Ladies and gentlemen good afternoon My name is George Lopez and I have the great privilege of serving as the vice president here at USIP for the Academy for International Conflict Management and Peace Building the academy Traditionally has been the teaching and training and education wing of USIP We've undergone a recent strategic plan in which we told our colleagues. We don't like being a wing We want to be central to the heart blood So now our new self-description and language is we want to be at the heart blood and heartbeat of what goes on and some of The more intractable disputes that demand training Education and various other kinds of discussion One of the reasons we're so delighted to be here with SIL our Friends at Alliance for Peace Building and the Center for Applied Linguistics as we think this issue is one that's at the heart of tough training Association education and building a world of greater peace so on behalf of all of us associated with the United States Institute of Peace We welcome you and we're delighted to be your hosts before I turn it over to Melanie for her opening Let me do a couple of logistics If you have one of those beeping devices in your pocketbook or on your person Be good to turn it off to silent mode if you would It'd be good not to have you being paged for an international crisis resolution during a very important moment of presentation You see the schedule We'll have a break a little later down the road about half time of our day after the first exciting panel But if you need to leave for a moment There are exits here at the bottom which goes to your right quickly and brings you out at a different wing But it brings you out on the way to restrooms and particularly in the back You would go and go around the stairway which you came down and restrooms are around behind that stairway If you have other needs we have some folks at the back who can help you if you'd like but again welcome here We love doing events in this building in this room And it's a great to have a collection of you who may not have before visited the United States Institute of Peace Now I'd like to introduce our friend and colleague the president and CEO of the Alliance for Peace Building Probably one of the greatest forces in this town for networking for creativity for doing great studies that keeps the peace building theme alive Melanie Greenberg President and CEO of the Alliance Well, thank you George and thanks to all of you It is such a great honor to be here and to co-sponsor this very creative and integrated conference I want to thank SIL International the Center for Applied Linguistics and USIP and it's been such a wonderful Collaboration already just thinking about the conference and very much look forward to hearing all of your views and what comes out today The Alliance for Peace Building is a membership organization of more than 80 peace building organizations Over a thousand professionals and 15,000 people in our network and on our mailing list So I encourage all of you who have an interest in peace and language to join either as an organization or as members so we can continue this conversation So why is the conference being held today on February 21st? Today, I'm sure most of you in this room realize I actually hadn't until we started planning the conference that today is the United Nations International Mother Language Day and the International Mother Language Day annually celebrates language and cultural diversity worldwide on International Mother Language Day UNESCO and other UN agencies encourage events that promote linguistic and cultural diversity While also encouraging people to maintain knowledge of their mother language or mother tongue Mother tongue education is promoted as is the use of more than one language and International Mother Language Day was born out of the remembrance of four university students who died on February 21st 1952 as They campaigned to officially use their own mother language Bengali in Bangladesh So today's conference on language peace and security Explores the role of language both as a means of communication as an expression of identity of Vital consideration for any serious discussion of peace and security as I know all of you have experienced in your own peace building work The roundtable today will look at the overlooked linguistic and educational dimensions of a complex peace building process in Asia We'll address the importance of ensuring linguistic human rights through educational policy and practices that value and promote linguistic diversity We'll consider a language Policy and education and how it might serve to exacerbate or to mitigate violence We'll think about how the careful consideration of language and communications in discussions of peace and security lead to real real solutions to conflict and how do issues of language and language and complexity Play out in peace building efforts and ongoing security I come to these issues very much not only from professional experience from personal experience That in my journey as a peace builder I started as an exchange student in high school through the experiment in international living and part of the training at that time was two weeks in a New England town where you looked at Very holistically at language and culture and how they come together those immersive language But also thinking about how you read the subtler linguistic signs and cultural signs of people Not always in conflict, but in cultures other than our own I was hooked at that point at seeing the connections between culture and language and went on to be a comparative literature major in college very interested in questions of narrative how people tell stories and Then as I went through law school and entered the field of peace building One of my first experiences in a citizen level track to or track one and a half diplomacy Was in the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh where Armenia Azerbaijan and the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh? Citizens came together to think about a more peaceful future moving forward So the language is being used in the room were Armenian the Armenians and many in Nagorno-Karabakh Azerbaijani from refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh and the Azerbaijanis Russian which at that time was the lingua franca for the aris of brianese and Armenians and English Which is the language of the facilitators and people putting on this piece helping organize this peace process And so seeing when people use these languages was fascinating Because each group on its own would speak with its own groups and their own languages But then each side would be upset at the other because they didn't understand what was being whispered They could speak together in russian But russian was really tainted in many ways because this was the first couple of years after the breakup of the soviet union Where they were bound together by this language, but no longer by the ideas of this of this empire And it actually came to a head when the Armenians asked the Azerbaijanis for an apology for the Turkish genocide and The Azerbaijanis said but we're not Turkish our language is Turkic We are not Turkish and this is a whole other long story But in the end the Armenians recognized kind of the pain The Azerbaijanis recognized the pain the Armenians had gone through but it was an area where language played such a key role And then also the problematic issue of English as being the peace building language and what it meant for these groups Be working in a kind of Western peace building framework So as I come to the conference today Those conversations are really ringing in my ears And I know that all of you will bring your own experiences to the round table today I don't want to thank you all again for coming and to turn the floor back over to George for our first panel. Thank you Melody, thank you for getting us off to such a smart start. Thank you if I had invite our First set of panel presenters We have a day that's Just so smartly divided between keynote presentations in this first set of panels and then a grassroots panel as it's called The panel this afternoon will be moderated by my colleague Peter Weinberger This afternoon we have the privilege as you'll see from the bios in your in your program of Some people who've been spending most of their life on some of these key questions We're not going to give long introductions to anyone but say that our our beginning presentation is a joint presentation by Patrice of Friedrich and Terence Wiley followed by a presentation by Zina Zakaria and then the concluding presentation by Dr. So Lee Lie, excuse me. I think if our timing goes well here What we can do is do the do the three presentations together I'll share very briefly some some observations, but we really would like some audience participation and Q&A after that So thank you very much for your participation as listeners at the start. I turn the Presentation over to our first two good presenters Thank you. I Want to thank the the Institute SIL and also the Alliance for Cosponsoring this