Innovation in Language Learning

This paper investigates the limitations of traditional language instruction related to often unclear objectives and priorities of national curriculums with regard to the accepted national language standard. These impact directly upon non-standard populations (migrants, refugees, ethnic minorities) and may hide other assumptions regarding assimilation and hierarchies of importance. Not only teaching methods, but also assessment techniques, teaching inputs and practice environments may reflect an academic or limited scope which fails to foster fluency and expressive comprehension because of hidden assumptions of the worth of other languages, vernacular or foreign.

Linguistic oppression is a structural process rather than solely an interpersonal communication issue. It operates at several levels simultaneously. It marshalls legal, bureaucratic, policy and educational dimensions to recognise official language(s) and to diminsh or even degrade indigenous languages which are historically often described as prmitive, inferior or merely dialects. This often reflects a profound and sustained process which combines formal legal sanctions for using marginalised languages to more subtle socio-cultural pressures designed to create feelings of subservience, inferiority or shame in users of these indigenous or non-standard languages. While this has happened throughout histories of conquest and domination, the paticular forms of control under consideration here apply to the processes of Europrean outreach and colonialism from the 16th century on. Colonial expansion was not a uniform process and significant national variations in contact, conquest, assimilation and control can be identified. These variations apply also to linguistic policy and recognition. 

Such oppression can be described by a number of common dimensions:

1. Linguistic hierarchy - some languages classified as “global,” “standard,” or “official,” while others are marginalized.

2. Standard-language ideology - one variety is treated as grammatically correct or intellectually superior

3. Epistemic exclusion - knowledge expressed in minoritized languages is ignored, untranslated, or excluded from academic systems.

4. Linguistic profiling - speakers may experience discrimination because of their accent, dialect, name, or language choice.

The roots of these dimesnions are reflected profoundly in the hiostory of European explorations, conquest and colonization over several centuries. This paper considers processes of decolonization regarding languiages and language teaching. Decolonization is not presented simply as a process of adding more languages to existing systems. It involves a deeper process of questioning who defines valid knowledge, correct language, literacy, intelligence, and associated technological progress. The role of anthropology and cultural investigation has played a noted part in providing an allegedly benign curiosity in regarding native cultures, absent of any contexts of control, domination and discrimination. The paper will investigate how current approaches based on plurilingualism can counter these trajectories of exclusion by promoting more diverse and mutally rewarding community learning environemnts that develop competence by enhancing learning from difference.  The paper will reference three specific examples that reflect the issues at stake: Irelnad, Algeria and Palestine. From his analytical framework several conclusions will be advanced that demonstrate alternatives that establish an alternative methodology that provides benefits for all language learners.

 

Keywords: Decolonization; linguistic oppression; linguistic justice; multilingualism; translanguaging; Indigenous languages; language revitalization; epistemic justice; linguistic equity; community inclusion and recognition