Transcript Slide 1

Indigenous Language in Education in Canada:
Risk and Protective Factors
Jessica Ball
School of Child and Youth Care
University of Victoria
Comparative and International Education Society
Conference 2011
Montreal, Canada
Languages at risk in Canada
60 Indigenous languages
11 language families in Canada
10 Indigenous languages lost in past 100 yrs
All may be lost within this century
Ojibway (Anishnaabek), Cree and Inutitut
may survive
Languages of power
Languages not at risk of extinction in
Canada:
The Queen’s English & Quebecois French
(Indigenous English dialects have been
pathologized and a program for Standard
English as a Second Dialect has been
introduced in 3 provinces: visit
www.ecdip.org)
Colonialist context of language loss
The story of language loss in Canada is one of
genocide and cultural holocaust and ongoing
assimilationist policies
Indigenous population declined from possibly
several million before European contact to
270,000 by the end of 1800s.
2006: 1.3 million Indigenous peoples (First
Nations, Metis, Inuit, urban Aboriginal).
Many languages are spoken by fewer than 100
people.
“Mother tongue”
Skutnabb-Kangas & McCarty (2008) identified mother
tongue as including the language with which one
identifies (e.g., as an ethnic signifier), even if one cannot
speak that language.
This is the situation for the vast majority of Indigenous
Peoples in Canada.
Less than 25% speak an Indigenous language.
Steady decline in % of Indigenous children who are
‘learning’ their mother tongue (2001: 17%; 2006: 14%).
“Heritage mother tongue”
The living root of contemporary identities,
regardless of whether one speaks the language.
(McCarty)
Education: Liberating or assimilating?
Schooling is the primary vehicle for colonization and ongoing
assimilation of Indigenous Peoples in Canada.
Government policies explicitly aimed at “taking the Indian out of the
child”
• Apartheid: Indian Act (1887)
• Indian Residential Schools: Indigenous language prohibited
• English or French medium of public education
– Submersion approach resulting in subtractive bilingualism.
• Only Ontario and BC allow an Indigenous language to be taught as
an alternative, required second language instead of French or
English.
Language in education policies are the main contributor to ongoing
language loss and extinction, attenuation of cultural identity, and
loss of Indigenous knowledges
No data, No problem
Aboriginal children & youth are not identified in most population level
data collection exercises,
Few disaggregated analyses of early childhood program participation,
educational trajectories, health outcomes, and language use.
No known controlled studies of comparative language in education
programs
No federal or provincial government investment in Indigenous language
research, maintenance or restorative initiatives…
only for curating languages as objects of antiquity for museums.
Under what circumstances is MTB-MLE in
the early years effective, for what
purposes, according to whom, as evidence
by what indicators?
Role of education (especially early childhood
education) in mother tongue restoration
One way to counter linguistic & cultural loss & to fulfill
children’s rights to learn in their mother tongue is to
encourage parents to teach their youngsters their home
language & to deliver early childhood education
programs & formal education systems in children’s
mother tongue(s).
Ball (2010). Literature review on MTB-MLE in early childhood
programs. Paris: UNESCO.
– Explore this proposition, and implications for policy,
practice, and research
Two main scenarios in Canada:
1. Intergenerational transmission
Two main scenarios in Canada:
Parent(s) speak an Indigenous language: In varing
circumstances, a child may learn:
An abbreviated ‘baby’ version of the language
(e.g., baby Inutitut, Ojicree)
A fully elaborated version of the spoken language
(more often in rural & remote settings)
The written language (some not written)
Literacy in the language (very little text material)
Two main scenarios in Canada:
2. Restoration/Revitalization
Parent(s) speak little or no Indigenous language, but want their child to learn.
Protective factors:
• High motivation,
• Some vestiges of the Indigenous language in the dialect of English or
French
Challenges:
• Children are learning their ‘mother tongue’ as a second language, with little
or no home language support. Therefore learning must be based in
‘language nests’, early childhood programs, schools, language clubs.
• Very few proficient speakers to teach the language
• Proficient speakers are typically not well prepared to teach young children
(e.g., Elders).
• No one literate in the language to support emergent literacy
• Little or no textual materials
• Extreme skepticism on the part of government and general public about the
value or wisdom of children learning an Indigenous language.
Educational achievement gaps
Challenges to intergenerational transmission of Indigenous
languages and to revitalization efforts following
widespread loss are compounded by persisting large
gaps between Indigenous and non-Indigenous education
outcomes.
Many Indigenous young children are perceived as not
‘school ready’ and identified as having ‘special needs’ as
early as kindergarten and primary 1.
Is promoting Indigenous language revitalization through
early childhood immersion programs benefitting or
disadvantaging those children whose mother tongue
may be an Indigenous language that has been all but
lost, and whose home language is English or French?
