New workshop connects Spokane School with Central Australia in Alice Springs

A workshop in the Red Centre is aiming to help keep Indigenous languages alive – and it’s got some help coming from Spokane, Washington. FREE READ.

Samantha Armstrong teaches language. Ms Armstrong is the event spokesperson for the Salish School of Spokane fluency transfer system workshop, held in Alice Springs on June 19 and June 20, 2025. Picture: Supplied

“Proven” American methods of language learning are coming to the Red Centre capital to help keep some of Australia’s dying languages alive.

Hailing from Washington state, the Salish School of Spokane will be hosting a two-day workshop in partnership with the Pertame School and the Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education in Alice Springs.

Pertame Language Nest co-ordinator Vanessa Farrelly. Picture: Lisa Hatz

Kicking off on Thursday and running until Friday, the workshop is offering the Salish School’s “proven method” of language learning, Pertame Language Nest co-ordinator Vanessa Farrelly said.

“The Salish School has a proven method of creating advanced adult speakers within just one year of training, who can then go on and be teachers in the Salish School of Spokane, a complete immersion school from preschool to grade 8,” she said.

The Salish School will be bringing its fluency transfer system method of learning, which event spokesperson and past participant Samantha Armstrong said will be “a significant moment for our language revival program.”

“Learning the first steps to creating new speakers of any Indigenous languages using the Salish Fluency Transfer System has ignited the fire within me,” she said.

Samantha Armstrong teaching. Picture: Supplied

“The Salish family’s personal journey reconnecting and revitalising their mother tongue deeply resonated with me. Their words were our words. The two days of the workshop were interactive and were ran so effectively.”

The Salish comprise of four groups of Indigenous Americans from the Pacific Northwest of America, with the Salish School working to keep their Indigenous languages alive.

The workshops will cover the Salish journey, their curriculum, and the practical applications which can be put on Indigenous languages around the globe.

“Australia has one of the fastest rates of language extinction in the world” Ms Farrelly said.

“It is critical that our Australian endangered language groups come together and look to Indigenous peoples globally to learn from the most successful pathways to grow new fluent speakers.

“It is a matter of urgency, while we still have our precious few Elders speakers with us.”

Originally published as New workshop connects Spokane School with Central Australia in Alice Springs