In this study, we used ethnographic methods to investigate the development of digital literacy on a group of Atayal (one of the indigenous ethnic groups in Taiwan) students. Their heritage language, Atayal, was traditionally a spoken language and its written form was not formally Romanized until recently. Considering the Mandarin Chinese is the dominant language in Taiwan’s society, we were interested in how digital literacy of the indigenous students in an elementary school influenced their learning of heritage language, Atayal. As participant observers, we stayed in an Atayal elementary school as well as its two associated villages in the mid mountain area in Taiwan for 12 months. Qualitative data including interviews, field notes, video and audio captures, and researchers’ journals were collected and transcribed for analyses.

Our trivial finding shows that accessing digital mediums such as laptops and smart phones has the potential of promoting students’ literacy about the world and themselves. However, without appropriate digital contents that are presented via written Atayal, students can only surf the digital world using the mainstream languages (c.f. Mandarin and English). Under such circumstances, Atayal students may feel their mother tongue less-useful. In terms of classroom instruction, the course material and learning activity of Atayal language remained traditional. Atayal language instructors expect students to learn Atayal historical and cultural heritages in the class sessions. On the one side, this course objective is very important. On the other, this objective limits the possibility for the students to develop their Atayal literacy through understanding the current society they are living. However, we found that students and their parents applied the strategy of innovating “interlanguages” to incorporate some common Atayal dialogues at social network websites. This observation sheds lights on how aboriginal instructors as well as tribal community leaders may digitally promote mother tongues. Eventually, We suggest that the development of traditional cultures of the indigenous people, such as Atayals, of their traditional language requires not only the development of educational texts like the textbooks, but textual materials in laptop or smart-phones to be used in daily life would be better available for the Atayals.