Gambling with the future
Research suggests that MTB early childhood programs can:
Promote enrolment in preschool and school (in some Canadian
communities, up to 35% of Inuk children don’t go to school because
it is not in a language they can understand)
Reinforce positive cultural identity & belonging
Engage parents in their children’s schooling, esp those interested in
retaining or regaining their mother tongue
Support ways of learning and communicating that may be uniquely
Indigenous (e.g., observation, listening, pragmatics of
communication including turn-taking protocols, non-verbal
dimensions, etc).
Promote positive health outcomes?
One study in Canada showed a highly significant correlation between
Indigenous language proficiency and suicide, which is extremely
prevalent among Indigenous Peoples in Canada. (Chandler &
Lalonde)
Gambling with the future
Research suggests that children who learn a
language in early childhood but who are not
supported to continue learning in that language
do not do better, and may do worse, both
academically and in language proficiency, than if
their early childhood program focused on
establishing strong oral language in the
language of primary schooling. And children can
as easily learn an Indigenous language later
(e.g., in their secondary school years.)
Complications
Indigenous children in Canada show inequities on every health
indicator, including:
• Early hearing loss
• Speech & language delays & disorders
• Learning disabilities
• Fetal Alcohol Syndrome
While children with various special needs can learn two or more
languages (Genesee et al), their language acquisition and academic
trajectories are much slower and require more support.
There is a relative vacuum of meaningful support in Canada in
situations involving MTB-MLE.
What combination of factors suggest what
combination of approaches?
Indigenous Rights, including the right to selfdetermination, are primary.
However, as language activists and educators,
what combination of factors need to be brought
to mind in recommending what combination of
approaches to:
• Language preservation/restoration
• Preservation of culture knowledge, ways of
thinking, and cultural diversity
• Mother tongue acquisition
• Academic success
Immersion programs
Immersion programs, such as language nests and
MTB preschools, are provided entirely in a
language that is new to the child.
Popular in foreign language instruction (e.g.,
French immersion) and in heritage mother
tongue revitalization initiatives
Eskasoni Immersion Program:
A place to be Mi’kmaw
Confidence in identity, fluency,
& other academic areas
Building confidence in identity
Cultural spaces: Talking circles
Teacher as Mi’kmaw model
Indigenous pedagogies,
Indigenous forms of interaction
“Speaking Mi’kmaw helps to make the classroom a more
comfortable place because the way you explain things is
a part of your culture, and we teach and organize the
environment in ways that are part of our culture. The
children learn to relate to each other as Mi’kmaw.”
Ida Denny, Mi’kmaw instructor
Reading and writing
Reading and Writing: Spelling
Reading and writing: Journal writing
Reading and writing: Read Alouds
Reading and writing: Word wall
Confidence in English language arts
“Their writing too…the year before I had Mi’kmaw kids from
the English program…They would write “I like red….I like
blue…I like green” and the next day “I like red….I like
blue…I like to go to town”. Every single day was the
same thing. I saw a big difference. These Immersion kids
had stories to tell and long, nice stories. And I really
enjoyed reading their writing. Their grammar was really
good too.”
(Mary Prosper, Mi’kmaw instructor)
Beyond lingua-centric criteria for success
Cannot assume a one-to-one correspondence between meaningful outcomes
from an American, English language and literacy framework to an
Indigenous framework.
E.g.,
• Reading speed
• Comprehension (rhetorical questions about linear content)
• Conversational complexity
• What about the whole testing situation?
• What are children in MTB education learning besides literacy?
• Children’s learning isn’t always verbally mediated but our measures of
success of an intervention typically rely on verbal and written indicators
Many Indigenous people in Canada declare that even is their child fails in
colonial schools, if they learn their language, have pride in who they are,
and know how to read social situations and life on the land, they are
‘educated’ in their eyes.
“Speaking our language reminds us of
who we are as Indigenous People, and our
relationship to the Creator. Speech is
enabled by our breath, and our breath is
our spirit. There is a spiritual dimension to
speech, and when we speak, our words go
around and around the world forever.”
Sharla Peltier, Anishnaabek scholar
Moral imperative/ moral dilemma
Affirming the inherent right of each family to raise
children in the language(s) of their choice.
Affirming the responsibility of the global community
to protect linguistic and cultural diversity and to
strengthen languages at risk of being lost.
Supporting educational and health equity for
Indigenous and other minoritized children.
Discussion
Children’s rights to use their mother
tongue in early education . . .
– Challenges
– Opportunities
– Insights
– Promising practices
– Under what circumstances?
Find out more:
www.ecdip.org/reports
UNESCO online library
UNESCO (2008b). Mother tongue instruction in
early childhood education: A selected
bibliography. Paris: UNESCO.
Ball, J. (2010). Educational equity for children
from diverse backgrounds: Mother tongue-based
bilingual or multilingual education in the early
years: Literature Review. UNESCO.
http://www.unesco.org/en/languages-ineducation/publications/