Using Technology for multilingual Education — More We Can Do
It was International Mother Language Day on February 21. Initiated by UNESCO in 1999, the purpose of the day is to preserve linguistic diversity and prevent the minority languages from extinction. This year, the theme of International Mother Language Day is discovering challenges and opportunities of multilingual learning with technology. In terms of promoting the day, UNESCO built an online community with multimedia, which is the International Decade of Indigenous Languages. Through different digital media platforms, the community displays its content from a distinct perspective. This post will examine the online presence of the International Decade of Indigenous Languages from its website and Instagram account.
The website is a good and detailed source for knowing what the community is and what it does to fulfill its ideas. As shown in figure 1, the content of the site is divided into five broad categories. Investigating the Activities/Events category, there is an ongoing online film festival about mother tongue until March 4. However, is this activity really addressing the idea, of the inclusion of minority languages? While the form of the film makes the process of mother language learning more interesting with creative scenes and sounds, the film only adapts three languages, which are English, Spanish and Hawaiian. English and Spanish are definitely not distinguishing languages, which are widely spoken instead. Though Hawaiian is a minority language, is this film event merely for the Hawaiian group? if so, then the activity might lack inclusiveness to some extent.
Moves onto its Instagram account, so far, it has more than 3,000 followers. The content is more informal than its representation on the website. It seems like the account is chatting to a friend online. For example, the middle of figure 4, shows two girls’ wishes in two chat boxes. Personally, I feel this might be more impressive than some other formal forms such as an online seminar. In addition, it could be easier to be circulated in such a short and interesting form. As nowadays people get used to short blogs, which is especially obvious when considering the prevalence of TikTok worldwide among different age groups.
However, these methods, whether it is the dissemination of pictures in social media or the way of watching movies in online activities, are in a passive form to let the audience understand and accept the language and culture of ethnic minorities. A language is ultimately a tool, which means it should actually be used. No matter how many language and cultural activities there are, if no one learns to use it, then this language still cannot be used. In this case, how can an unused language be protected and passed on? In addition to this, most of the activities organized by UNESCO are presented in an online format, which means that if you want to participate in such activities, network connection and related technology skills are the most important prerequisites. However, the digital divide is still a massive problem that deepens education inequalities worldwide. There were still 5.3 million adults who lack digital skills in the UK in 2018, accounting for 10.0 percent of the adult population. Thus, while the online presence of the Indigenous Languages community boosts recognition of minority languages with technologies, more social factors should be in consideration such as the digital divide when designing more language activities.
