Addressing children’s right to use their mother tongue in early childhood programs

Jessica BallSchool of Child and Youth Care

Human Early Learning Partnership: REACH UVICUniversity of Victoria

UNESCO International Symposium: Translation and Cultural Mediation

Start at the beginning

Early childhood programmes: birth to 8 years old

• Counter linguistic & cultural loss

• Fulfill children’s rights to learn in their mother tongue

• Ensure familiar culture and language during transition to school

Overview

• What are we talking about?• Who are we talking about?• Why are we talking about it?• How are we talking about it?• What’s known?• What’s new?• What’s next?

What are we talking about?

Mother tongue:

The language acquired in early years & that has become his/her natural instrument of thoughts and communication (UNESCO)

Early childhood programs:

Supports for primary caregivers &

children from birth through 8 years of age

Who are we talking about?

Some children’s mother tongue is privileged Other children’s mother tongue is dismissed, denied, or

given only token support by dominant society, cultural institutions, schools, and policies.

Language-in-education policies routinely contribute to the minoritization of children whose mother tongue is not the privileged language(s).

These are the children we’re talking about it.

Why are we talking about it?

Cultural & linguistic endangerment

Educational inequities

Challenges to implementing mother-tongue based early learning programs

How are we talking about it?

Various frameworks provide rationales:• Rights• Cultural & linguistic endangerment/loss• Psycho-social development• Participation:

– Education– Labour force– Civil society

Child rights

UNCRC (1989) Article 30: stipulates right of Indigenous Peoples to use their own language in schooling.

UNCRC General Comment 7:• Young children are holders of all rights enshrined in the

Convention.• Early childhood is a critical period for realization of these

rights.• Early childhood: birth through transition to school (8 yrs)• Programs & policies are required to realize rights in early

childhood• Recognize & incorporate diversities in culture, language,

and child rearing.

Parental rights

UNCRC Article 29

Education of the child shall be directed to development of respect for the child’s parents, and the child’s own cultural identity, language and values, as well as for the national values of the country in which the child is living….

(Also Article 5)

Community rights

UN Convention and Recommendation against Discrimination in Education specifically recognizes “the right of the members of national minorities to carry on their own educational activities, including…the use or the teaching of their own language.”

Community rights

UN Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities (1992, Article 4)– Affirms the rights of minorities, including Indigenous

Peoples, to learn and/or have instruction in their mother tongue or heritage language.

Cultural and linguistic endangerment / loss

The world’s repository of language and culture is steadily depleted by language-in-education policies that impose dominant languages on children’s learning journeys.

About 6000 languages spoken globally now.

10-50% will be spoken by end of 2099.

“Linguistic genocide” (Skutnabb-Kangas)

Language loss endangers identity, heritage, belonging, cultural knowledges

Psychological development

Cultural identity associated with speaking the language of one’s culture of origin

Cultural knowledge embodied in language

Belonging within a cultural community that shares a language or dialect

Inter-generational communication

Self-concept: who am I? Commonalities with ancestors/ Distinctiveness from others

Self-esteem: proud of who one is & special competencies associated with family of origin

Participation

Speech, language & literacy enable participation

Sense of place & value in education, labour force, civil society

Familiarity with school, work & social environments

Civil society rich in diverse linguistic & cultural competencies

Community empowerment

Educational equity

UNESCO (1953) encourages mother tongue based early learning & primary school

Children entering unfamiliar learning environments in an unfamiliar language:

a significant contributor to persistent high rates of early school non-attendance, non-engagement, and failure among minority & Indigenous children.

Moral imperative

Affirming the right of families to support children’s learning in their mother language.

Affirming the responsibility of the global community to protect linguistic and cultural diversity and to strengthen languages at risk of being lost.

What is known?The dominant language in a society is presented to children

and families as normative, desired, privileged, high status, and, very often, the required language of early learning and all education programs.

For minority language children, this is a SUBMERSION approach (a.k.a. Sink or Swim).

Subtractive bilingualism … second language becomes more proficient than mother tongue.

Children do not ‘soak up languages like sponges!’

Many children grow up speaking more than one language.

But language does not spring forth in full bloom during the early years.

Language acquisition takes a long time.

Outcomes range from conversational fluency to academic proficiency.

Depends on many factors

Alternative language-in-education approaches

• Mother tongue-based programs

• Bilingual (two-way bilingual) programs

• Multilingual programs

• Developmental bilingualism– Mother tongue as primary language while second

language is introduced as a subject of study for eventual transition to learning in the second language

Alternative approaches cont’d

“Bridging”: Planned transition from one language to another

‘Short cut’ or ‘early exit’: abrupt transition after only 2 or 3 years of school.