event with us at the Center for Applied Language We have a long history of working on issues of trying to improve Communication through language learning and better understanding of culture. So this event really resonates with the work that we do I'm also here in in the sense that I've spent a lot of my academic career working on issues related to language rights language policies and the history of some of the Both tolerance and intolerance that we find Around the world in and even in this country. I'm just curious This doesn't necessarily look like an audience of sports fans, but I'm sure there's some out there I heard someone asking about the hockey game a little while ago How many of you saw the commercial during the Super Bowl that was the Coca-Cola ad? right and You noted the reaction that occurred the next day in the United States which prides itself in terms of celebrating freedom That so many people seem to be offended by the fact that America the beautiful might be sung in languages other than English and so We don't have to look too far even around Our own country to find that linguistic intolerance is something fairly deeply ingrained Now as was just mentioned This this day actually commemorates a tragic event that occurred in East Pakistan Before it was separated into Bangladesh. In fact the event helped to trigger the founding of Bangladesh One of the common Ideologies that's very popular in not only this country, but you can go to France or you can go to other countries And there's a strong belief that's deeply ingrained in many people that to have a nation that you need only one language and That in fact one language promotes national unity in the case of East Pakistan and the imposition of Urdu there It was a demonstration of the fact that when you don't acknowledge languages that are in the population and spoken Widely in the population that promoting only one language can in fact trigger Violence we also know that there are places where a common language is spoken and yet the countries are torn apart For how many years were there problems in Northern Ireland where English was widely spoken even though? I wish existed as a minority language that was over primarily religious conflict But a common language doesn't always guarantee in fact that there is going to be unity so, you know this particular day is is marked to commemorate a tragedy and I think we don't have to look far around the world right now to see the amount of Ethnic and civil conflict that's going on in many societies all over the world right now Another incident that Some of you may have a little more familiar in your memory as the incident in 1976 this way to uprising where African students were protesting the use of Africans being imposed upon them as a language of instruction and without the right to be able to speak their own languages and This is another very vivid example of where language repression was actually the spark that that Ultimately helped to bring down apartheid and bring in Mandela Today the the South African Constitution recognizes 11 languages and that's largely a result of some of the intolerance that had preceded it There are lesser known Incidents that were not entirely about language, but had a linguistic side to them in the picture on the Right that's in color This is a park in Taipei Taiwan that commemorates an incident that is ingrained very deeply in the local populations memory there Shortly after World War two when Jean Kai-Shek's armies were defeated on the mainland they they went to Taiwan to basically take refuge and set up the the Republic of China there and Shortly thereafter There was a lot of tension between the local population and the incoming population from the mainland and some of this involved economic rivalry and the rights to certain types of Ability to sell products and so forth There was also the population was in quite a predicament because They had been under rule from Japan for 50 years as a colony of Japan and Japanese had been the imposed language and then with little time to make the transition they were required to shift to Mandarin and it was An uprising a lot of it was economically motivated But some of it was also linguistically motivated because people were automatically becoming functionally illiterate overnight Having to make this rapid switch Estimates are that between 10 and 30,000 people were killed in the 1980s I met an elderly woman from Taiwan who told me that her husband had disappeared at that time and she'd never seen him since and In the older population these stories are still there So, you know, these are just several examples internationally of where we've had linguistic intolerance If we come back to this country We find a very mixed history I've just recently completed a rather lengthy article on this topic that will be published in a few weeks and review of research and education We have examples of tolerance linguistic tolerance in the United States, but in the 19th century in the 1880s We have one of the more vivid examples of intolerance where native Americans Were required the children were required to go into boarding schools and the boarding schools persisted in the United States until the 1960s so in those schools native children were not allowed to use their native languages and They they were not able to visit their families and so forth about three decades later and during World War one we had one of the the wide most widespread Sequences of linguistic intolerance by the end of World War one a year later in 1919 34 states had passed laws not only endorsing English, but prohibiting the use of foreign language instruction in schools And I think one of the reasons that we still have difficulty promoting foreign language instruction today is The legacy that we we still have with us as a result of that period that was sparked by war and Intolerance at a time when a substantial portion of the United States spoke German so I've had to present the sad side of the story and I brought somebody along to help cheer us up a little bit on the next part so These by the way are the Positions that have been staked out by the United Nations over the years the the UN has steadfastly backed Linguistic human rights as well as all other human rights Unfortunately, these are not binding and so as a result of that member states often do not follow the declarations that they have endorsed in the United Nations Good morning. I have the hard job of making everybody cheerful and thinking of Linguistics and peace as very compatible. I'm actually a self-entitled peace linguist I'm also world English's scholar world English is like that in the plural My computer gives me a hard time every time I write English is which is several times a day but It's a it's a title that we consider very important because we think of This language as many already and so calling them world English is is an acknowledgement of the diversity also within the English-speaking population around the world and so I wanted to give you a general idea of Where I started these works about Peace and language and the ways that we can bring the two together And so if you look at this first slide I can think and you are welcome to come up with other ways I would really like to expand this list But I can think of three primary ways that we talk about peace and language as related The first one is the use of a language as a vehicle for peace and communication about peace So I'm here today and I'm using English because that's the language that we have in common To tell you something about peace. I'm using this language as a vehicle to communicate ideas about peace What was I in a different environment? I might choose a different language to be more effective The second way is thinking of what terms of peace language itself contains So if we do have just a very brief mental recap of some of the expressions that we use on a daily basis we'll see that we have a lot of metaphors of violence and Once I just went over movie titles for example the ones that had you know peace fostering terms as opposed to violence for it fostering terms and we can look at language itself and See what terms are fostering of peace and which ones are not But then there is a third way and this is the one that I'm the most interested in because I'm a social linguist Which is the ways in which we can use language as a catalyst for peace and a catalyst for Change in society. It's when we bring peace Society and language all together and that's that can be a little messy because you know once we put People and language together things get complicated and so I wanted to refer to this To this quote by Suresh Kanna Garaja who's a researcher that I admire very much for his references to The classroom and it's this really powerful place For change And so he says the classroom is a powerful site of policy negotiation The pedagogy is practiced and texts produced in the classroom can reconstruct Policies ground up. In fact the classroom is already a policy site every time teachers insist on a uniform variety of language or discourse We are helping reproduce