American Samoa Language Academy

The American Samoa Language Academy will increase the use of the Samoan language among youth in grades 7—12. In American Samoa, young people are using phonetic transliteration and becoming less fluent in the Samoan language because all levels of education, curricula, technology, and mainstream entertainment are primarily in English, causing a shift in our youth to decrease the use of the Samoan language. This signals the early stages of a Native Language in decline. The project seeks to increase 25 public school teachers’ ability to deliver Samoan Native language instruction through the completion of a language certification program and to increase the language usage of 100 public school students by 85% by the end of the 3-year project. Ultimately, the project ensures that the Samoan language is thriving and that training and resources are available to native language teachers and learners.