Mother Tongue Multilingual Education

1
Mother Tongue Multilingual Education

• South-East Asia Media Training on Education for
  All
• 18-20 April 2007
• Hanoi, Viet Nam

2
Number of Languages spoken in Asia

• Worlds more than 6000 languages, 50 are
  dying, 40 are endangered, and only 10 are
  safe.
• 96 of these languages are spoken by only 4 of
  the worlds population.
• Most of the endangered languages are spoken by
  ethnic minorities.
• If nothing is done, these languages and their
  cultures will likely die.

3
If nothing is done

• With the death of a language, an irreplaceable
  system of our knowledge and understanding of
  human thought and world-view is lost.

4
The Situation in Education

• There are 77 million out-of-school children and
  781 million illiterates.
• Many of them remain excluded from education by
  language.
• Most countries in the region are multilingual,
  but the true panorama of languages found in the
  region is rarely reflected in education systems.
• As a result, large numbers of learners are
  confronted with either a foreign medium of
  instruction or a language that is different from
  the language they speak at home.
• There remains a lack of understanding and
  recognition of the role that mother tongue-based
  Multilingual Education can play in improving
  access to, retention in, and the quality of,
  education.

5
Number of Languages spoken in Asia

• Country Languages
• Uzbekistan 40
• Tajikistan 33
• Kyrgyzstan 32
• Bhutan 31
• Singapore 30
• Turkmenistan 27
• Cambodia 24
• Timor Leste 19
• Brunei 19
• Japan 16
• Mongolia 15
• Sri Lanka 7
• Korea, South 2
• Maldives 2
• Korea, North 1
• TOTAL 2200
• (Source Ethnologue 2005)

• Country Languages
• Indonesia 742
• India 427
• China 241
• Philippines 180
• Malaysia 147
• Nepal 125
• Myanmar 113
• Vietnam 104
• Lao PDR 86
• Thailand 83
• Pakistan 77
• Iran 75
• Afghanistan 51
• Bangladesh 46
• Kazakhstan 43

(30 countries)
6
National or Official Languages in Asia

• Mandarin Chinese 2,
• Marathi,
• Meitei,
• Myanma,
• Nepali 2,
• Northern Uzbek,
• Oriya,
• Portuguese,
• Russian 2
• Sanskrit,
• Sindhi 2,
• Sinhala,
• Southern Pashto,
• Tajiki,
• Tamil 2,
• Telugu,
• Tetun,
• Thai,
• Turkmen,

• Assamese,
• Bengali 2,
• Dzongkha,
• Eastern Farsi (Dari),
• Eastern Punjabi,
• English 4 (1),
• Filipino,
• Gujarati,
• Gurung,
• Halh Mongolian,
• Hindi,
• Indonesian,
• Japanese,
• Kannada,
• Kashmiri,
• Kazakh,
• Kirghiz,
• Khmer,
• Konkani,

(46 languages)
7
LANGUAGES OF ASIA Kosonen. Education for All in
the Multilingual World is it Feasible? An
Overview. CIES Annual Conference, Baltimore.
February 2007. Page 2.
8
What is Mother Tongue-Based MLE?

• Education that promotes mother tongue instruction
  as a means of improving educational quality by
  building upon the knowledge and experience of
  learners and teachers
• Education that allows linguistic minority groups
  into mainstream life without forcing them to
  leave behind their ethnic and linguistic identity
• Education that enables linguistic minority
  learners to gain fluency and confidence in
  speaking, reading and writing the national
  language and to participate fully in, and
  contribute, to national economic and social
  development

9
Learners whose mother tongue is the language of
instruction and literacy in education.
Minority language learners who do not speak the
language used when they enter school or an
education programme
10
MLE for building a strong foundation and a good
bridge in multilingual contexts
11
Mother Tongue Multilingual Education

• Specific projects in
• Thailand
• Philippines
• Cambodia
• China
• Refer to video produced by SIL and UNESCO