monolingualist ideologies and linguistic hierarchies. So, you know, we academics like to add Beautiful words there, but I think the message here is is a simple one that the classroom is a place that informs and Imagines policy in itself, right? And so I want to call it call your attention to several different parts of this The quote first of the most important part to me is this idea that there are varieties of language And we've moved a little away from calling varieties of language dialects but you might know varieties of language from that term and the reason why we like to use the term variety so much is that It does not in itself create a hierarchy of, you know One language being superior to another or one variety being superior to the other so we usually have a standard language that we have as a Goal to be upheld, right and in opposition to that used to be the term dialect When we talk about varieties, you're just acknowledging that yes language varies and it varies according to purpose and audience But there is nothing intrinsic in the language that makes it better than another language the language the reason why one language has a unique position in the world is Outside of language is of an attitude and all a political economic nature, but not necessarily intrinsically linguistic Okay So let me share some assumptions of what I believe language is and language does and what teaching does in this context So I think teaching is a political act and I think that it's one that can peacefully Counteract or address other political acts Some of the ones for example, Dr. Wiley was talking about I believe classrooms are sites of what we call relative autonomy That means that they relate and they are windows to the world outside But there are also places where students can detach a little bit from the world outside and re-imagine it or or be Sheltered from what is happening in the outside world I also believe that languages are fluid and democratic because we change it all the time and that our forces of preservation in language that preserve them and and Prescribe, you know the your dictionaries and your grammar books and your teachers telling you not to split the infinitives But ultimately the force of change Wins over and we know that because we have a hard time reading Shakespeare if the forces of change were not the ones that went over We wouldn't need a dictionary or you know a language expert to help us read Shakespeare in the original and finally there is this concept of language ownership the idea that Certain groups or certain people have greater ownership of a language than others But in truth language ownership is defined by those who use it Okay, I consider English as my own as if they were a mother tongue even though you're probably now guessing where I'm from and This this idea of ownership being the hands of people who use it. I think it's a very important concept To bring in the classroom and to bring in policy making Now the myths Language is never uniform even for those people who think that they speak only one language They don't they speak several languages and you know this because the way you talk to a child is different from the way you talk to your boss Which is different from the way you talk to your friend. So we are making those switches all the time We have varieties within varieties and we can actually as linguists go down to the Individual variety, which is like a fingerprint your variety of language is different from anybody else's because you're you Um in intrinsically like I said, there is no such thing as a better language Languages intrinsically do what they're set to do in society and they change to accommodate the needs of a society So whether we uphold one hierarchically as hierarchically superior to others is a matter Attitudinal political but not linguistic Standard language is also a non linguistic assessment if the game changes what is considered the standard will also change So a standard is not a standard forever Okay, and so in successful communications What we see is people gauging what the purpose and the audience are and making linguistic choices based on those Rather than the other way around Okay, now here comes the tricky part I've been talking about all of these varieties and all of these different languages but the fact is that a mother tongue holds for people who have that mother tongue a special place in their hearts many times and Their identity is also mediated by the language that they speak and their sense of human dignity is too And so acts of violence against languages reflect very seriously on a person's sense of identity and we see some of these Events happening in many ways because that respect was not there and Finally when you engage with other languages if you are a Multilingual person that does not necessarily mean that you have displaced or misplaced a mother tongue You can still uphold the mother tongue You know in all of its dignity and include other languages as additional languages Okay, so we can't discard the role the effective role that a mother tongue plays We it's hard if we hold that idea that you know, we have a unitary Language representation in the language that we use And when languages are extra additional languages are introduced with with a view to a press or to or to this place Or to replace a language then that's when we run into problems So what do we do if we want to change the outcomes we have to change the blueprint if you start from a different blueprint We have a better chance of of a different outcome So the first thing I always tell to my students who are in education or who are going to be in education If they show any hesitation in introducing other languages and and thinking that that might not Reflect their respect for the students mother language over writing that they bring from home I said what you have to think of doing is adding to the students linguistic repertoire So forget a perspective that is deficit related to that It's you know taking away the language expression that the student brings from home But rather adding to that because you are going to gain in terms of communicative possibilities, right? You have to discuss access with the students I wouldn't be talking to you guys here today if I didn't speak English This is a matter of access because I guess most of you don't speak Portuguese. Yes And so this gives me access to a wider audience, but that doesn't make me love Portuguese any less Okay, you empower students through language for them for those very same reasons, you know the bigger your repertoire The bigger the the the wider the situations of communication in which you can be successful Okay, but at the same time you celebrate the language that the student brings from home That language is as rich as good as linguistically powerful as the new languages that you are introducing Okay, so you have to highlight those home languages as well And then you teach students about purpose and audience we make these decisions decisions about purpose all the time If you're going to a party it is one kind of attire Which is different than if you're going to the gym, which is different than if you're going to the beach Which is different than if you're going from to the school, okay? So we make changes in other realms of life to adapt to purpose and audience all the time And we can do the same thing with languages, okay? And you know we can reimagine then this classroom as a place of linguistic diversity that mirrors the linguistic diversity in the world But it still has relative autonomy. Sometimes the beauty of the classroom is that you can be there just learning okay, and Ultimately, I think that if we take these steps We will be fostering linguistic human rights and the more people see their linguistic human rights Respected the less likely they will be to get involved in linguistic acts of violence Okay, so I wanted to just close that this quote this one is my own And I wrote this when I like I said I started thinking through Peace and linguistics and and social linguistics and it goes one can imagine a positive piece through language One that can be achieved by long-range respect for and maintenance of linguistic rights The ecology of languages cultural linguistic diversity and language education Such a piece is of much interest in social linguistic studies because its elements speak directly of the survival of language The ways in which we use language in our role in changing language relations through education Okay, so this is us Thank you very much. We're going to proceed through all three and then open it up So Xena, please I'm going to use the podium. I'm just waiting for them to pull up my slides Here we go So in this presentation, I examined some of the key linkages between language security and peace and argue that such linkages must be fully explored in planning and implementing programs in conflict-affected contexts in In particular, I draw on educational research and practice at various interconnected levels Including national subnational institutional and classroom levels to consider how language