Comments on: Schooling challenges of multilingual children

By: KyKy

KyKy — Sat, 10 Nov 2018 12:40:32 +0000

A kid should always be taught in their mother tongue from the childhood. They can learn English or other languages later because there is no harm in learning other language but learning in mother tongue is a must. Personally, education should be in mother tongue including higher education and first language should be given top priority among learning other languages. It is apparent that learning in the mother tongue is easier than in other languages. Furthermore, familiarity with local language has strong social, economic and cultural value.

By: Blade

Blade — Tue, 09 Oct 2018 12:10:36 +0000

Everyone as a language learner understands the difficulties of learning a new language. However, the young children in the film even face more challenging problems. They have to learn their subjects in not only one but two languages that they are not familiar with (Nyanja and English). There is the similar situation in my country. I went on a volunteer trip to the highlands of Vietnam in summer of 2012 and taught Mathematics and English to the M’Lates children there for 2 weeks. I quickly found it really hard because they spoke Bahnaric language and could only speak a little Vietnamese. Nevertheless, despite all the barriers these brave children had to face, they were always eager to learn, which is really touching.

By: Nguyen Thien Duyen Ngo

Nguyen Thien Duyen Ngo — Tue, 09 Oct 2018 07:17:04 +0000

After reading this article, I feel so sad to know that the children cannot study their mother tongue at school which is their identity. My country also want pursue teaching English equally with mother tongue or even 100% of English at some school. By myself, I think it is not the good way. The children should be fluent in their mother tongue to understand about their own voice and identity before they study another foreign language.

By: Kim

Kim — Mon, 08 Oct 2018 02:06:02 +0000

Teaching and learning in such context, indeed, is challenging as both the teachers and the students are expected to perform well in the classroom within the constraints they might not be even prepared to encounter. This reminds me of the Hungarian-medium education that has quite similar problem of a lack of qualified teachers, ‘hidden curriculum’ and the students’ language background. These are among the phenomena that I, especially, and, perhaps, other English as a second or foreign language teachers need to take into account when teaching English to speakers of other languages especially in the initial stages of the students’ learning process that teachers are ought to go through certain key steps before teaching including good lesson planning, being familiar with the students’ languages and doing professional teacher training development continuously. In Indonesia for instance, some language teachers tend to force the content and ignore the students’ linguistic issues which, to some extent, may jeopardize the success of the teaching and learning process.

By: Rochelle

Rochelle — Sun, 07 Oct 2018 14:16:27 +0000

This article highlights the struggles and challenges of these multilingual children, it’s disheartening when you see the pictures in this article when the children tried to learn languages. No matter what situation or environment the children are in, I believe that it is the best to give the children the best facilities and resources that one could get in order to learn well. In the captions of the flim’s poster, “if you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.”, this represents a lot about what one should do to get a child to listen properly in life.

By: Mengyao APPL941

Mengyao APPL941 — Sat, 06 Oct 2018 10:13:43 +0000

This article has introduced a hard situation which Zambiya children faced remind my middle school learning experience. I’m a Chinese person, our official language should be Mandarin. But there are many different local languages in different areas. Actually, in my city, we use Sichuan dialect in education which is kind of language a little bit different from Mandarin. In my class, teaching language is Sichuan dialect instead of Mandarin. Not only in the class teachers used Sichuan dialect, but also students learned in Sichuan dialect. All of us talked in Sichuan dialect, Even it became the medium language on learning English.

By: Xinyue Ji

Xinyue Ji — Sat, 06 Oct 2018 06:09:10 +0000

I remember when I read Piller’s essay, the complex history of Szekelyland influence the languages of Hungarian and Romanian. Children in Szekelyland have rights to receive bilingual education but it’s difficult to achieve. I’m still shocked when I read this blog that more than 40% children cannot have education in their mother tongue. I can understand that the majority language is powerful and play a significant role in society but impeding teaching or learning in the mother tongue is a way to kill the language diversity. Moreover, Piller points out that children’s learning effects are low when they use unfamiliar languages. Fortunately, in China, the government encourages to protect various languages of different nationalities and children can obtain knowledge in both their dialect and mandarin.

By: AzPc

AzPc — Sat, 06 Oct 2018 00:12:10 +0000

Some of my friends who live in Malaysia told me that they went to school to learn all the subjects in Malay and their background are Chinese migrations. There are schools in Malaysia who have used both Chinese and Malay to teach their Children, but some parents believe that their children who went to the public schools which use Malay as their medium will have better education and more opportunities to socialize with the local community. therefore, they have been to school for more than 10 years without studying within their mother language.

By: Yan Yan

Yan Yan — Fri, 05 Oct 2018 15:29:49 +0000

This article reminds me of one of my students. I once had an internship experience in the first grade of a primary school. I have seen a student whose language environment is particularly complex. His parents are Chinese and Japanese, but his parents communicate in English, while his other frequent contacts — his grandmother who use Chinese. The student has a hard time communicating with his teacher and classmate at school because he often uses sentences in several languages. As the teacher’s language ability is limited in this school, the student is full of frustration when he cannot communicate with others. This frustration hindered the student’s study of other subjects.