12
Every year, on 21 February, UNESCO leads the
world in celebrating International Mother
Language Day
13
For more information

• UNESCO Bangkok Website
• http//www.unescobkk.org/index.php?id222
• Ochirkhuyag Gankhuyag
• APPEAL Unit
• UNESCO Bangkok
• o.gankhuyag_at_unescobkk.org

14
Language environment and formal education

• Horizontal/concentric diversity
• home language,
• community language,
• National lingua franca,
• Official/academic language
• Vertical transitions
• pre-school mother tongue
• primary school community language
• secondary and transition language
• tertiary level official/ academic language

15
Language policies

• Separationist, divide territory by
  language/ethnicity grouping
• Mosaic pluralism, pockets of language communities
  
• Assimilation through one language
• Integration through bridging program
• Mixed system, based on local diversity
• Hierarchy of languages by level of education

16
Country Local languages used in education Local languages used as media of instruction Multiple languages in govt stystem of education
Indonesia Yes No Yes
Lao PDR Yes Yes No
Malaysia Yes No No
Myammer Yes Yes No
Nepal ? ? ?
Philippines Yes Yes Yes
Thailand? Yes? Yes? Yes?
Viet Nam Yes Yes Yes
UNESCO BKK First language, First 2005
17
Why is mother tongue-based bilingual education
(MTBBE) needed?

• Rights-based approach
• EFA
• Pedagogical reasons It helps children learn the
  curriculum and two languages
• Socio-cultural reasons Identity, self-esteem
• Linguistic diversity

18

• Language of instruction vs language teaching
• Official language vs national languages
• Example Mauritius vs Seychelles

19
Practical concerns

• Cost-benefit analysis
• Language development
• Materials development
• Organization of bilingual teaching
• Bilingual assessment
• Parent involvement

20
Cost-benefit analysis
Carol Besson 2006

• BE may seem expensive (4 more), but what are the
  costs if we do NOT have BE?
• Per Pupil Expenditure, Unit Cost cost per year
  to educate one learner
• Efficiency and wastage
• Repetition
• Dropout, failure

21

• Traditional school cost for 100 students
• 81,250 USD

• Bilingual school cost for 100 students
• 78,000 USD
• Lower cost for a better programme!

Carol Besson 2006
22
Language development

• Writing system
• Harmonization of varieties
• Standardization of writing/alphabet
• Pedagogical vocabulary
• Create terms
• Give new meanings to existing terms
• Borrow terms from other languages

23
Materials development

• Same learning outcomes for all?
• Same content areas (apart from language) for all?
• Side-by-side model
• Saves costs logistical concerns
• Has great symbolic value
• Enables bilingual methods
• Enables flexibility according to situation

24
What if teachers are not fully bilingual?

• Allow teachers to specialize
• Teacher pairs
• Teaming (share classes)
• Help each other plan
• Use family members or community members as
  classroom assistants
• Preview/review - PLAN

• Train ethnic minority teachers (written L1,
  oral/written Vietnamese, bilingual methods)
• Train Kinh teachers (oral/written L1, bilingual
  methods)
• Develop language certification system
• Provide incentives

25
Simple oral test

• Questions
• Simple (requires one-word answers or pointing)
• Little more language (labeling, longer answers)
• Some expression (describing pictures, answering
  questions about him/herself
• More expression (story re-telling, describing
  activities done the day before, future plans...)

26
Parent and community involvement

• Teacher-parent communication about child
• Visiting experts in local crafts/skills including
  songs, games
• Visiting help for science class (fertilizer,
  growing certain plants, )
• School boards (parents, teachers, principals)
  IN BOTH LANGUAGES!

27
For more information

• UNESCO Hanoi Website
• http//www.unesco.org.vn
• Eisuke Tajima
• Education Officer
• UNESCO Hanoi
• E.Tajima_at_UNESCO.ORG