factors May exacerbate or mitigate direct and structural forms of violence as sociopolitical spaces Schools are microcosms of the larger social context and they allow for particular insights into the relationship between language peace and security our purpose today then is First to review evidence on the distinct role that language policy plays in conflict peace and security While the field of language policy is well established and language policy debates have been central to the development of educational systems Worldwide Conversations about language issues within peace conflict and security studies has lagged This is despite the acute and documented ways in which language issues impact the security of children youth and their communities So our second purpose then today is to think across these traditionally distinct fields using findings from educational research and practice That illuminate particular linkages and with a view to improving the design and implementation of policies and programs in conflict-affected contexts In order to consider the relationship between language and conflict It's helpful to reflect on manifestations of violence in terms of direct and structural violence Direct violence is often conflated with conflict and refers to overt physical and visible forms of violence Structural violence on the other hand is generally understood as systemic social injustice that manifests itself as inequality including power over or participation in decision-making processes and resource distribution and Consequently unequal life chances Direct and structural forms of violence are interconnected as structural violence has been shown to be a core driver of direct violence and Direct violence is often a manifestation of long-term grievances Also in situations of protracted conflict direct violence creates new forms of Structural violence or reinforces historically entrenched inequalities This is particularly evident in contexts where there are uneven geographies of conflict That is direct violence differential Differentially impacts populations within a larger geography So these forms of violence are experienced in terms of insecurity We can think of security then in terms of the absence of direct violence But also in terms of the mitigation of other vulnerabilities rocked by structural violence in this sense peace Can be understood as requiring both security as well as the presence of equitable structures That promote equal life chances The observations I share here emerge from research and practice from multiple contexts Methods and sources include an extensive review of research and program documents interviews with practitioners of education from international and local NGOs and schools working in conflict-affected contexts and qualitative and survey-based research that I have been engaged in in Lebanon This presentation offers some highlights from findings first I'll summarize key issues that emerge that link language factors with direct and structural forms of violence I'll then turn to policy considerations for conflict-affected contexts in Brief a review of the evidence base demonstrates that language issues Impact the security of children youth and their communities Let's consider these linkages now in terms of direct and structural forms of violence language policy is linked to conflict and May exacerbate or mitigate direct violence This is particularly evident in cases where one language has been historically imposed Privileging its speakers or where decisions to privilege one group over others through newer language policies exacerbates tensions We can see examples of this around the world. We can think of Sudan, Pakistan, Kenya, Liberia Language is also an overt identity marker that may lead to targeted forms of violence a Language and language varieties can signify ethnic religious socioeconomic or political difference All of which have been used to target populations and individuals One example of this we can think of Palestinians during the Lebanese Civil War where their language variety Was used to target individuals who may not look different from the Lebanese population But in speaking can be identified as such and assassinations were carried out on the spaces In some cases ethno linguistic communities have been driven out of areas and in moving back to locales That share their language have not been able to secure homes or livelihoods furthermore forced migration resulting from direct Violence often leads to linguistic heterogeneity of social and educational spaces This raises the significance of language factors in conflict affected contexts Displacement strips populations of material resources economic opportunities and social networks exacerbating inequalities and access to social goods such as educational services This situation is made worse when language creates additional barriers in fact direct violence creates shifts in language dynamics and Governments donors agencies and schools are often confronted with language dilemmas in terms of which language or languages to support and how In education. This is particularly an issue when qualified teachers and students do not readily share a common language However, language politics also shift with the evolving nature of conflict for example pressures to take up a Particular language policy in the immediate post-conflict period Which is often a language of wider communication may diminish over time At the same time observations from the Middle East and the North Africa region where I do most of my research Over the past few years suggest that political conflict brings disputes about language policy and education Into the public arena creating a pole towards in in that case Arabic That is articulated in terms of patriotic ideals At the same time direct violence creates an impetus for youth to learn foreign languages as a pathway to security Finally and while the research base is not conclusive There is evidence to suggest that language policy and education may be linked to psychosocial well-being in conflict affected contexts Particularly where learning in the mother tongue improves self-esteem and cultivates a sense of social identity psychological safety and community integrity Given the trauma experienced by children and youth in context of conflict the possible connection Between mother tongue instruction and psychosocial well-being is worth pursuing Language policy is linked to inequality and may exacerbate or mitigate structural violence in Education the research base demonstrates that language policy is differentially experienced by children and youth in their schools Social conflict political violence and inequality Mediate this experience against a backdrop of colonial legacies nationalist agendas and contemporary global political and economic pressures that increasingly shape the educational experiences of children and youth disparity in linguistic access is productive of social inequality an articulated sense of injustice and ultimately disengagement from school Particularly where certain linguistic identities are stigmatized by social and political processes We know from extensive studies that learning in one's mother tongue results in better learning outcomes Mother tongue instruction improves equitable access to education particularly for language minorities for example according to an analysis of data from 22 developing countries and 160 language groups Children who had access to instruction in their mother tongue were significantly more likely to be enrolled and attending school While a lack of education in first language was a significant reason for children dropping out Since education has been linked with economic and social goods We can see how language policy and education may serve to exacerbate or mitigate structural violence The research base also demonstrates that language policy may privilege certain groups by raising the status or functionality of Particular languages for accessing social political and economic goods This in turn may aggravate inequalities including access to economic opportunities social networks and services such as schooling Language policy is linked to inclusion and exclusion in conflict affected contexts This is illustrated for example by displaced populations who move to a place with a different language Which they must learn or face further exclusion at the same time if young people are not educated in their home language It reduces the possibility of returning to their place of origin and completing schooling in their home country Even where refugees share the same language with their host populations different languages of instruction policies can lead to exclusion as Previously mentioned language factors have been identified as one of the leading reasons for youth dropping out of school and in a recent Example if we think of Syrian refugees in Lebanon This is one of the cases that we can look at quite readily to see this playing out While the Syrians and the Lebanese share a common mother tongue the schooling system in Lebanon is Bilingual and therefore has created access