Month: February 2025

E kaasan, good afternoon, and welcome to my fourth Inquiry Project blog post!

The last time I posted, I talked about music in Yoruba. I discovered the linguistic diversity of Nigeria by figuring out which songs are in Yoruba or one of Nigeria’s many other languages. Today, I will discuss a new app I started using to learn Yoruba! As I mentioned in my second post, the app I was using started not working after I reached a certain point. I found a new app called Bluebird Yoruba, which I briefly mentioned in that second post. A bit about the app: They offer language learning in other languages and not just Yoruba, and they have different apps for each language, depending on which one you want to know!

When you open the app, on the home page, there are multiple learning categories to choose from: core vocabulary, essential verbs, creating sentences, powerful phrases, conversation and daily lessons. Most categories are, unfortunately, locked because you need to pay to access them. Still, the core vocabulary and daily lessons are unlimited access, which I need for my learning. I started doing the daily lessons every day this week, and it has been super fun! (Side note: I did say I would do one lesson every week, but they’re short, and it’s better to do it consistently). The lesson is an audio recording teaching you step-by-step how to pronounce a saying, and it repeats it multiple times and allows you to say it back. My first lesson, for example, was to learn ‘o wiregbe,’ which means ‘he or she chats.’ It taught me to say ‘ọrẹ,’ which means ‘friend,’ and put everything together to learn the sentence ‘o ma n wiregbe pẹlu ọrẹ rẹ’ which means ‘he or she chats with a friend’ and ‘O wiregbe pẹlu ọrẹ rẹ’ which means ‘He or she chatted with a friend.’ Once I practiced the saying, I did a quiz where it tested me on those sayings. There is also a pronunciation analysis where you record your voice, and it gives you a score out of 100% on how good your pronunciation is (I got between 70 to 90 percent on most words so I’m pretty proud of myself self 😁). There is also a voice comparison where you record your voice, which plays the speaker’s voice to see how close your pronunciation is, which I found super cool!

Bluebird Yoruba has been super promising so far, so I hope it continues to help me progress in my learning. While continuing my daily lessons, I’m going to look into finding some movies and TV shows in Yoruba to help me learn my language!

Last but not least, today’s word of the day is ‘ọsẹ,’ which means ‘week.’ The spelling can be a little tricky, as ‘ọṣẹ‘ means ‘soap,’ so it’s important to know which letters are used for certain words for spelling and prononciation.

(Title used only for comedic effect)

This week, we had the opportunity to have Richard come into the class to talk about the usage of audio and video editing. We specifically played around with iMovie, which was a blast. iMovie is a platform I am very familiar with; I used it to make movie trailers with friends at sleepovers when I was younger. I also used iMovie for video projects in high school and during my undergrad for creative projects. As a summer camp leader, I made music videos and comedy skits with my campers using iMovie. But it was still great to play around with it and try new things with no stakes. Inspired by Richard’s video of goats, I found a goat video of my own in my camera roll and decided to use that; though it wasn’t too long, I added a video of my petting my aunt’s cat Rascal and decided to call my film masterpiece…The Animal Kingdom. The irony that I’m only showing two animal types is part of the creative flare 😉.

We also explored Audacity, which is another software I had used before when one of my friends wanted to record an interview with me for a radio show they were hosting. The version I used then was super out of the day and a little challenging to use, but redownloading the newest one looks like it will be very user-friendly and perfect for our podcast project and other projects. Experimenting with these platforms made me realize how they can be helpful for teachers and students in the classroom; Audacity and iMovie could be used to make short-form lesson videos or have fun with them to create funny teacher morning messages and announcements. When teaching intermediate to middle school students, you can help them use the software for projects, class movies, or creating a class radio show or podcast. The options are limitless, which makes it even more exciting! 

As promised in my last post, my goal this week was to find music in Yoruba or orin ni yoruba! Before searching, I knew popular Nigerian artists like Wizkid, Burna Boy, Asake, Rema and Tems, but I only heard their English songs/most popular. I didn’t know if they sang in Yoruba or were from other linguistic groups. After some research, I found out some are Yoruba (as Yoruba is a language and ethnic group Indigenous to Nigeria). Rema and Burna Boy are from other linguistic groups and sing in other dialects like Pidgin English, Igbo and Bini. Learning about where these Nigerian artists come from highlighted that it is important to find precisely what languages they speak and where they come from, as Nigeria has linguistic and cultural diversity. I’m still searching for more music, but here are two of my favourite songs from the songs I’ve been listening to so far!

As much as I love contemporary music, I also love finding music from the other decades, especially from the 70s. When I want to find music, I usually use platforms like Apple Music, but on TikTok, there are a lot of pages dedicated to finding music that goes beyond what is popular on the charts. I came across a TikTok, and of course, now I can’t find the original video, but the creator said Nigerian 70s music is underrated and played The Lijadu Sisters. The duo comprises twin sisters Yeye Taiwo and Kehinde Lijadu. They are considered icons in the Afrobeat world and fuse traditional Yoruba cultural sounds with various genres. While looking at other songs from the 70s, I found another artist named Bola Johnson, who was popular around the same time as the Lijadu Sisters and shared a similar funk and Afrobeat sound. Here are the songs I liked the most from these artists.

