A 20-minute video
Led by a teacher who speaks the language at home, in their community. With subtitles in English and in the language itself. Paced for a real school period, not a YouTube short.
Each kit is a 20-minute video with a teacher from the community, a handout you can print, and a lesson plan that fits a regular class. You open it, you press play, you teach. No account to create.
with Theresa O'Watch, Carry the Kettle First Nation
Built to match a Canadian 50–55 minute classroom period, so you can teach on the first day you open it.
Led by a teacher who speaks the language at home, in their community. With subtitles in English and in the language itself. Paced for a real school period, not a YouTube short.
Vocabulary, a simple pronunciation guide, a few practice exercises, a short quiz. Prints on one or two sheets. Tested in a real classroom before it goes online.
Learning objectives tied to your provincial curriculum, a full script you can follow, suggested timings, cultural notes and an answer key. Everything you would normally have to build yourself.
We are starting in Saskatchewan, where our roots are. Nakoda is up first. Cree, Dakota, Dene and Michif are already in production.
Nakoda (also written Nakota) is a Siouan language of the northern plains. It shares a family with Dakota and Lakota. We filmed our pilot at Carry the Kettle Nakoda First Nation with teacher Theresa O'Watch. The vocabulary in Lesson 1 is accessible to any learner from Kindergarten to senior high. A Grade 2 student can take these words home and try them on their family that same week. A Grade 11 student who has never studied the language before can begin here just as comfortably. Every unit on this site is written to work that way.
The most spoken Indigenous language in Canada. Plains, Woodland and Swampy versions.
A Siouan sister language to Nakoda and Lakota. Spoken in the Dakota Nations of the prairies.
An Athabaskan language family. Spoken across the Northwest Territories, northern Saskatchewan and the Yukon.
The Métis language. Cree verbs, French nouns. You will not find it anywhere else in the world.
Start with Nakoda. Cree, Dakota, Dene and Michif are on the way.
One page per lesson. Video, student handout, teacher plan, quiz, curriculum outcomes. All in one place.
Print the handout, play the video, run the quiz. Built to fit one regular 50 to 55 minute period.
Indigenous languages are already written into provincial K–12 curricula across Canada. Most schools still do not teach them. The reason is simple: there are almost no ready-made materials a regular teacher can just pick up and use. Our kits are built to match the outcomes you are already supposed to cover.
"I wanted to make it so easy for a teacher that there is just no reason left not to teach an Indigenous language in class." Wahbi Zarry
This hub is not the work of a tech company. It is the work of a filmmaker and certified teacher who spent ten days on Cree territory, then ten days on Nakoda territory. He came back with stories, and with the idea for what eventually became this website.
Wahbi Zarry is Francophone, a certified French teacher, and a documentary filmmaker. His teaching qualifications cover Saskatchewan, British Columbia, Quebec and Great Britain. He was born in Casablanca, spent a long stretch of his life in France, and earned his Bachelor of Education at the University of Regina. For about ten years now, he has gone back and forth between the classroom and the camera.
His classrooms have rarely stayed in one place. He has taught in Canada, in Ukraine during the war, in Thailand, and in Colombia. Five continents, one career. That international experience is the reason this project exists. He is interested in Indigenous languages everywhere in the world, from the plains of Saskatchewan to the Amazon basin, from the Sámi lands of the Arctic to the Māori of Aotearoa. Saskatchewan is simply where he began.
His two documentary films on Canada's First Nations, 10 Days of Cree (2020) and 10 Days of Nakota (2022), have together won thirteen awards at international festivals, from India to the United States, Mexico, France, Greece and Italy.
Canadian Languages is the next step. It is the teaching resource he wishes someone had handed him when he was preparing his first lessons in a Saskatchewan classroom. Something he could open, print, and teach the same week. Built with the community. Lined up with the curriculum. Free for everyone.
"10 Days of Cree is a fine example of reconciliation in action." Thomas Chase, President, University of Regina
Maybe you want to try one of these kits in your classroom. Maybe you want your language added to the hub. Maybe you want to partner. Whatever it is, we read every message.
Regina, Saskatchewan
Canada