International Mother Language Day 2015 Celebrations

UNESCO declared 21 February as International Mother Language Day (IMLD) and since 2000, it has been observed throughout the world.  21 February is the anniversary of a most memorable day in Bangladesh’s history; it is a national day to commemorate protests and sacrifices to protect Bangla (Bengali) as a national language during the Bengali Language Movement of 1952. Bangladesh used to be Eastern Pakistan. When the Pakistan government declared Urdu as the sole national language in 1948, disregarding Bangla which was the language of the majority, protests were undertaken throughout the Bengali-speaking population.  On 21 February 1952, students at the University of Dhaka (which was like the UP of Eastern Pakistan) organized a protest which resulted with the police opening fire and the consequent deaths of four students. Later, after a series of strife and tension, in 1971, that part of Pakistan obtained its independence and became what we now know as Bangladesh.  In early 1999, two Bangladeshi members of an organization called “Mother Language Lovers of the World” in Canada proposed the UNESCO to declare 21st February as an International Mother Language Day.  This enabled UNESCO to adopt the historic resolution in the long run.

In the Resolution 12 of UNESCO's 30th General Conference 1999, it states…recognizing the need to improve understanding and communication among peoples….Also recognizing the great importance of safeguarding the linguistic and cultural heritage of humanity and extending the influence of each of the cultures and languages of which that heritage is composed...Considering the current threat to linguistic diversity posed by the globalization of communication and the tendency to use a single language, at the risk of marginalizing the other major languages of the world, or even of causing the lesser-used languages, including regional languages, to disappear…

The Resolution recommends that Member States:

(a)  create the conditions for a social, intellectual and media environment of an international character which is conducive to linguistic pluralism;

(b)  promote, through multilingual education, democratic access to knowledge for all citizens, whatever their mother tongue, and build linguistic pluralism

DepEd Memo on IMLD celebrationhttp://www.deped.gov.ph/.../files/memo/2011/DM_s2011_019.pdf

We are holding a modest celebration of IMLD at the College of Education, UP, Diliman.

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• Australia - The Research Centre for Languages and Cultures and the University of South Australia and the South Australian Government’s Multicultural Education Committee are jointly hosting an event in observance of  IMLD 2015. The public lecture will be about the nature of the problems in contemporary language politics and in attempting to formulate new directions for a politics of language in a notion of Linguistic Citizenship that addresses issues of social, economic and political injustice for marginalized populations of minority or non-dominant language speakers. Please find all information, including how to register in the attached flyer.
• Pakistan – Institute for Education and Development is planning to have a seminar in Peshawar Pakistan on Feb 21 regarding the languages spoken in this part of Pakistan.
• U.S.A –Language and Peacebuilding symposium in Washington, DC. How do issues of language, language complexity, and communication play out in peace-building efforts and ongoing security? How can language issues be identified and addressed effectively in policy planning and execution? Drawing on relevant scholarship and experience, these questions will be addressed through a combination of keynote address and a lively panel discussion. For further information and registration please check: http://www.allianceforpeacebuilding.org/event/2015/02/language-policy-and-peacebuilding/ 
• Kenya - The MLE Network of Kenya is holding an event at the University of Nairobi which will include a panel discussion with Kenyan academics and language experts.
• Congo - SIL and Shalom University of Bunia will be holding two half-day conferences on February 20th and 21st. Activities will include presentations from eleven researchers involved with the region’s languages as well as speeches from academics and the public officials about the value of the mother tongue. The event will be featured on local radio stations. 
• Canada – Punjabi Language Teachers Association of Canada will organize an event to share information about the continuous efforts to have Punjabi language education British Columbia’s public schools, colleges and universities. Please see attached file for further information.
• Nepal - Nepal Academy and UNESCO Office in Kathmandu will organize 2 days (20-21 February) event to celebrate upcoming IMLD. The celebration will be joined by Ministry of Education, Tribhuvan University and civil society organizations in Nepal. The event will include presentations on language situation in Nepal, MTB MLE policy and practices, role of UNESCO in promoting MLE, creative writings in mother tongues and other MLE- related initiatives
• Turkey – There will be an “International Conference on Multilingual Education and Development, Focus on Turkey” on 19 February 2015 in Antalya, Turkey. Please check the conference website: http://amuseturk2015.org/ for more information.
• New Zealand – Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages Aotearoa New Zealand (TESOLANZ) is running IMLD Campaign “Say Hi on Mother Tongue Day!” Greet your whānau, friends, colleagues and neighbours in their mother tongue to celebrate International Mother Language Day. Phone, send an email, text, or call over the back fence to say ‘Hi’ in their mother tongue. Please see attached poster for your information.
• Uganda -  As part of its local language education promotion in remote communities, Ugandan NGO Literacy and Adult Basic Education (LABE) will mark International Mother Language Day in each of the 6 post-conflict districts in Northern Uganda where it works.  Activities will include dissemination of a newly developed Kakwa language orthography in Koboko District, community-level reading and storytelling competitions in the other districts and producing a supplement in the Luo language newspaper highlighting this year’s Theme.

