Bilingual education and orientation

One way of ensuring linguistic and cultural diversity and preventing languages from dying, is through bilingual education where minority languages are maintained, transmitted and preserved. However, there are various ways of practicing bilingual education depending on the attitudes towards bilingualism. In the following I will briefly present the main forms of bilingual education and then discuss how different attitudes towards bilingual education and competence affect the choice and implementation of these models.

41 3.1.1 Forms of bilingual education

Skutnabb-Kangas (2000/2008) identifies three forms of bilingual education: non-forms, weak forms and strong forms. The first form is often found in many former colonies where there is a preference for using the high status language of the colonizers as the language of instruction in schools. In this submersion or sink-or-swim model, the learners‘ low-status mother tongue is not being developed because the children are forbidden to speak it or are ashamed to do so, hence the imposed language is learned subtractively (Skutnabb-Kangas, 2000/2008). As opposed to this non-form of bilingual education, weak forms do include mother tongue instruction. Nevertheless, the mother tongue is not given any other value than merely instrumental, and as soon as the learners can function orally in the majority language, they are transferred to a majority language medium program (Skutnabb- Kangas, 2000/2008). The strong forms for bilingual education, so-called ―language maintenance‖ or ―language shelter‖ programs, are programs where learners voluntarily chose to be instructed in their own mother tongue and the majority language is being taught as a second language (Skutnabb- Kangas, 2000/2008). As opposed to the non-forms and weak forms, through the strong forms of bilingual education the majority language is learned additively, and not subtractively (Skutnabb- Kangas, 2000/2008).

3.1.2 Orientations in language planning

What type of bilingual education to apply depends on the state‘s orientation towards languages and their role in the society. According to Ruíz (1988), there are three forms of orientations in language planning. The first is the language-as-problem-orientation where multilingualism is a societal problem and bilinguals are associated with poverty and social disadvantages (Ruíz, 1988). This has especially been apparent in the US where bilingualism coincided with social problems among the non-English speaking population. To remove the handicap of the language minorities, English was the only language they were taught in school, often at the expense of their own first language (Ruíz, 1988). Such transitional bilingual education is regarded by Skutnabb-Kangas as a non-form of bilingual education inasmuch as where the majority language is learned subtractively. Bilingual education was for the poor and disadvantaged and the goal was to learn the majority language to keep up with their peers (Ruíz, 1988).

There is a different approach to bilingualism, where the minority groups are not being passively assimilated in the majority language, but instead are asserting their right to learn, protect and

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advocates for the right to bilingual education and the use of indigenous languages in the educational sector. Mother tongue instruction both attends to the cognitive development of children, the

preservation and transition of the knowledge the languages contain, and recognizes the value of diversity. In the program for the Decade of Education for Sustainability, UNESCO (n. d.) argues that

(a) key aspect of diversity is respect for indigenous and other forms of traditional knowledge, the use of indigenous languages in education, and the integration of indigenous worldviews and perspectives on sustainability into education programmes at all levels.

Still, such statements are no more than advisory and it is up to each state to decide whether they would like to include the guidelines in their own language policies or not.

International declarations, however, are legally binding for countries that have chosen to ratify them. Nonetheless, human rights declarations have historically said little about language rights and generally only set minimal limits on language policies (Patten & Kymlicka, 2003). Even though the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Man contains important statements on language-based discrimination and protection of minority groups (Ruiz, 1988), it does not say anything about language rights in the States that have ratified the declaration (Patten & Kymlicka, 2003). Today there is progress when it comes to linguistic rights for indigenous peoples. In September 2007 a new UN declaration was launched, namely the ―United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples‖ (DRIP). DRIP grants indigenous peoples the right to develop and transmit their culture to the next generations and gives them the right to start their own schools in their own language or to have access to education in their own language (UNHCHR, 2007, Art. 13 and 14). As a contrast to advisory declarations on indigenous peoples‘ linguistic rights, this new declaration is more concrete and demands the states to ―(i)n conjunction with indigenous peoples, (…) take effective measures to recognize and protect the exercise of these rights‖ (UNHCHR, 2007, Art. 31, my emphasis). The states that have ratified this declaration have to actively make sure that the linguistic rights of the indigenous peoples in their country are being fulfilled.

According to Patten and Kymlicka (2003) a language-as-rights approach may lead to confrontations between minority and majority groups, as language rights are often part of a larger program of sub- state nationalism and a step towards multinational states, which is what the dominant groups

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typically want to avoid. Therefore, Ruíz (1988) asserts a third orientation, namely the language-as- resource orientation, which focuses less on confrontations and more on dialogue. Globalization and increased contact and commerce between countries have led to an increased demand for plurilingual populations and foreign language studies; however, the language capacity already existing within countries with linguistic minorities is often forgotten. Hence, an important aspect of the resource orientation is language conservation, and Ruíz (1988: 16) calls for a stronger awareness about the language resources that are being destroyed due to the repression of the bilinguals by pinpointing that ―the irony of this situation is that language communities have become valuable to the larger society in precisely that skill which the school has worked so hard to eradicate in them!‖

Moreover, the growing awareness of the importance of linguistic and cultural diversity in order to ensure biodiversity also fits within the language-as-resource approach. In the world today there are 228 countries and 6806 different spoken languages (Skutnabb-Kangas, Maffi & Harmon, 2003). Consequently, in just a few of these states do all the citizens share the same mother tongue or even belong to the same ethno-national group (Kymlicka, 1995). Thus, diversity is the norm and not the exception. Languages are not merely means of communication, like some researcher might

advocate (Ruíz, 1988). We need the diversity of languages, not a common interlanguage, for the reason that languages are containers of knowledge. The catastrophic neglect of the environment by the Western world has led to challenges we are not capable of solving by ourselves. Instead, we need the ecological knowledge of the indigenous peoples (Linden, 1991). The indigenous peoples are dependent on nature for survival and to cover their cultural and spiritual needs. For generations they have developed profound knowledge about the local ecosystems, adapted to them and learned to exploit them in a sustainable way (Skutnabb-Kangas et al., 2003). Thus, every language contains a specialized vocabulary giving the solutions to the challenges different peoples meet in their unique ecological niches (Linden, 1991).

Ruíz (1988) argues that language-planning efforts that regard the languages as resources to be managed, developed and conserved will regard language-minority communities as sources of expertise, and no longer the source of a problem. Important ecological knowledge will therefore die if the language dies, and language maintenance is thus a prerequisite for preservation of biodiversity (Patten & Kymlicka, 2003). Language preservation is not only dependent on research and

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knowledge centers, but also the possibilities to use and develop the language through a traditional lifestyle (Skutnabb-Kangas et al., 2003), something which is difficult to obtain in the urban areas. Instead, an increasing migration from the rural areas to the cities has brought about new challenges for the indigenous communities, and in the following section I will discuss how urbanization may affect the indigenous identity, lifestyle and language.