Colleen - If you have the information on the Refugees from Burma, I would greatly appreciate it.  I am teaching a group in Rochester, New York.  Thank you.
----- Original Message -----
From: Colleen Mahar-Piersma 
Date: Monday, April 7, 2008 11:05 am
Subject: [EnglishLanguage 2257] Bilingual dictionary help!
To: englishlanguage at nifl.gov


> Dottie:

> In addition to the information that Lynda Terrill just sent 

> about the

> Center for Applied Linguistics' Cultural Profile on Refugees 

> from Burma,

> these two messages were included in a September 9, 2007 digest 

> of the

> Refugee Discussion listserv that I administer here at CAL's Cultural

> Orientation Resource Center. The Refugee Discussion listserv is 

> used by

> domestic and overseas refugee service providers to exchange 

> information.If you (or any other readers!) feel that this 

> listserv would be helpful

> to you, please send an e-mail to me at ColleenM at cal.org or 

> COR at cal.org.

> 

> Best,

> Colleen

> 

> Colleen Mahar-Piersma

> Refugee Training Specialist

> Cultural Orientation Resource Center, Center for Applied Linguistics

> E-mail: ColleenM at cal.org

> 

> ***

> 

> With big numbers of Karen Burmese refugees coming to Indiana, 

> one of our

> school districts did thorough research on availability of 

> English-Karen

> dictionaries and found the only one available in Thailand 

> through a

> small independent community-based organization named the Drum

> Publication Group, dedicated to promoting education and 

> preserving the

> cultures of the peoples of Burma (http://www.drumpublications.org/).

> 

> This group has graciously provided us the PDF version of their 

> 200+-page

> dictionary and gave us their permission to make as many copies 

> as we

> need for our Karen student population, for free; we just need to let

> them know how many copies we make every year. Since schools are 

> allowedto use word-to-word dictionaries during ISTEP+ yearly 

> testing, we had to

> get rid of several pages. This dictionary was approved by the Indiana

> Department of Education Division of Assessment and is available 

> for the

> students for use in the classroom and during state academic testing

> ISTEP+.

> 

> Since our international search showed that there are no existing

> English-Chin word-to-word dictionaries appropriate to be used for

> academic testing, a Chin parent/school liaison and instructional aide

> from another Indiana district has taken upon himself to create an

> English-Chin dictionary to be used in regular classrooms and for ISTEP

> purposes. The dictionary will be available by the end of 2007, 

> and we

> will be happy to share the Word version with anyone.

> 

> Olga Tuchman, Education Consultant

> Indiana Department of Education

> Language Minority & Migrant Programs 

> 

> ***

> 

> The Drum Publication Group (http://www.drumpublications.org/) has

> developed and distributes on-line English-Sgaw Karen and Sgaw

> Karen-English Dictionaries. We have been allowing those working 

> with the

> recently resettled Karen to download and photocopy a few copies 

> of our

> dictionaries free of charge provided prior to reproducing them they

> provide information regarding how many copies will be 

> reproduced, how

> these copies will be used and give assurance that they will not 

> be sold

> for profit. The requests for reproducing our materials is increasing

> rapidly, however. Given that Drum is a small, extremely hard-working

> community-based organization working on a very small budget, and 

> that we

> need to generate income to support our work on behalf of the 

> peoples of

> Burma, we are currently reconsidering our policies and may 

> require a

> nominal sum to download the dictionaries in future. If anyone would

> like a printable copy, please feel free to contact me through the

> website. 

> 

> Best,

> Tim Moffatt

> Drum Publication Group / Drum ECHO

> www.drumpublications.org

> www.drumecho.org

> 

> 

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