What teachers think about multilinguism
Today I’ve done a little lecture (about 15 minutes) at the ICE of the University of Zaragoza (Aragon, Spain). It was an experience to show how future teachers of high schools can make a class.
I’ve made a resume about the language diversity, the number of languages that are spoken and the number that will die, the UNESCO’s recommendations, and the results of an interesting study: the National Geographic Enduring Voices Project (conducted in collaboration with the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages). I think that it’s the best way to show them how big the problem is in few words an with an useful view.
Finally, and it’s the matter I wanted to comment with you, they’ve done groups to discuss different ways and ideas to stop the massive extinction of languages. It has been so interesting, so I write down here some ideas they have thought.
- We can do nothing, its impossible to look after all the languages of the world.
- Governments should protect and promote endangered languages.
- People should learn and speak more than one or two languages.
- It’s very important to record and film all those languages near the extinction.
Well, despite of the fact that the first one is not my best option (and neither the majority option) it’s a thought very assumed in our society. The last idea is also possible but then, there is the problem of what can we do with all of the recordings… Finally, the second one and the next options are the more difficult to work in but all of them realize it was the best. I agree with them and, because of this little workshop, I understand that it’s necessary to expose this subject to future teachers if we want to make a different world starting by high school students.