barriers for Syrian young people to enter school and One might say well that could be easily resolved. There is a common language there However, we need to understand that this is in a larger social and political context in which language barriers then play out in particular ways Because they are reflective of Larger issues right so we have to consider these factors when we're thinking through issues of structural violence Language policy and education is central to decreasing social and economic vulnerabilities Carefully considered language policy and education has the potential to reduce barriers to access for diverse learning communities and conflict affected contexts Research among school-aged youth in Lebanon for example also suggests that conflict creates these push and pull factors towards certain languages including the mother tongue Youth talk about language issues in terms of political and economics insecurity and social inequality Which shows that youth in conflict affected contexts are keenly aware of language factors as part of conflict dynamics They also recognize language learning as a key to mitigating vulnerabilities created by direct and structural forms of violence Thus language policy becomes a site of contestation for contemporary youth concerns Particularly where youth are conscious of disparities in bilingual policy implementation across schools The complex relationships between language and conflict demonstrate the need to identify language factors as part of Conflict analysis and to address these through concerted and inclusive policy dialogue There is a clear need for identifying language factors as part of conflict analysis and needs assessment as We've seen language factors may exacerbate direct and structural forms of violence Therefore conflict analysis must take into consideration the multiple relationships among language conflict and security Research from education indicates that language factors must also be considered in needs assessments For example, while the evidence-based supports mother tongue instruction Teaching in the students first language depends on conditions that may not be existent possible or optimal in conflict affected contexts For example, it requires first a written form of the language linguistic homogeneity among the students It requires support for mother tongue instruction among policy makers school leaders teachers and parents It requires teachers with proficiency in the languages of instruction or teachers who can mobilize bilingual Student peers or community volunteers as language assistants in the classroom It requires teachers trained in the principles of second language and literacy learning to help enable the transition to language of wider communication and It requires sufficient teaching and learning materials in the particular language or languages These conditions are often very difficult to achieve in conflict affected contexts What this illustrates is that decisions about language policy whether in education or otherwise require concerted and inclusive policy dialogue that takes into account complex social and political factors Alongside material realities that are part of the policy context Finally, it's important to note that because of the dynamic nature of conflict Language factors may change with the evolving situation Thus policy considerations cannot be static They must reflect these dynamics and be ready to move with the changing situation in summary And as we've seen the evidence base suggests that inclusion of language factors in peace and security discussions and Careful language policy and planning at national subnational and school levels can mitigate vulnerabilities created by direct and structural forms of violence and Contribute to laying the foundations for peace and security Thank you Okay, so a good afternoon Everyone is a great honor for me to be here today to celebrate the international mother language day and to share my experience working on Multilingual education in southern Thailand conflict zone So I would like to start with this sentence language plays important roles as medium of communication and that's expression of identity language use and language choice Therefore people to in both crisis and crisis resolution. I would like to give you a background about about Thailand Thailand is in the in the center of Southeast mainland Southeast Asia which is the area of the Which is the complex area of language and ethnicity in the world So then Thailand represent the characteristic of Southeast Asia for language and cultural diversity in Thailand 65 million populations speak about 70 plus living languages belonging to five language Thai is the official is the only official national language It's derived from a variety of central Thai and about 50% of the population News can speak it proficiency and use it as their mother tongue It is a tie is used as the medium of instruction At all level of education and all over the country The language situation in Thailand is that now most of the ethnic minority languages are Facing language shift and language decline and another problem is that is that the is the Underachievement in school of the ethnic minority children and the majority of the people in Thailand are Buddhists at The border at the border area there are large language group this language group Not only that their mother tongue Better languages died is declining But the majority of the people cannot reach the government services Especially in in the southern area I would like to take you down to Thailand's deep south There in Thailand's deep south we have Thailand Melayu 80% of the population or more than 1 million people speak Patani Malay It was a once a Patani Malay is it was one of Patani Sartan it and the center of Islamic studies and we believe that language identity issue is One of the main causes Underlying the political unrest and violence in the area This picture shows some of the violence in the area Some of the school have been burned down and the teachers Educational point personnel have been killed in the In the in Thailand this south there are too many shoe One is the language identity issue that is the mother tongue the Patani Malay is not officially accepted and used in school and the ethnic minority The ethnic language is declining the kind of creole is forming especially in the city in the city area and then Another another issue is the chronic underachievement in school of the student in that area The student have the lowest score adding national testing it About 40% of the of the student and in at grade three cannot read and write so There are some a problem over over there and there is a fear that education is being used to destroy the language identity and religious identity so this This graph shows the reading and writing ability of the student in the south compare Compared to the national average and you can see that for reading ability about 55 55.5% cannot in grade three cannot read that cannot read at all and 70 something I can't see very well Need improvement compared to the to the one to the 4% and 3% at the national level and Writing ability is even worse 42% point 42.11% cannot write at all in at grade three and about 20% need improvement comparing to the national average Which is a lot slower, so this there is a big Problem in reading and writing for the student in that area. So after the So a the like the situation so a we found that patini Malay language is the language that people use Most and they prefer to use it and there was also the request from the people from the in from the survey request that The patini Malay the language the local language should be used in education to help the student to understand the lesson so The patini Malay Thai water tongue based bilingual education Has been conducted It is conducted as an action participatory research project Implemented in for pilot school in southern in four thousand in four Southern border provinces. It's an it's a nine-year project starting from kindergarten one to grade six Including one year of preparation The goal is to facilitate patini Malay speaking children to speak read and write well in both patini Malay and Thai to retain their Malay identity at the local level and Thai identity at the national level and to be able to live with dignity in the wider Thai society to foster through and lasting national reconciliation and the Educational principle use is the child center known to unknown principle with the bridging process That is we try to bridge the home The home language and culture of the student of the students to the school language and culture to bridge local language to official language to bridge the spoken to reason language and Bridge the everyday language to academic language and also local content to the international or local or Universal content and to go through this the bilingual Program patini Malay Thai bilingual program There are nine activities that we have that we work on starting from the preliminary research Curriculum development and you know, it's called everything to policy Development the policy that