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Languages on life support - Globaltimes.cn
School is hard enough when you are a kid, but imagine if you did not even speak the language you are being taught in.
Preschool Bai kids study their mother tongue in a primary school in Jianchuan county, Yunnan Province, under a bilingual education project launched by SIL. Photo: Courtesy of Yang Jimin
School is hard enough when you are a kid, but imagine if you did not even speak the language you are being taught in. That is the case for millions of children in Yunnan Province, which boasts the greatest ethnic diversity in China, containing 25 of the country's 55 ethnic minority groups. While most kids speak their mother tongue at home, they often find themselves struggling in school, where classes are taught in Putonghua.
And under onslaught from both Putonghua and globalization, the native languages of the province are in danger of disappearing. But educators and linguists are trying to change the situation by introducing bilingual education in these areas, with the help of a foreign faith-based NGO.
The US-based SIL (Summer Institute of Linguistics), which works to study and document the world's smaller languages, has been cooperating with local authorities in Yunnan to conduct bilingual education among children since 2004 in Jianchuan county, where over 90 percent of the population are Bai people.
In 2010, they launched a 10-year zero barrier bilingual project in Jianchuan. A total of 71 students, from preschool to the second grade, from one primary school are involved in the project.
The idea is to teach kids to read and write in their mother tongue during the two years of preschool before introducing Putonghua. SIL specialists worked with local teachers to develop the curriculum for the kids. Materials are drawn from local communities, borrowing folk stories, cultural practices in that area and other things that kids are familiar with, said Keith Slater, associate director of academic affairs at SIL East Asia.
With the Bai project, SIL helped give an 18-month-training program to teachers, many of whom were not highly educated and lacked teaching experience. Teachers were also trained to give more active classes and encourage participation by the children.
There are no numbers yet from long-term large scale trial projects, as the effects of such education could take years to show, which also poses challenges for the wider application of such models, said Slater.
The Research Institute of Southwestern Minority Languages and Cultures in Guizhou University, an institute founded in cooperation with SIL, found that 60 percent of the students in their bilingual project among the Dong people in Guizhou finished junior middle school and attended senior middle school, much higher than the 10 percent seen in the past.
Feedback from the local partners and students is also positive. Yang Jimin, the project manager from the education bureau of Jianchuan, said the students showed significant improvement in their test results. The school used to rank at the bottom in the township, but now has moved up to the mid-level.
"We also found that kids who learned their mother tongue first are much better at learning Putonghua and show much better progress in cognitive development," said Yang.
Under threat
SIL has staff in seven provinces engaging in language research and publications. In 2011, it concluded a six-year Dai bilingual project in Jinghong, Yunnan, covering over 700 children in five schools. Similar projects have been also launched in Guizhou.
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