I plan to do more Yoruba music discoveries and make a playlist, which I’ll happily share in my next post. 

Last but not least, the word of the day is Pẹpẹyẹ which means duck. 🦆

References:

https://www.thelijadusisters.com/

Bawo ni! Hello!

Welcome to my second post about my inquiry project on learning Yoruba, one of the many languages from Nigeria. I last left you with my inquiry project plan for how I will be learning Yoruba. I started off strong. I mentioned how I found the app LangaApp, which has a layout similar to Duolingo with interactive lessons and games that are perfect for beginners like me. Level 1 started with learning essential words like mi (my), wa (our/us), omi (water) and ounjẹ (food). I passed and moved on to level 2, learning fun (give), o (you), ẹ jọ (honorific please), jọ̀ (please) and the adverb ni. Like in French (vous) and Spanish (vosotros), Yoruba has honorific words for when you are speaking to someone formally and with respect. So, putting that all together, I can say my first sentence: jọ̀ fun mi ni ounjẹ (please give me food) or ẹ jọ fun mi ni ounjẹ (respectfully please give me food).

I was starting to feel good about my comprehension; however, after completing level 2 and going to level 3, the app said, “You have to activate your account to start this level.” This seems to be an issue, with the app reviews saying the same thing. I’ll also leave a review and contact the app developers to get that sorted. In the meantime, I downloaded two other apps called Bluebird Yoruba and Yoruba+. Unfortunately for Yoruba+, you have to pay to access the lessons and only have free access to everyday sayings, numbers and the Yoruba alphabet, which has helped work on the accent. The app also gives me a new word daily, which is fun to incorporate into my learning. Today’s word is ẹgbẹ, which means peer. As for Bluebird Yoruba, I haven’t thoroughly tried it yet; I have just been looking over the lessons, but I will definitely start this for my weekly lesson. In my next post, I will also find some music in Yoruba and share what I discover! 

In today’s class we learned about multimedia tools and how to create graphics using various platforms, particularly PowerPoint! Which turns out to be super underrated. I hadn’t used PowerPoint in a couple of years and totally forgot how many fun things there are and how much variety there is. I was especially impressed by the aesthetic slide templates because I thought PowerPoint had ugly slide options for one reason or another, but I was very wrong about that. I also had no idea how to change the pages from landscape to portrait to create activities and worksheets. When it was our turn to start building, I immediately had to try it. It was a little complicated trying to find the function to change the layout; I have the UVic PowerPoint and perhaps different formatting. I eventually figured it out by changing it to letter size and moving the page’s orientation to the left. After that, I moved over to Canva, a graphic tool I love and use all the time and decided to make a banner for my website. I wanted to create something simple and purple to match my website; however, I started finding these cute elements, went to town and made the image above. I am still playing around with it, so you’ll have to wait and see for the final product! It was so much fun making it; it felt very nostalgic when I used PicCollage during the Tumblr era from 2013 to 2017. 

Learning about multimedia and graphic tools is so important for incoming teachers. There are so many resources for teachers, but sometimes, when you want to teach something specific or the layout of an activity sheet is not aesthetically what you’re looking for, teachers turn to platforms like PowerPoint or Canva to make their own. I remember volunteering in Grade 2 French Immersion class, where the teacher used Teacher Pay Teachers to find an activity sheet or project for Mother’s Day. She loved the formatting and idea of one of them, but they were in English, and she said this is a common problem in a French Immersion school as there are not a lot of resources tailored to the French Immersion level. Many worksheets and activities are from Quebec, France or other advanced French-speaking countries. I asked her if I could make one similar to the English one in French on Canva, and she said go ahead, so I created the one above; the teacher loved it and used it. That is why teachers must share their resources, but more importantly, they must be aware of the options for adapting and creating resources using technology. 

After class, I got inspired by my peers, who helped me get to know the teacher banners. It was such a cool idea that I made my own! I also made this one on Canva and added photos of me to give my future students a look at who I am. I included pastries cause, of course, a couple of my travel destinations as I love to travel, me with my best friend at a concert, a couple of goofy photos, a photo with one of my paintings as I love using creative outlets, me at the beach has it’s one of my favourite places to be and signify that I’m from the island and of course a photo by Taylor Swift as I am a Swiftie💖. Then, I used a text sticker in a fun font to write what my students would know me as. At first, I wanted to make a collage and selected a bunch of photos, but as I started, I realized that would probably overwhelm students, so I kept it simple yet fun. I think I will add some graphics here and there to add some pizzazz.