By: Cami

Cami — Thu, 04 Oct 2018 23:32:18 +0000

This was a really eye-opening article. It really brought home the importance of studying language acquisition and also how important it is for policy-makers to work with linguists to help to create education that will allow children to acquire the education that they need. It is frightening to think that deliberate policy choices about the language of instruction can also play a part in stifling minorities and hinder particular children/races from being able to be equipped with the skills that they need.

By: XQX

XQX — Wed, 03 Oct 2018 10:30:36 +0000

The film in this article reflected a real appearance in the world. The mother language is essential for the children of a country which can record the native culture and the history in their own country. However, if school and parents do not pay attention to the issue of learning their own language, the culture of the country may gradually disappear by the next generation. For example, in China, more and more child and younger people are studying aboard, and English is the daily language for them. Therefore, the ability to use Chinese for those people may decrease as the time past. In a word, the balance of first language and the second language should be adjusted for individuals.

By: Sirin

Sirin — Tue, 02 Oct 2018 01:52:49 +0000

(Week 10) As portrayed in “Colours of the Alphabet”, the case of Soli is just one example of many other languages and dialects around the world that are not taught or considered within educational settings. As someone who has taught German as a foreign language in refugee classes with students from numerous different nationalities, I know the struggle of finding practical solutions to these cases as every student has personal needs and requirements.
Using English as a lingua franca is, in my opinion, an appropriate approach to teaching in heterogeneous classes similar to the one describe in the article, as equal access to learning can be facilitated through the use of a common language.

By: Piiigah (kamali)

Piiigah (kamali) — Mon, 01 Oct 2018 12:21:41 +0000

Its so sad to see people suffer from a lack of facilities and equipment to study and experience the world within learning new languages.
Its so hard to believe that they have to almost forget their mother tongue because its not acceptable in the academic world. On the other hand they have the opportunity to learn other languages – even if its by force.
In Iran, children learn English as a global language in guidance school – which is after their primary school. They learn the alphabet and some basic vocabulary and conversations. But they have an option to choose whether or not they want to continue learning English in high school.
In this particular topic which is mentioned in the article, children struggle a lot to learn a new language and study academic subjects within that language while using a completely different language at home and with friends.

By: Duong Khanh Vu

Duong Khanh Vu — Mon, 01 Oct 2018 05:51:15 +0000

In the wake of perusing the article and viewed the trailer, I am disheartened for the youngsters. Approaches of an administration can surely change one’s destiny throughout everyday life. There appear to be a fragmentary exertion and absence of long haul wanting to the circumstances and end results of strategy changes. Possibly it will be more astute to think about the necessities of these youngsters in their essential training and to guarantee that they get finish appreciation about what they realize by utilizing their native language as the dialect guidance.

By: Salam Moussa Oghli

Salam Moussa Oghli — Sat, 29 Sep 2018 04:43:45 +0000

A Soli-medium school is the most effective fulfilment of the national anthem. If Soli language revives, it will hopefully create an influential competitive atmosphere in this multilingual density and perhaps inspire the other 40% who don’t study in their minority language.

It is true that these children deserve a medal for attending classes with all the barriers they are facing.The teachers who teach for long hours under these challenging circumstances, however, are true heroes.

By: AN

AN — Fri, 28 Sep 2018 04:54:00 +0000

Learning a new language may be challenging enough, while learning it with the target language as the primary mode of instruction may be an overwhelming experience to some- as was depicted in this film (Colours of The Alphabet). The film reminds us of how sometimes as teachers it may be easy to forget how challenging learning can be for students (especially those who may have not access to resources within the target language), and of how as fortunate individuals who are able to afford an education in great schools and institutions (like Macquarie), we may sometimes take things for granted.

With reference to linguistic differences, some students in Malaysia face a similar situation – where students in a classroom may be of more than two ethnicities (Malay, Chinese, Indians and others). We are however given the option to study in schools that have Malay/ English (bilingual) mode of instruction, or of either Tamil or Mandarin as mode of instructions – in other words, parents are given the option to send their children to primary schools with either Malay/ English (both) or Tamil or Mandarin as primary language of instructions for the first six years of their (the children) education. After Grade 6, it is compulsory for students to learn in Malay/ English (bilingual), where students who were only exposed to Tamil or Mandarin previously may begin to struggle to cope at this stage. These students would be required to spend a year in classes called ‘Kelas Peralihan’ (or in English, ‘Remove’ class) which serve to facilitate the transition from primary to secondary schools (i.e. the ‘shift’ from Tamil or Mandarin to English/ Malay).

These situations further accentuate the challenges faced by students when only a certain language is prioritised in classrooms (especially if it is not their own) as was demonstrated in the classroom in rural Zambia. Students who are fortunate enough to know the language of instruction may find it easier to cope and follow the course of lessons, and progress further with their studies. Students who are less fortunate may either work hard enough to remain in par with the other students, or lose their footing along the way (some may not even progress further, with higher chances of dropping out from their study).

These situations therefore beg the questions of whether lessons should be conducted only in the target language in classrooms or along with the first language (native language) as modes of instruction. And also if teachers intended to teach in classrooms where students speak in different languages, should already know those languages (which may be helpful in times of distress – as was experienced by Edward in the film, whom the teacher was unable to assist due to the language barrier).

PS- Bahasa Malaysia (commonly referred to as ‘Malay’ language) is the national and official language of Malaysia, while English is taught as a second language. Tamil and Mandarin are not considered foreign languages, rather, recognised as languages of Malaysia.