support the mother tongue based Multilingual education Since the patini Malay is just a spoken language to use it in the education system The writing system has got to be established. There are three kind of script in in the area one is a Javi, which is Arabic based script and it's used for religious Document, but it's widely used and some of the people think that the the Malay written in Javi languages their language identity and then the second one is Rumi It is a romanized script. It's popular among those who have educated in Malaysia or Indonesia and the last one is the Thai script the Thai based patini Malay It is widely used for non-former education for teaching the Thai government official and also to to record all the oral literature the poem and everything the poem the folktales and everything so after all the discussion the Thai based patini Malay Or the patini Malay writing in Thai script was finally selected for pedagogical and political reason and This man said that he can write everything he think in Thai based script and he is now writing the children games For this For the for this for the multi-link education in southern Thailand the Curriculum has got to be redesigned So the curriculum development is based on the ministry of education standard with additional Multilingual principle That is the language development Academic or concept development and socio-cultural Development and I would like to show you the language development It is a step-by-step language learning and literacy process that is a student start school with their own language with their own language and culture so they They have a chance to talk with the teacher who speak the same language So they start with the oral language With their mother tongue and then at the same time in the second semester Thai oral Thai is introduced along with the pre-reading and pre-writing in patini Malay, so in Kindergarten to the student Learned to read and write here in their mother tongue and they are literate in their mother tongue and and they go on with the Continue with oral Thai then in grade one in grade one they start reading and writing in Thai so the knowledge of The knowledge of their own language reading and writing in their own language is Transferred to the reading and writing in Thai and then after that because they have the foundation in Patini Malay they can go on to the Central Malay written in the Yahweh script that they that they would like to to have and also Standard Malay written in Rumi or Romanized or Romanized so that they can have way to To the Malay world to Malaysia or Indonesia Which is very important language for us in Economic community, so that that is the step-by-step language learning and literacy process and at the same time The practice Emphasize the higher level thinking in all subject and in in all subject that is a student Don't only know and understand But they should be able to apply analyzed Evaluate and synthesize or to be creative And this is the progress written plan for the Patini Malay Thai multi-lingual bilingual education It's his youth the languages use is taught as a subject Malay Thai and English and at the same time for the for teaching other subject like mathematics and science and social science And the Thai and Patini Malay are used as a language of As a medium of instruction instruction Because the mother tongue is used so that we can get Participation from the community they can be involved in all aspect of Work like writing story. They can write story doing the editing drawing a book binding and this is some of the teaching materials based on the culture local culture and folk tales It's nary and also The teachers are from the community. So this is a pick this picture show the teacher training And this is some of the cultural scene which is used for stimulating thinking and For thinking and speaking of the children and Also, Thai is taught as a second language. This is the way to teach Thai to teach a second language and song is also used for the student So the student learn to listen Listen from the local this in this local story thinking and answering and then also speaking using the This picture story and they learn to They are the charity to charity and also writing you can see that the great the student kindergarten too can can write and This is some of the pictures showing the activities and they the student. I really enjoy reading writing Books which is quite different from before And and this is this this is the picture that show That the kindergarten to student can write Okay, and and this this one I showed the Teaching the class for teaching science are using this sandwich technique That is L1 L2 and L1 not L3 L1 L2 and L1 Technique so the students are very happy and so the parents the teacher and the parents are very happy too Yes, they say that they the student who are full of curiosity and Asking question and also trying to read All all the advertisement and another person say that the month the the bilingual education Is very very good because the student learn how to read and write when they go up to grade one And they know both Malay you and Thai so the This the father is very happy and another person who is a religious leader. He said that This project is very useful. It has brought back our Malay you identity I would like to pray for Allah to make this project sustainable forever. So these are the reaction from the community and This is the academic assessment Done by a local university in the area. You can see that for the experimental school It the performer for performing Score at a higher level You know at the at the from grade from 60% to about 90 or 100% Where the comparison school or the regular school this core? the performance at the lower score and Yeah, so the student are very happy and more talkative Creative they love to go to school and they love reading and writing and the teachers are happy the parents Proud of their children and the community Please and have more confidence with the government school the parents Watching the teacher who is who has more than 20 years of experience teaching Say that this bilingual program has solved the problem of language in Incompetency in addition to being proud of their native language Children have learned to live with others who speak different languages communication with different languages unequal levels of language understanding causes dissatisfaction with each other Thai and Malay people should be able to effectively communicate Since we live in the same country, this is from one of the teacher so This project for the success this project has earned the trust and confidence of the local community Involved, but there are challenges but what the challenges is that using the local spoken language in education as a way to promote development peace and post and transparency Some find it hard to accept because of the fear and do not understand the importance of the mother tongue and changing of language of instruction new curriculum new teaching materials New teaching methods require teacher to learn new methods to facilitate children's imagination creativity and and talking and Also the mother tongue is based writing to education using Using the Thai based battery Malay some of the religious leader and And Intellectual are not happy about it. They don't they don't like it. They prefer to use the Arabic based or Javi script in the in the teaching and and another thing is that the project is carried out in the region Where there are violence so it's very difficult to work in the area and there are Lack of trust in the area so but anyway because it's it is Satisfactory to the stakeholder they have Expansion school about 15 expansion school this picture show the training the teacher training of the 15 Expansion school and we also have another project for Institutionalizing teacher education for mother tongue based bilingual education in the faculty of education At the local university in the area so and finally I would like to mention about the national language policy of Thailand which has been drafted and Accepted by the authority concern It is it is rather generous is a six-prong policy and it take care of not only the Thai which is the National official language, but it also take care of the international neighboring languages the ethnic minority languages the language for the liberal migrants and also the language for the visually and and hearing Impair and the ultimate goal of this national language policy is language for sustainable peace and Mother tongue or mother language is used as a core or the Fundament or the foundation of other function languages So I would like to conclude that Seeing language as a problem has contributed to violence But seeing language as a resource and a right can contribute to peace building. Thank you very much Well, thank you to each of our speakers I think we have a lot to go on here as our keynotes to kick us off. I'm struck for those of us in in this building we often Appeal to two interesting rubrics when we talk about peace and peace building one is do no harm Make sure the policy