‘Late transition’ or ‘late exit’: transition after child has cognitive academic proficiency in first language (CALP)

Maintenance bi/multilingual education

After second language is introduced, both first and second languages are media of instruction.

First language instruction as a medium of instruction or subject of study ensures ongoing support for academic proficiency in the mother tongue.

Also called ‘additive bilingual education’ (languages are added but do not displace mother tongue)

Tentative conclusions of research (Lightbown, 2008)

• Children can acquire 2+ languages in EY

• Languages don’t compete for ‘mental space’ and bilingualism doesn’t ‘confuse’ children.

• Given adequate inputs & opportunities for interaction, children can acquire multi-lingual proficiency

• Cognitive advantages of developing proficiency in 2+ languages

• Early learning is no guarantee of continued development or lifelong retention: languages can be maintained, attenuated, or forgotten

Tentative conclusions of research

Late transition is better than short cut

While children can learn more than one language, whether they develop more than conversational fluency about everyday events in a language depends on increasingly advanced learning opportunities in that language

Cognitive academic language proficiency (CALP) takes about 6 years of formal education

ALL OF PRIMARY SCHOOL!!

What about immersion programs?

Immersion programs are provided entirely in a language that is new to the child.

Popular in foreign language instruction and in heritage mother tongue revitalization initiatives

Immersion programs for recovering an endangered language

Heritage mother tongues: the living root of contemporary identities, regardless of whether one speaks the language. (McCarty)

Eskasoni Immersion Program: “A place to be Mi’kmaq”

Indigenous ‘First Nation’ in Nova Scotia, Canada

English or Mi’kmaq from

preschool through

secondary school.

Indigenous pedagogies

& academic content

75% of graduates went

on to college

Aha Pu_nana Leo

Hawaiian language immersion

From 50 to 10,000 speakers in just 20 years

Total family commitment

Language & culture curriculum

Hawaiian medium schools & tracks within schools

English at home, English as a subject of study.

(Wilson, Kamana & Rawlins)

Kaugel First Language First program

Papua New Guinea

Total family commitment

Parents generated curriculum resources

Availability of highly proficient speakers of the heritage mother tongue

… who have some training and lots of energy to work with very young children!

Mudiad Ysgolion Meithrin

Welsh-medium programs

Nursery, infant-toddler playgroups, preschool

Welsh-medium, English-medium, & bilingual schooling options

Second language taught as subject of study

Community commitment

Government language-in-education policy support

Political will – funding for children’s and parents’ rights to education in language of choice

Challenges & opportunities

Need multi-level commitments:

Parents: to value their home languageAha Pu_nana Leo requires commitment from parents to learn the

language & continue to seek schooling for their child in Hawaiian

Preschools: to see mother tongue as a language for ‘school readiness’

Schools: to provide language streams for children to continue learning their mother tongue & IN their mother tongue

Government: to resource training, employment, curriculum development & schooling throughout primary school in the mother tongue

Training & employment

Recruit, incentivize, & support mother tongue speakers as early learning practitioners, teachers, advisors

Kaugel First Language First Program – involved parents & other community members

Curriculum Resource Development

Curriculum is living & made meaningful in specific cultural & linguistic frames of reference

Translation vs. interpretation

Need cultural mediation to create relevant, meaningful learning activities and materials

Culturally based knowledge is embedded in the language

Community involvement is vital

Indigenous pedagogies

Not only what is taught but how

Multi-literacies (oral, text-based, non-verbal)

Computer-mediated learning activities need a cultural and pedagogical frame

What’s next?

1. Need research documentation of learning outcomes of alternative mother tongue based EY programs

2. Raise awareness of parents as children’s first language teachers & helping parents make informed decisions (e.g., Toronto School District: DVD “Value Your Language”)

3. Computer generated curriculum resources in consultation with cultural/linguistic interpreters

4. Advocacy with government to set language-in-education policies that support learning in & through children’s mother tongue.

UNESCO online library

• UNESCO (2008b). Mother tongue instruction in early childhood education: A selected bibliography. Paris: UNESCO.

• UNESCO (2010). Educational equity for children from diverse backgrounds: Mother tongue-based bilingual or multilingual education in the early years: Literature Review. http://www.unesco.org/en/languages-in-education/publications/