A book by a UD academic director about multilingual education is now available in the principal language of Iran, a country that doesn\u27t permit multilingual education

University of Dayton. University Libraries

English

University of Dayton

University of Dayton eCommons University Libraries Blog Archive University Libraries 8-27-2018 A Case for Multilingual Education University of Dayton. University Libraries Follow this and additional works at: https://ecommons.udayton.edu/ul_blog eCommons Citation University of Dayton. University Libraries, "A Case for Multilingual Education" (2018). University Libraries Blog Archive. 182. https://ecommons.udayton.edu/ul_blog/182 This Blog is brought to you for free and open access by the University Libraries at eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in University Libraries Blog Archive by an authorized administrator of eCommons. For more information, please contact mschlangen1@udayton.edu, ecommons@udayton.edu. UD COVID-19 A-Z index | UD case dashboard | Report positive test or close contacts |CDC COVID-19 info  Blogs at UDUniversityLibraries BlogUniversityLibraries WebsiteMarian LibraryBlogBlogs at UD University of Dayton Libraries/ A Case for Multilingual Education/M OND A Y  A U G U S T  2 7 ,  20 1 8Get RSS FeedSubscribe toUD NewsletterUniversity LibrariesU N I V E R S I T Y  O FD A Y T O N  B L O G SB L O G S  D I R E C T O R Y N E W S C A L E N D A RL EA RN L EA D S ER V E A P P LY G M E N UA Case for MultilingualEducationA book about multilingual education by Amir Kalan,academic director of the UDayton Global pathway programfor international students at UD, is now available in theprincipal language of Iran, a country that doesn’t permitmultilingual education.The Farsi translation of the 2016 book Who’s Afraid ofMultilingual Education? became available Aug. 21 for freeon UD’s open-access institutional repository, eCommons;in less than one week, it was downloaded more than 600times from 30 countries. (An excerpt in English is availableon eCommons as well.)In the book, Kalan takes up the topic with some of theworld’s most prominent academic experts in linguistichuman rights, mother-tongue education, and bilingual andmultilingual education. His interviewees — Tove Skutnabb-Kangas, Jim Cummins, Ajit Mohanty and Stephen Bahry —provide evidence that mother tongue-based multilingualeducation has resulted in positive outcomes for thespeakers of non-dominant language groups and thecountry itself.With the permission of the book’s publisher, MultilingualMatters and Channel View Publications of Bristol, UnitedKingdom, Kalan commissioned the Farsi translation byHiwa Weisi, assistant professor in applied linguistics atRazi University in Kermanshah, Iran. Here, Kalan shares arationale for multilingual and mother-tongue education.A CASE FOR MULTILINGUAL EDUCATIONBy Amir KalanTeachers with e ective pedagogical practices alwaysconsider students’ backgrounds as an importantcomponent of the process of teaching and learning. Goodteaching never fails to see students’ diverse backgroundsincluding linguistic di erences.P R E V I O U SP O S TSummer ofGov: Water,Cybersecurityand Opioidsamong HottestTopicsRoeschLibrary, aFederalDepositoryLibrary since1969, addedstacks upongigabytes ofgovernmentpublicationsover thesummer. Hereare somehighlights.Read MoreN E X T  P O S THispanicHeritageMonth FilmSeriesThe Libraries'Diversity andInclusion Teampartners withWelcomeI have read many reports about how teachers usemultilingual pedagogies in the classroom and observedmany classrooms in di erent countries with di erentlanguages of instruction. E ective teachers know theyshould tap into students’ linguistic backgrounds (a) forrecognizing students’ identities and creating a healthyteacher-student relationship and (b) for using students’home languages as valuable sources of knowledge.Multilingual education is not an academic invention orexperiment; it’s a reality that every day manifests itself indi erent forms in classrooms all over the world.Governments can ban o cial mother tongue-basedmultilingual education, but they can never irradiate thenatural need for plurilingual pedagogies and mothertongue-based multilingual education.Instruction in students’ mother tongues can help studentsnegotiate their identities and foster a sense of belonging.If students’ mother tongues are denied in the classroom,and if we constantly send this message to the studentsthat their cultures are inferior, we cannot expect much interms of student success. Humiliation has never createdacademic growth. Therefore, as soon as we employmother tongue-based multilingual education, students willfeel welcome in educational settings and instead ofwrestling with identity crises fully take part in the processof learning.Similarly, students’ family and community members (inparticular those who don’t speak the dominant language)feel motivated to be proactively present in students’educational lives and share their experiences and nativeknowledge with them.At a national level, when diversity of languages andcultures is seen as a “valuable resource” rather than a“problem,” we will witness grassroots participation ofmore citizens—regardless of their backgrounds—inpolitical and decision-making processes. Also, if languagesare recognized, there could be enormous economic gainsDayton for thefourthconsecutiveyear to host a lm seriesthat features avariety ofperspectiveson Hispanicheritage.Read More1/2in culture and entertainment industries through music,literature, and performance arts.Last but not least, an attention to native languagesprevents the disappearance of knowledge andphilosophies that have been gained dearly over centuriesand that can provide answers for today’s problems suchas the environmental crises we are currently facingglobally.   People intuitively feel that the more you expose yourchildren to the dominant language (“language of power”),the sooner they will learn the language and the moresuccessful they will be in their future lives. This view oflanguage learning reduces language to a technique andlanguage learners to an identity-less machine that canreproduce the new languages you feed them as long asyou feed the machine long enough.E ective teachers, however, know that language teachingand learning is much more complex than this and includescomplicated forms of physiological and power-relationaldynamics. The psychological pain minoritized students feelcauses a sense of indignation in response to humiliationand discrimination because of power relations betweenthe speakers of dominant and minority languages. That iswhy a lot of students who are “intelligent” enough to learndominant languages (and hence the subjects taught inthose languages) decide not to do so as a form ofresistance and an expression of dignity.   Share    Topics Libraries Human Rights International Humanities andSocial Sciences LibrariesWhat's TrendingAptly 300 College Park Dayton, Ohio45469 937-229-1000CareersContactAcademicCalendarApplyVisitPowered byUD in the News April 8-14 Engineered for Students, byStudentsHistorian of Black Catholicnuns joins University of DaytonfacultyStudents courtside937 229 1000info@udayton.eduDirections    AlumniLibrariesP O R CHES P O L IC I ES R EP O R T  A  C ONC ERN P R IV A C Y  &  T ER M S NOND IS C R IM I NA T ION D IV ER S I T YRequestInfoGive

A Case for Multilingual Education

https://ecommons.udayton.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1181&context=ul_blog

A Case for Multilingual Education

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

University of Dayton