make sure of the implementation that you're using In entering a difficult situation is exactly going to improve conditions rather than worsen them and and to think seriously about how that How that's going to move The other is is we ask one another what's your theory of change? How do you know that the kinds of things you're going to implement in policy or practice may in fact lead to the goals that you Want to go so we try to cover from from from those two angles I think our speakers gave us certainly in two cases of Lebanon Thailand and in some of the Discussions of policy and and the difficulties between physical and structural violence a lot to go on there And there's a lot of experience and talent and sensibilities about these questions in this room I know so I'm not going to talk any longer and and really invite your Your questions and your responses. Let me say something about logistics here. We have microphones on two sides of the room Ask a question Please and as you're given a microphone Identify who you are and if your question is for the panel generally or for someone in particular That'll help us and I think what I'll I'll tend to do is take two or three at a time and let our panel respond That way rather than just one at a time. So the floor is open Please here will be our first right down here Thank you I'm Barbara Trudeau director of research and advocacy for a sale Africa living in Nairobi and I wanted to thank all the speakers for Some really interesting and amazing Perspectives on this whole issue of language peace and security. I had it. I had a question that was prompted by I Believe was Patricia or or or or Terrence that said something about and maybe the others of you would also speak to it but the importance of adding to the linguistic repertoire of Well, certainly the minority language speaking population and and the way that you attain stable societal multilingualism in a broader national linguistic environment that may not be really Friendly to the mother tongue And and I'm and I'm thinking of experience I've had in the in the Peruvian Amazon in particular in which indigenous groups there Adding to their linguistic repertoire that is to say Multilingualism and moving out in many cases led to their assimilation Into the larger society They were not strong enough. They were not numerous enough. They didn't have the political means to to keep their own selves Linguistically or culturally and so that the challenge of these very dominant languages in some cases and my question is what kind of environment? Lessons the power of that dominant language for the minority language community Allowing the mother tongue to to flourish and to find a stable space. Thank you. Thank you Question. We have another down here Thanks, I'm Peter Loach. I work here USIP. I'm also an adjunct instructor at GW and Associate fellow at Timothy by ecology, you know The question you've encountered before I'm sure if one of the functions of a language is to say this is an usness We're gonna preserve this because this is us. It's a unifying effect language necessarily Therefore says we are not them and it has another ring effect Which seems one could argue to reinforce the premise of conflict that it's us not them and we have to preserve our space sort of language You're at Arizona State. You've talked to Rick Ashley his stuff. How would you respond to that argument? Thank you. Those are two good ones. Do we have a third right here this young one? Thank you Hi, my name is Erica Vasquez and I'm a PhD candidate at Georgetown University in Arabic socio linguistics Thank you to all of you for presentations. They were wonderful and my question is actually prompted by Professor Zikarian My own research focuses on the relationship between language and peace in the Western Sahara and Morocco and the Interactability of that conflict. So I wanted to know in times of crisis and in conflict when we have migrations of refugees into neighboring countries What is the priority of? Enhancing or changing linguistic policies in educational systems to accommodate the flow of refugees and these differences between No, Fushan Amia and different systems Thank you. Well, those are three Good and challenging ones to get us started. I'd like to start If I could address your question because that's one that I struggle with all the time, right? It's in a way easy to talk about peace and then when you go To particular communities you see a pattern when it's it's hard to preserve a minority language once another language is introduced I think what we talked about here I didn't talk about that but the situation in Thailand one of the one of the key factors is oral Oral only languages are a lot harder to preserve And I think that there have been very nice initiatives, you know because a lot of times we see the internet as a threat To minority languages, but there have been very nice initiatives to not only codified But where the languages are codified to use the internet as a cool space Where especially the younger generations would feel an association with that particular language to be something desirable Because one of the things that happens is that we know that minority languages especially in situations of immigration It is within the second generation that they tend to go And so to create an environment in any way possible where younger generations Feel that having that language and speaking that language is desirable And I cannot think of another word, but cool which makes me very uncool probably in the eyes of my children But that's fine So any situation that can one codify it so that there is a written script of that and when there is a Motivation, you know because we know that there is access, but there is also motivation to learn and motivation to keep So part of the key is creating a motivation to learn and a motivation to keep so that in the long run Younger generations will want to participate be a part of that linguistic community as well So they see the other like with you know and the other the additional language as an asset, but at the same time there is this Identity and this coolness associated with the original minority language. Thank you I'll take a shot at your question, which I thought is good I think the common perception is that one language unifies, but when you have a status differential between the populations using different languages then the the experience of the dominant language is experienced as an imposition and So in in some cases where we've had languages or populations that were in somewhat in pop In competition with one another where they're in a in a position to interact with each other One of the challenges is to increase the status of the language that is more stigmatized In the United States, we have a lot of dual language or two-way programs in bilingual education Depending on the type of children that enter the schools If in fact we have to recognize it in in that situation that English is generally the dominant language and so sometimes programmatically We have to think not only just in terms of how it's used in instruction But how it's used in the broader community of the school in order to Elevate the status of the language that's the minority language and that really requires a lot of thinking I can think of one case on the Navajo reservation where they attempted an immersion program in the use of Navajo and Initially, they were not very successful They then changed the the practices of everyone in the school so that they wanted everyone in the school to start using Navajo including the janitors and the the maintenance people and everybody and Several years later, they were having a very successful response because the language was taking on a social reality in the school Just in one other context in a kind of reverse situation one of the challenges around the world right now is They've given the emphasis on particularly English as an additional language of instruction or many times as the medium of instruction We're not creating a safe space for people to learn other languages where there's conflict between populations this is a point that Elenish Ohami from Israel has made in terms of the emphasis on English in the curriculum there That sometimes that doesn't allow enough space for Hebrew speakers to learn Arabic and Arabic speakers to learn Hebrew so We can think of this not only in where we have maybe two languages in competition But where we're really trying to to work out some other issues while bringing in foreign languages Thank you I'll take the third question. I think I think your question was what is the priority? of changing language policy and it in instances of forced migration was that I'm not sure how to take your question. Is it what is the priority or what should be the priority because this is kind of in fact, it has not taken on high priority in practice and and This is unfortunate because by not doing so many children in such Context end up not not able to not not able to access school However, we have seen in more recent years sort of more increased awareness around language