“Language is not everything in education, but without language, everything is nothing in education”

Shelley Taylor, Faculty of Education, UWO
May 23, 2008

With the above observation, the authors of an extensive report for the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA) and UNESCO summed up the overall conclusion of their assessment of mother tongue and bilingual education programs in sub-Saharan Africa (Alidou, et al., 2006, p. 6). The results of their meta-analysis showed that the best way to provide quality education to African children and achieve sustainable development was to provide strong models of bilingual education. Translation: The most effective educational models are those that build additional languages into models that foster the continued development of children’s mother tongues and mother tongue literacy.  

Very few English-speaking Canadian parents would argue against the need for their children to develop strong English literacy. Why is that so? The answer parallels the results of the ADEA/UNESCO study: Without high levels of mother tongue proficiency, it is not possible to achieve one’s educational goals. That is, language is not everything in education, but without language, everything is nothing in education. 

Mother tongue development and literacy, bilingual education, the introduction of additional languages in education, and education via the medium of additional languages are the issues that my research explores. I recently participated in multilingual language education (MLE) meetings in Delhi, India and New York with a collaborator from Denmark, Dr. Tove Skutnabb-Kangas thanks to the support provided by an International Research Award from the University of Western Ontario. Tove and I share many research interests (e.g., multilingual education, Indigenous and minority education, language policy, linguistic human rights, Kurdish issues), and have co-written papers (Taylor & Skutnabb-Kangas, in press, 2008; Taylor & Skutnabb-Kangas, 1996/1997).

 

The objectives of the India meetings were:

·       to report on ongoing MLE initiatives in India and Nepal, and preliminary results of teaching linguistic minority children through the medium of their mother tongues;

·       to compare theoretical models behind the ongoing MLE initiatives and the preliminary empirical evidence to arrive at more generalisable hypotheses for future work and expansion;

·       to exchange empirical information about prerequisites (the educational, socio-economic, legal and political situation of the children and parents) and processes (models proposed, teacher training, curriculum, materials) to boost the effectiveness of ongoing MLE programs;

·       to develop a network of MLE experiences and programmes for mutual sharing of resources and insights (linkages of different MLE initiatives in India with similar efforts in Nepal, Bangladesh and other SAARC countries), and

·       to plan for an MLE Resource Centre in India. 

While in India, we successfully developed a framework for mother-tongue based MLE with indigenous researchers from New Zealand and Canada, politicians from India, Nepal and the Saami Parliament, activists, politicians and NGOs (e.g., “Save the Children”) in India, Bangladesh, Viet Nam and other South Asian countries. In New York, we liaised with MLE researchers working on indigenous language-based MLE projects in Spanish-speaking countries such as Mexico, and planned future MLE projects to implement the framework developed in India.

How did I get here and where am I headed?   What does my past work involving Canadian children whose home or ancestral languages are Mi’kmaq, Oji-Cree, Cantonese or Arabic, or who are schooled in English or French as second or additional languages have in common with my other work involving ethnic Kurdish children schooled in Denmark or Turkey, or the researchers whom I met in India who work with Bodo-speaking children in India, Maori children in New Zealand, Sami children in the Nordic countries, and indigenous children from the over 400 different language groups in India and Nepal combined?  Even students with an interest in internationalization often stare wide-eyed when I discuss my past research; however, it all makes a great deal of sense to me! 

All of the students mentioned above share the linguistic minority experience of being deprived of mother-tongue based instruction, which leads to above-average levels of educational underachievement. That is, they are testament to the ADEA (2006) finding that language is not everything in education, but without language, everything is nothing in education. Furthermore, they are either the focus of my research or are the focus of parallel studies that inform my ethnographic research involving:

  • Ethnic Kurdish children enrolled in a “bi”-lingual (Danish/Turkish) program in Denmark;  

  • Mi’kmaq and Ojibwe children in early French immersion programs in New Brunswick and Ontario, Canada, and  

  • immigrant children in early French immersion programs in immigrant centres and urban centres with lower immigration figures across Ontario. 

My future research will involve another group of indigenous language-speaking children that does not have access to L1-based MLE: Zapotec-speaking children schooled in Spanish in Mexico.  

I am also currently developing a course with Dr. Joyce Bruhn de Garavito in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures on “Ecological approaches to endangered indigenous languages in the North Americas.” We are developing this course as part of one of Western’s Interdisciplinary Development Initiatives: “Interdisciplinary approaches to language.”  

This Interdisciplinary Development Initiative (IDI), spear-headed by Dr. Ileana Paul and Dr. Rob Stainton is not my only involvement in IDIs at Western. I am also a member of the “Centre for Research on Migration and Ethnic Relations” IDI spear-headed by Dr. Victoria M. Esses (Psychology), Dr. Roderic Beaujot (Sociology), and Dr. Belinda Dodson (Geography). Together, these IDIs capture my dual interest in linguistic and social factors, which merge in my research into the sorts of educational provisions that are (not) in effect for minority language children in various international settings. 

References:
Alidou, H., Boly, A., Brock-Utne, B., Diallo, Y. S., Heugh, K., & Wolff, H. E. (2006). Optimizing learning and education in Africa—the language factor: A stock-taking research on mother tongue and bilingual education in sub-Saharan Africa. Paris: Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA).
Taylor, S. K., & Skutnabb-Kangas, T. (1996-97). Sleights of hand (and of pen): A reply to Yagmur. TESOL Matters 6:6 (December 1996-January 1997), 19.
Taylor, S. K., & Skutnabb-Kangas, T. (in press for 2008). The educational language rights of Kurdish children in Turkey, Denmark and Kurdistan (Iraq). W. Ayers, T. Quinn & D. Stovall (Eds.), Handbook for social justice in education. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

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