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<p class=MsoNormal>Happy New Year 2008, which is the "International Year
of Languages"! *<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Whatever else might be accomplished during IYL, one modest proposal
I would like to put forward is that during this Year, there be an absolute
prohibition on beating, shaming or otherwise punishing children for speaking
their mother tongue at home or at school.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>All the rest is commentary.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Punishing children for speaking their mother tongue is not
new - one can read a lot about this of this sort of thing in biographical
accounts (formal and informal) from all over the world, and that is just the
tip of the iceberg. What is surprising is that it still continues even in
extreme forms. For example, I just received an email from someone in Tanzania
who mentioned teachers threatening young students with a beating if they spoke
their maternal language. Not long ago there was mention in an article of some
parents in Uganda beating their kids for speaking something other than English
at home. (Those are just two examples from one region.).<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Some people will justify some kind of punishment for
whatever reason (curriculum, language learning, etc.). The kind of punishment
is another issue (important but another issue). But the issue here is that if
learning is the object in an obviously multilingual setting, there are better
ways to achieve it than by condemning maternal languages as out of place and punishing
students who use them in the process f learning.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>This is not to say that language in a multilingual classroom
or community is not a complex issue, but that negative approaches to children's
first languages - which in some places go all the way to corporal punishment -
are negative approaches to learning and to various social factors in a child's
life.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Once the punishing of children for speaking their mother
tongue stops, then maybe some good thinking can go into what are the best ways
to promote learning overall, including in first and second languages.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>It should also become clear from a moratorium on punishing
children for speaking their mother tongue for the duration of IYL (all of 2008)
that the alternative to such punishment is not babel and ignorance. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>So can this practice be stopped, at least for just this one
year?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Don Osborn<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>* see the UNESCO page at http://tinyurl.com/2u2ewd<o:p></o:p></p>
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