FEBRUARY 21 is being observed all over the world as International Mother Language Day since 1999. The declaration was made by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation to maintain linguistic diversity for the sake of a sustainable world. The day has its root in February 21, 1952. The people of Bangladesh sacrificed their lives on that day for the right of their mother language Bangla as a state language, making them the only nation in history to do so.
It is a tradition that UNESCO observes International Mother Language Day on February 21 every year based on a particular theme since 1999. Considering the reality during the Covid pandemic and reflecting on technologies and their potential to support multilingual teaching and learning, the theme of International Mother Language Day in 2022 is: ‘Using technology for multilingual learning: challenges and opportunities’.
Education has become ubiquitous as a result of information and communication technology , or ICT. Therefore, language learning is no exception. Based on ICT, there are heaps of learning applications that facilitate learning at our fingertips. As far as technology is concerned in education, it has significant potential to address some of the complex challenges in education today. It would not be possible to address such challenges without technology. A judicious use of technology in education can accelerate efforts towards ensuring life-long equitable and inclusive learning opportunities for people. It should, however, be guided by the core principles of inclusive education to ensure equity in learning.
Unfortunately, the Covid pandemic has put us in peril in maintaining equity in education. During the protracted Covid pandemic, because of the closure of educational institutions the world over, many countries employed technology-based solutions to maintain the continuity of learning. A recent survey by UNESCO, UNICEF, the World Bank and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development on national responses of 143 countries to school closures because of Covid-19 showed that 96 per cent of the high-income countries provided remote learning through online platforms for at least one level of education compared with only 58 per cent of the low-income countries.
In the context of low-income countries, the majority of the countries reported using broadcast media such as television — 83 per cent — and radio — 85 per cent — to support the continuity of learning. In Bangladesh, keeping to a number of research reports, only 27 per cent of the total students at the secondary level could connect themselves to online classes. In 2020, according to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, only 5.6 per cent of the households had a home computer and only 37.6 per cent of the households had access to the internet at home. Students from the low- and lower-middle-income groups have been hit harder during the pandemic. The pandemic has harshly brought to the surface the digital divide in society that was not seen in ‘normal’ times.
Moreover, both the teachers and the learners were unprepared for the shift from the face-to-face to the online mode of education. So, they lacked the necessary skills and readiness for using digital devices for distance teaching and learning. Many learners lacked the necessary equipment, internet access, accessible materials, adapted content and support that would have allowed them to follow distance learning. Furthermore, the distance teaching, learning tools, programmes and content were not and still are not always able to reflect language diversity.
Proper policies are what prepares a community or a country to embrace language diversity in education to make it inclusive for all people. One of the key components of inclusive education is to introduce multilingual education based on the mother tongue of the country concerned. Multilingual education has gained a lot of momentum in the last 10–15 years. Multilingual education typically refers to ‘first-language-first’ education, that is, schooling that begins in the mother tongue and transitions to additional languages. Several studies suggest that multilingualism has a strong influence on children’s cognitive skills and helps them to perform better than children who speak only one language and, thus, have a limited vocabulary and poor academic outcomes overall. Multilingual education provides monolingual students with the opportunity to learn a second language and become polyglots.
A large body of research now shows that multilingualism helps people to develop various cognitive and social-linguistic skills throughout their lifespan. Multilingual children develop an understanding of grammatical rules and structures earlier than monolingual children do. Apart from language-related skills, learning to speak two or more languages helps people in developing other cognitive skills, such as in terems of attention, inhibition, confidence and faster auditory and visual processing.
We now live in a multilingual world where the English language serves as the lingua franca for education, trade and employment. Having English language skills is considered an essential skill for anyone who wants to succeed both academically professionally in the 21st century. The reality of a multilingual context leads to a multicultural society where languages overlap and collide.
Many researchers contend that the unbridled and unparalleled influence of English as a lingua franca endangers indigenous languages in many countries. However, a properly managed language policy can help to ensure that English can be taught effectively and incorporated into a society without harming the first language and the native culture and identity of the learners of English.
However, in addition to facilitating the development of English language skills, maintaining the skills of one’s first language is equally critical to retain the ability to maintain communications and relationships with one’s family and community. Multilingual education can help English-language learners to learn the English language while keeping their first-language skills and maintaining their ties to their families and communities.
Other neurological benefits are also available to multilingual people throughout their lives. For example, multilingual people are better at observing their surroundings. They can easily detect anything unusual or deceptive. They are also better than their monolingual peers at identifying misleading information, which is considered a fundamental skill in today’s age of data science. Some research also say that older people can slow down the onset of the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease better than their monolingual counterparts by developing the nessecary cognitive skills with the help of multilingual learning from an early age.
Therefore, to help to develop both academic and life skills, the ideal educational framework of a country should provide a varied language repertoire and an understanding of which languages people should learn for what purpose. This suggests a language policy that improves the quality of the curriculum, teaching and learning in national education, as well as a policy that helps to position the roles of multiple languages in a more positive context. Moreover, as we now live in the era of information and communication technology, a multilingual education policy should be underpinned by the integration of digital technology.
In today’s world, communities tend to be both multilingual and multicultural for a variety of reasons. Recognising the fact, all member-states of the United Nations observe and uphold the spirit of the language movement of Bangladesh globally for the sake of unity in linguistic diversity and cultural integrity.
SM Akramul Kabir is a researcher of language education policy and assistant professor of English at the Directorate of Secondary and Higher Education.