IMLD 2015 Infographic

Message from Ms Irina Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO, on the occasion of International Mother Language Day, 21 February 2015

Inclusive Education through and with Language -- Language Matters

2015 marks the 15th anniversary of International Mother Language Day – this is also a turning point year for the international community, as the deadline for the Millennium Development Goals, when countries will define a new global sustainable development agenda.

The focus for the post-2015 agenda must fall on the priority of advancing quality education for all -- widening access, ensuring equality and inclusiveness, and promoting education for global citizenship and sustainable development. Education in the mother language is an essential part of achieving these goals -- to facilitate learning and to bolster skills in reading, writing and mathematics. Taking this forward requires a sharper focus on teaching training, revisions of academic programmes and the creation of suitable learning environments.

UNESCO takes forward these goals across the world. In Latin America, with the United Nations Children's Fund, UNESCO is promoting inclusive education through bilingual intercultural approaches, in order to include both native and non-native cultures. For the same reasons, the UNESCO Regional Bureau for Education in Asia and the Pacific, based in Bangkok, Thailand, is working to deepen understandings of multilingual education based on the mother tongue, across the region and further afield. Mother tongue education is force for quality learning – it is also essential to bolster multilingualism and respect for linguistic and cultural diversity in societies that are transforming quickly.

Since 2000, there has been tremendous progress to reach the goals of Education for All. Today, we must look ahead – to complete unfinished business and to tackle new challenges. International Mother Language Day is a moment for all of us to raise the flag for the importance of mother tongue to all educational efforts, to enhance the quality of learning and to reach the unreached. Every girl and boy, every woman and man must have the tools to participate fully in the lives of their societies – this is a basic human right and it is a force for the sustainability of all development.

 

Honoring Madam Norma Duguiang, lead MTBMLE pioneer and advocate from Lubuagan

Norma Duguiang in her classroom

We learned the sad news that Madam Norma Odiem Duguiang joined her Maker last Dec 24, 2014 due to heart attack.. She's the hardy teacher of Lubuagan Central Elementary School who along with other fellow teachers advocated for MTBMLE long before it became a policy. She spoke in the Congress during a deliberation on a language and education policy. She was also one of the resource persons who equipped the first sets of national MTBMLE teacher trainers of the Department of Education. 

In 2009-2010, I would bring my graduate class to her hometown to observe the MLE classes in Lubuagan Central Elementary School and Mabilong Elementary School. 

Madam Norma would open her home to us. It's actually the ancestral house of the Odiems, a traditional three level wooden structure with so many spacious rooms.  She would tell us stories behind the Kalinga artifacts that are displayed all over their place. She would point to the large pots saying that their women would  use them to draw water from the river. The beautiful multicolored beads that adorned their necks were made of expensive ceramic material. They would make replicas out of recycled plastic material.

Our favorite topic, of course, was the issue of language. She would express her sadness about how their young are forgetting some Lilubuagen words.  “I am sad that the young people today do not know original Lilubuagen words like how we call the anahaw leaf which is alaaw. They have also forgotten the names of some indigenous kitchen utensils since they have come to prefer those plastic wares.”   

My EDFD 221 students at Madam Norma's house

Madam Norma would remember the challenge of learning in an unfamiliar language. She  would refer to the time in the 1960s when the vernacular was supposed to be the medium of instruction. Since their teachers were Ilocano, they were forced to learn to read and write in their teachers’ language. That time nobody from Lubuagan was educated enough to be a school teacher. At least Ilocano was then the trade language and so they could get by. 

Lubuagan beads

MTBMLE Class at Lubuagan Central Elem Scl

MTBMLE board work in 2009

The most difficult moment was when the bilingual policy was imposed in 1974. Madam Norma was in the middle of her social studies class when her supervisor came. She was asked to immediately switch from English to Tagalog. A stack of paper was placed on her lap detailing the new policy requirement to use Tagalog in teaching Social Studies. At that time Tagalog was totally alien in most places in the Philippines. Tagalog was not yet widely used in radio or TV. Besides, there was no electricity yet in Lubuagan.  Teaching became burdensome and unnatural because she had to consult a Tagalog-English dictionary so often. 

And so the prospect of using Lilubuagen in school was something that was warmly welcomed. Using the local language has improved the performance of the school. Their ranking moved from the bottom to the top in their in the whole division of Kalinga. In a feature story on TV by Howie Severino, it was found that Lubuagan pupils even outperformed the pupils of Caloocan City, Metro Manila.

Thank you Madam Norma for opening your home to us, for showing us the reasons why our language and culture are worth remembering...

Ched Arzadon

To cite:

Arzadon, C. (2015, January 6). Honoring Madam Norma Duguiang, an MTBMLE pioneer and advocate from Lubuagan. Retrieved from http://mothertongue-based.blogspot.com/2015/01/honoring-madam-norma-duguiang-mtbmle.html