How do mother tongue teachers lead in language maintenance? Promoting positive attitudes to Daighi in Daighi classes

Author(s):

Chia-Ying Yang(presenting / submitting)

Conference:

ECER 2016

Network:

Emerging Researchers' Group (for presentation at Emerging Researchers' Conference)

Format:

Paper

Session Information

ERG SES C 06, Language and Education

Paper Session

Time:

2016-08-22

11:00-12:30

Room:

OB-E1.19

Chair:

Edwin Keiner

Contribution

Language attitude is one of the essential elements to maintaining a language (Bradley and Bradley, 2002). Alaskan languages are an example of how negative stigmas attached to these languages can lead to language loss (Dauenhauer and Dauenhauer, 1998; Galloway and Rose, 2015). Due to the reluctance to pass down Native languages to younger generations and the lack of desire from younger generations to learn and use these languages, 19 out of 20 languages are not being passed on and face extinction (Krauss, 2007). However, Welsh in Wales and Scottish Gaelic demonstrate a positive outcome in how the path of these threatened languages can be changed due to its speakers’ initiative movements and effort to promote positive attitude to the languages (O’Hanlon, 2015). These movements initiated the establishment of Celtic-medium education, regarding Welsh- and Scottish Gaelic-medium education, and such establishment made an impact on both parent’ and pupil’ decision in choosing Celtic-medium education. O’Hanlon (2015:251) listed four major rationales in choosing the Celtic-medium education, these are: heritage, the benefits of bilingualism, perceived quality of Celtic-medium education and employment. These qualities that the Celtic-medium education is attached to may promote positive attitudes to these languages, and in turn help the maintenance and development of them.

This research focuses on one of the indigenous languages in Taiwan, Daighi. Daighi may not have been in an as severe a linguistic condition as the Alaskan or Celtic languages at the outset of the maintenance effort, but Daighi speakers and learners do share similar negative attitudes. For instance, Daighi is a devalued language and is attached with negative characteristics such as ‘backwardness’ (Hubbs, 2013:83). In line with the implementation of the Ministry of Education’s Local-Language-in-Education policy in 2001, which dedicated to make indigenous languages one of the mandatory subjects in the first six years of the nine-year joint education, this research sets out to explore how Daighi Education is implemented in city centre primary schools. More specifically, the focus of this research draws on one of the objectives in the 2009 version of the National Curriculum: promoting positive attitudes to indigenous languages, which leads the study to centre on investigating how teacher leadership is in promoting positive attitudes to Daighi through classroom practices. To study these issues, the following research questions were formulated:

Key research question: How do teachers perceive their contribution to improving attitudes to Daighi through classroom practices?

How important do teachers perceive promoting positive attitudes to Daighi to be?
What are the methods Daighi teachers perceived to adopt and adapt in classes in order to promote positive language attitudes?
How much do classroom practices match teachers’ perceptions?

This paper takes the Wertsch (1991)’s sociocultural theoretical framework. In his view, ‘human action typically employs ‘mediational means’ such as tools and language, and that these mediational means shape the action in essential ways’ (Wertsch, 1991:12). Taking this view point, in my study, Daighi teachers’ teaching is regarded as a mediated action, where the mediational means can be teachers’ understanding of their role, attitudes to Daighi, as well as the materials they use, schools’ syllabus and anything else that may shape their teaching methods.

This study aims to take Daighi as an example to explore the importance of language attitudes in language maintenance. As this study is carried out in Scotland, I make comparisons and connection between Daighi and other European languages that face similar challenges. The findings will not only help clarify practical strategies, it can also be applied to a wider context to benefit the maintenance of the threatened languages worldwide.

