silent speaker provides us with a glimpse into the world of being able to partially or fully understand the language but not being able to fully speak the language. Perhaps you too will be able to see yourself in her story. We are honoured to have her gift us with the story of her language resilience.