Social & Cultural Contexts Artifact #1:

Problem-Based Paper

 

Course:    Special Topics in Education (CALL)             

Date:             Fall 2013                             Instructor:         Dr. Allyson Eamer

 

 

 

About the artifact:

 

This paper explores the lack of Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) resources for minority languages. Specifically, it explores the challenges faced by language learners when their community does not support their language. It looks at how CALL resources can be used to help salvage, save and give new life to languages and, consequently, a culture.

 

Reflection

 

This paper represents social and cultural contexts in two ways. Firstly, it allowed me to reflect on my own challenges in language learning. In this way I had another opportunity to explore how my identity is tied in with my own learning. Secondly, it represents social and cultural contexts in the content of the paper. In this paper I explored the way in which language, identity and culture are intertwined.

 

My own personal learning stemmed from reflecting on my culture and heritage. One of my main motivations for taking this course was to explore new CALL resources I could use to improve my own language learning. In writing this assignment I was able to carefully consider why I felt learning the Estonian language, that according to some “has no real usefulness”, was so important for me to learn, and why I had struggled. I was able to return to a topic I had written about in an earlier course, my identity, and tease out more about how I connect my identity to language. This is my context for learning. Personally, I am driven to learn the language by my desire to have a sense of belonging within a community. The command of language validates my belonging. In learning to speak I see myself gaining entrance in a deeper subset of the community and becoming more whole.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One key area of learning for me in the course was about the connection between language and identity. I learned from the course that, language, more than any other single human creation, is the living artifact of a culture. Constructed over successive  generations, it embodies the cumulative memory of a people's beliefs and knowledge, their stories, their names for things, the conventions that they use to tell each other about the world. (Slater, 2004). Understanding the connection between language and culture was critical for me. Previously in my M.Ed and other education I came to understand that what and how we learn is related to our culture and our society. Early on, in Principles of Learning in fact, I aligned myself with the socio-constructivist theory in which learners negotiate their social environment and construct knowledge based on these experiences.  This concept, I feel, is still at play when it comes to language. In this paper I focus primarily on minority language and the risk of language loss. I was very interested to learn that learners are most successful when they are educated in their mother tongue. Writing that statement seems obvious but, in many places in the world, Canada included, our “mother tongue” may not, in fact, be the language of education. Our system therefore advantages those who do speak (Canadian) English –or French- as their first language. While students may be born here in Canada, and not seen as English Language Learners, they may still find their home language differs from school, which puts them at a disadvantage. This course, and my learning in it, was very influenced by my class Understanding Social and Cultural Contexts of Education as well as my additional qualification course in English as a Second Language and my experience teaching in Korea. I started to seriously consider our language instruction in school. One thing I address in this paper is the idea of teaching Native languages. This was inspired by South African and Californian initiatives currently taking place. I started to reflect on our Canadian identity and our connection, or lack thereof, to our Native Canadian heritage. Many of these languages are at risk. When these languages die, so too does the knowledge and culture embedded within that language. Our country is still young and is still in the process of developing a national identity, it would be very interesting to connect to our routes with First Nations.

 

This was another key insight for me. In completing this assignment I read a lot about endangered languages. I was very shocked at the rate at which these language vanish. I was even more shocked to read that Ostler (2001), believes in just a few generations the world will all speak English or Mandarin. I recently just came across a National Georgraphic article on this same topic. Click here to read it. Some scholars rejoice in the concept of a global language because they believe it will make communication, and thus connection, easier. However, through my learning in this program I have to agree with Ostler. The possible loss of language diversity threatens who we are as individual cultures and this also threatens our sense of identity. It leaves people rootless, abandoned and cheated of their heritage (Ostler, 2001). This course and assignment made me believe that language loss is a social injustice. Our language is embedded with our culture and with knowledge. Not everything gets communicated when translated. Just look at all the versions of the Bible or Anna Karenina. Different scholars says things differently. In different cultures they differentiate between different types of snow or rain. When we lose a language part of the culture dies too. This is directly related to the idea of cultural contexts for learning. Language learning is culture learning.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This artifact could also fit under the heading Digital Literacies. This is because it looks at the use of both CALL and mobile assisted language learning (MALL) technologies. I was able to apply my learning about the affordances and constraints of different technologies to recommend appropriate digital learning environments to save languages and facilitate more effective language learning. Had it not been for my education in this area I know my recommendations would not be as sound.

 

 

 Additionally another “context” for my learning here was about power. Specifically, the power of business. Language learning, especially CALL, is big business. It relates to the world of business, of travel and tourism, leisure, etc. Companies will only invest time into creating effective technology for languages that will generate revenue, and those languages are the ones used most widely. It is not about language preservation, it is about money. So language learning is impacted by our social structure and capitalist society.