Method

This study takes a qualitative approach, primarily using interviews as the main data collection means, classroom observation and textbook analysis are the secondary means. As the centre of this paper is to explore Daighi teachers’ perception of their contributions to Daighi maintenance and the promotion of students’ attitudes towards Daighi, interviewing is the main data collection method chosen to investigate such perception. The participating teachers are those either teaching 4th or 6th grader primary students for comparison purposes. I study 6th grader Daighi teachers because this is the last mandatory Daighi classes that students can have. Sixth grade classes are usually taught by supplementary teachers, who visit campus only to teach the language, whereas 4th grade Daighi classes and below are normally taught by home teachers, who teach all the subjects a 4th grader has to take. In addition, I am comparing Daighi teaching in two locations: Taipei City and Changhua City, with nine participating teachers in each city. I chose these two cities because the census of 2010 points out different predominate languages in the two places, with Taipei being Taiwanese Mandarin and Changhua being Daighi. Through interviews with Daighi teachers, I could identify potential answers to the first two sub research questions. However, to answer the key research question, I have to first explore what my third sub research question asks: to what extent does it match with actual practice? To answer this, I will observe one of each Daighi teachers’ classes for two weeks. I decided to observe classes more than one time because I want to include classroom norm as a factor in teacher’s teaching. If a class is relatively quiet teachers may have to use different methods to engage students compared to if students are highly active, where teachers may need to find ways to concentrate the class. This classroom norm may not be observed with a one time observation. I am also not observing classes more than twice, as it may shift my interview-oriented focus to observation. In addition, I will also analyse the textbooks used by teachers. The findings of the pilot study I conducted in 2015 suggest that teachers rely heavily on textbooks since this was how the school’s syllabus was designed. Depending heavily on textbooks may limit what teachers can teach outside the pre-designed activities.

Expected Outcomes

I conducted a pilot study in June 2015, and I will start my main data collection between February and May 2016. Even though I do not have main data at this stage, I will have it all collected and analysed by August 2016. The expected outcomes of my main study are based on the findings of my pilot study, which suggest that teachers are promoting students’ positive attitudes toward Daighi through improving their language ability in Daighi. In particular, they emphasize speaking and listening ability. They also aim to increase students’ vocabulary to enable them to use Daighi to express themselves. Moreover, as shown in my pilot study, Daighi input is still insufficient for students to effectively learn it. Therefore, in Daighi classes, those teachers are putting an effort to provide Daighi input. This is also expected to be observed in my main study. In addition, in order to provide a positive Daighi learning environment and to promote positive attitudes to Daighi, one potential method that I may found them using is to encourage students to actively use Daighi in classes, and provide positive feedback when students do so. Although teachers may report the difficulties in practicing Daighi education, given the time limitation and resources they were given, findings may show that teachers are putting a decent effort in improving students’ Daighi ability, as a mean to promote positive attitudes to Daighi. Such efforts and means can be regarded as a big step in maintaining or further developing Daighi.

References

Baker, C. (1992). Attitudes and language (Vol. 83). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters LTD. Bradley, D., and Bradley, Maya. (2002). Language endangerment and language maintenance. London: RoutledgeCurzon. Cenoz, J., and Gorter, Durk. (2015). Multilingual education: Between language learning and translanguaging Cambridge Cambridge University Press. Dauenhauer, N. M., and Dauenhauer, R. (1998). Technical, emotional, and ideological issues in reversing language shift: Examples from Southeast Alaska. In a. L. J. W. Lenore A. Grenoble (Ed.), Endangered languages: Language loss and community response (pp. 57-98). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Galloway, N., and Rose, H. (2015). Introducing global Englishes. Oxon: Routledge. Garrett, P., Coupland, N., and Williams, A. (2003). Investigating language attitudes: Social meanings of dialect, ethnicity and performance. Cardiff: University of Wales Press. Hubbs, E. (2013). Taiwan language-in-education policy: Social, cultural, and practical implications Arizona Working Papers in SLA & Teaching, 20, 76-95. Krauss, M. (2007). Native peoples and languages of Alaska. Fairbanks: University of Alaska Press. Kumaravadivelu, B. (2008). Understanding language teaching: From method to postmethod New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. O'Hanlon, F. (2015). Choice of Scottish Gaelic-medium and Welsh-medium education at the primary and secondary school stages: Parental and pupil perspectives. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 18(2), 242-259. Oskamp, S., and Schultz, P. Wesley. (2005). Attitudes and opinions (Third ed.). New York: Psychology Press Scott, M., and Tiun, H. K. (2007). Mandarin-only to Mandarin-Plus: Taiwan. Language Policy, 6, 53-72. Scrivener, J. (2005). Learning teaching: A guidebook for English language teachers. Oxford: Macmillan Education. Wertsch, J. V. (1991). Voices of the mind: A sociocultural approach to mediated action. Cambridge: Harvard University Press

Author Information

Chia-Ying Yang (presenting / submitting)

University of Edinburgh

Taipei

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