POWER OF LANGUAGE ETNOEDUCATIVE BILINGUE INGA , MOCOA, COLOMBIA

Language Arts / English

CONTENT

Language Arts / English

Linguistic diversity; Minority, and minoritized languages; Diglossia; Language contact; World’s languages in danger.

Character

Respect

Global Goal

Skill

Hypothesis, Questioning, Observation, Critical Thinking, Compare & Contrast

Age Group

14-15 Years / Grade 9

Learning Standards

McREL Grade 9: Understands influences on language use (e.g., political beliefs, positions of social power, culture)

 

 

Prerequisite

None

LEARNING GOAL & PURPOSE

This wonderful story from Etnoeducativa Bilingue Inga, Mocoa,  Colombia has brought to light a group of really thoughtful children from the ‘Inga’ community. These children have presented reflective thinking skills that are difficult to match up to by even grown-ups. These young superheroes perceived a loss of their ‘Inga’ culture and aspired to conserve their culture. In today’s day and age, when not many people care or even think about cultural preservation, these young minds developed a passion to do so. They mobilized their community to collaborate and found solutions to conserve the ‘Inga’ language and culture.

Lesson Plan

· Show the video and ask students to share what they feel about the video.

· Research into the linguistic diversity in your own school. How many languages are spoken? Have you ever thought about that?

· The teacher can have a session on minority and minoritized languages. What is the current situation in your country? Are they recognized by law? Write an expository essay.

· Diglossia is getting more common worldwide. Students can analyze what is going on in their own community.  Why does it happen? What do citizens think? Students can interview their neighbours and bring it to the classroom.

· Language contact is a social and linguistic phenomenon. The teacher can bring a well-known example —Spanglish or Hinglish—  and make students analyze its characteristics. What would students highlight? Why does it happen? What influence is English having today in other languages? Students can do research on loanwords in their mother tongue.

· Teacher can play Seyfeddinipur’s TED Talk on "Endangered languages: why it matters". How do students react to it? Did they know this reality? How would they feel if their mother tongue disappeared? A discussion can be carried out in order to generate solutions.

· UNESCO has published an Interactive Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger. The teacher can bring students to the IT classroom and ask them to do research. Do they know any of the languages which appear there? Did they know what was going on? Students can design solutions in order to avoid language death.