Why Does Language Even Matter?
/Do you remember what it was like to take your seat on your very first day in school, bright eyed and bushy tailed—eager to please?
Imagine, if you will, that once the teacher had gotten your class settled she had turned to you and your classmates and said, “Bonvolu malfermi viajn librojn.”
Photo by Taylor Wilcox on Unsplash
Imagine she stared at you. Expectant. Waiting.
And imagine that although you vaguely recognized her words as having the same general sound as a language you’d once heard a man speaking on television, you had no idea what these particular words might mean. Imagine yourself glancing around to see your classmates shifting in their seats, as uncomfortable as you.
Feeling the tears beginning to come.
To protect children from this sort of experience and ensure that every child has the best possible chance to learn and succeed, we always advocate for the use of a person’s first language (L1) in not just early grade reading, but in all their early education.
Unfortunately, we are seeing new project opportunities rolling out that seem to be so focused on their educational goals that they’re ignoring this essential building block to any effective educational program.
So we’ve compiled insights from some of our experts in the field.
From Dr. Paul Frank, Senior Advisor at SIL LEAD:
Billions of people in the world are bilingual or multilingual. But that doesn't mean they are equally proficient in all of their languages!
In many cases, they can make do with information they receive in a second or third language. But in other cases, communication in their first language is critical. For example, people—including many parents—want their children to become proficient in English (or French or Spanish or Swahili), and they think that communicating with them exclusively in that new and unknown language is the best way to build their proficiency.
Nothing could be farther from the truth!
Not knowing what your caregiver or teacher is saying to you just generates confusion and discouragement, not learning. We have to take away the language barrier from children's earliest education and help them learn using their first language. Other important languages can be added to their linguistic repertoire in a systematic way as they progress through their schooling.
But it's not just about good learning outcomes. Ignoring a child's language communicates that their language and the child's identity and heritage don't matter. In fact, what is often communicated is that their language is something to be ashamed of.
Communicating in a language that a person knows best isn't just for children, though.
Think of health information: How can you protect yourself from COVID-19 or any other health threat if you barely understand what is being said? Assuming that some language of wider communication will do the job isn't just problematic: It could be life-threatening.
Mothers play a crucial role in fostering the well-being of their families, but women often have even less exposure to languages of wider communication than men do. When they fail to understand life-saving information, it affects not just them, but their entire family.
Meaningful participation in the political process also requires understanding what people are saying to you. An imperfect understanding of the positions and promises of politicians makes it easier for people to be manipulated and deceived. Government requirements and services are poorly accessed and followed if people do not grasp what their government is communicating to them.
From Tara Huberty, Literacy Training Consultant, SIL International :
It is crucial that young children feel comfortable when they enter school for the first time. A child’s first impressions of school are lasting impressions, and if school feels threatening or overwhelming, they will not be able to learn well. An important step in reducing anxiety and helping children thrive in school is to teach in the languages the children know best. In order for children to thrive socially, emotionally and academically, we need to reduce barriers to learning and help the child feel that school is a safe, creative and engaging place. This cannot be done when the child doesn’t understand the teacher. A child struggling to learn the language of the teacher and the academic content will be discouraged before they even get very far in their academic career.
One of the main goals of early childhood education and development is to develop strong social skills – friendship, creativity, and cooperation. These social skills are best developed in the languages children know well. Their whole social world outside of school takes place in languages they know and understand. In order to see the greatest development in social skills, we should teach these skills in the language children already use socially.
In support of that statement, Dr. Diane Dekker (Certified Senior Literacy and Education Consultant, SIL International) shared this quote from leading education expert, Nadine Dutcher,
“Above all, there is the emotional factor. Members of ethnic groups, whether children or adults, are empowered when their first language is used. Conversely, when the mother tongue is not used, they are made to feel backward, inferior, and stupid. Their culture is denigrated and the children are scared, confused and traumatized. This can have long-term effects.”
(Dutcher, Nadine. Expanding Educational Opportunity in Linguistically Diverse Societies, Center for Applied Linguistics, Washington. DC., 2001)
SIL LEAD board member Dr. Catherine Young adds,
I think that the key here is the role of language and, particularly, multilingualism in accessing education and development opportunities. We need to emphasize that education is so much more than just reading. Because of this, SIL [International] has focused on the development of, ideally, late-exit MTB-MLE programmes that address the scope of the curriculum and, rarely, only early grade reading.
As SIL International, our focus is on non-dominant language communities and, if we value the culture, language, and identity, we support communities in designing and delivering appropriate education programmes in the local language that respond to the self-identified needs of the community, enabling access to lifelong education and development opportunities potentially using all languages of contact. Any reading instruction in local languages needs to take into account the processes of transition to national and international languages of instruction. SIL’s experience of designing and delivering early childhood education projects demonstrates the importance to the learners’ context of responsive curriculum design that supports social and emotional development. It also demonstrates the need to advocate for flexible policies in delivering education to the youngest learners from minority language communities.
One example is the curriculum design SIL developed for early childhood projects in Asia. There, it built on the cultural community calendar and was contextualized for the communities to which the curriculum would be delivered. It provided a thematic curriculum that began with the learner themselves; then gradually introduced new curriculum themes, to bring in new concepts and content.
Long-time SIL LEAD consultant Dr. Agatha van Ginkel adds that:
There are several studies about the effect programs have had on people when using different languages. In general the findings are that L1 is the language that is much more related to emotion and the L2 creates more distance to emotions than the L1. There are several studies that exemplify this.
One that I remember from a conference is with teenagers in Nigeria. The NGO wanted to educate them on healthy relationships and sex education. When they discussed the topic with the teens in English, they listened, responded and hardly engaged emotionally. When the group leader changed to their L1, they suddenly became rather uncomfortable, started to respond with giggles and embarrassment. While they had understood technically what was being said in English, the feelings and emotions connected with these words was rather flat. However, when the L1 was used, they felt the deeper meaning and emotions of words.
Dr. Van Ginkel points out that bilinguals will sometimes switch to their second language in order to distance themselves emotionally from what they are saying. She adds that:
This codeswitching can be used and is used in different ways in emotional healing. In the end to do the real emotional healing or to get to the emotions of people, it is most often necessary to use the language they are most comfortable in. Studies do show that the degree of bilingualism makes a difference. Besides this psychological-emotional side, there is also the side of receiving the message (implied) that your language and culture aren’t good enough, when one’s language is ignored or even forbidden in education.
It is clearly vital that all educational opportunities consider the importance of a learner’s first language when deciding on the language of instruction.
We at SIL LEAD will continue to advocate for children to be taught, for their wellbeing and educational future, in the language that they best understand.