factors and so I think probably in the in the second half we're going to hear from practitioners who are actually making that a priority and it does need to be a priority because Without addressing the language factor. You're really Depriving a generation of children from from their education And so those kind of things need to be taken into consideration Almost immediately and there are ways to do it. There's no reason why it cannot be done per se Although there can be logistical nightmares if it is a very large Population of displaced and there are interesting examples for example The work that's happening with Rohingya Burmese refugees in Bangladesh refugee camps and the kinds of conversations that they have had to go through to figure out What language? They will be educated in in the refugee camp Particularly when populations don't want to go back home. So there's also there are many dynamics to be considered but having an Explicit discussion about the language issue is what I'm really pressing us on What the outcome of that discussion is? Will depend on the particular context and what is in the best interest of those populations at a particular time But you need to bring into those conversations Lots of people the young people themselves their parents their community leaders And other you know Donors and agencies that support them or governments that support them or do not and so it can be quite complicated But it should be a priority. Yes Thank you, and just a quick footnote we you know in a room in this building earlier today looking particularly at the comparative analysis of Columbia with Syria with places close to a peace agreement in Colombia But very far in Syria one of the themes that kept returning is all the dislocation For internally and externally displaced people You know Columbia long ranking the longest the largest number of in in terms of pure number internally displaced But what's happening in Syria as a percentage of the population? unprecedented and every dimension of schooling language culture and certainly health Dynamics is at stake there. So it's a great question. Let's go to a second round I think we can start with this good person in the middle here They'll fight over you with the microphones because you're directly in the middle Thank you very much. My name is Emily Vargas-Baron I work at the rise Institute and I wanted to thank all of our presenters. These are excellent and inspiring Presentations, I'd like to make actually two comments since you mentioned Columbia in Columbia too There is a tremendous ethnic minority language issue Which has complicated tremendously especially for those of ethnic minorities the problems around violence So I think there too you have this Pattern coming in but people rarely talk about it. Unfortunately. I wanted to make a comment about The issue of studying policy. I am feeling the tremendous need for those of us who have worked on Language policies and language policy embedded within policies of education early childhood development Economic development, etc to open a dialogue and a discourse around the mechanics of policy planning To enable us to begin to elucidate those points, which are most susceptible for change I think we've discovered some of them, but I feel the need of Individual case studies in rather in depth and with criteria that perhaps We wouldn't think of alone, but we might in a group and Secondly comparative studies across policies and across regions So I just wanted to see if any of you would like to pick up on that topic Thank you Second one right here. Thank you Hi, I'm Nicole Marcus. I work at second language testing Inc. And My question I have two questions for the work in Thailand, which I think is amazing by the way to start up those schools and So my first question is I was wondering where your funding is coming from if it's from The local or the local organizations helping fund that and my second Is what happens after grade six and the reason I'm asking this is because I did my dissertation research in linguistics on An endangered language called Gascon in Southwest France, which is it's also qualified as an Ossetan language And they had started these private schools, which actually started just from a teacher in his backyard with like three kids They started and now it's grown to over a hundred schools. It's throughout the Ossetan region, which spans across southern France and The issue is is it's an immersion school and it's amazing and I observed about ten schools in the region But the problem is it's the same Program where it ends at grade six and what happens in France is they don't have it efficiently It's not an officially recognized language. So when the students grow up, they can only take it as an optional course in certain Middle school junior high schools and high schools and not all schools even offer it So the problem is if they don't have well most of Sorry, most of the the language is not taught at home Basically, which is why these schools are so important to get the language back in the area So if they can't take a language course in a junior high or high school Basically, they may lose the language because they're just going to be exposed to French So this overlaps with the previous question is it's just urging the need for a national educational policy because even though the collondradas are Amazing in the Ossetian region. There is that problem where after the students finished grade six. They may lose the language Thank you Do we have one more for this round Please Hello, my name is my one Evita. I'm assistant professor at the defense language institute them. I first of all Thank you so much for very good presentations and regard to the language So we talked about language that language is a catalyst for peace security and the same time There is a good correlation exists between language and culture Because you cannot really develop language without cultures You have to know the culture and we know about the culture that Most of the places a lot of problems are created by the cultures and for instance if we talk about Yugoslavia they broke down along the culture lines not really language lines And also some Samuel Huntington He wrote a good article on that in 1993 that there will be a clash of civilization Not along political lines, but cultural lines So my question is are we hypothesizing that there will be some kind of problem caused by Languages if it's not improved one thing in a second thing in 2010 General MacCrestor he gave an order to Defense Department that there's any soldier who is going overseas. They should be taught foreign language and the State Department they do have a language program but The people who are going through that language process They're not become profession so that they can communicate with the people Even though we do good work like our Peace Corps. They're doing great job overseas, but unfortunately We don't have the ability to communicate with people. So did we fail and our foreign policy to actually Teach the people who are working in the State Department Enough language so that they can communicate and tell people this is what we do and that's where the people can keep their Interest and United States. Thank you. Thank you. That's a good set of three Come back to the panel. We'd like to start us off So can I yes, please answer the question? Do you ask? Where is the funding come from right the first the first one? The project the paternal a Thai bilingual education project we have got the Funding from you from the UNICEF that is for the start start with the UNICEF and then later on We have When UNICEF I cannot help very much. They have less money So Thailand we have we have the funding from Thailand research fund and also later Maidon University also called funding for this particular project because people think that think that it is useful and it should be carried out until great six from kindergarten one to grade six and then and so we have we have three main funding agency to For the for the for the pilot project and then for the expansion project we have got the funding from the government from the government the local government in the south Would like us to expand the project to another 15 school as it's still a kind of pilot school for for for the You know school the government school and then for the teacher education we have got This is another project we have got a funding from EU to Institute institutionalizing teacher education for multi-link education in the south so we have got funding from various funding agency and then you ask about what happened after grade six after grade six Ling with the national policy so the National policy the new our new national policy try to promote the use of the mother tongue at all level at the Pre-primary and primary level it Can be used should be used as the medium of instruction especially for the few to the first few years of schooling and then later on it Can be taught as a subject I mean the language and also the oral literature can be taught as a subject and I think for after grade six They can go on teaching as a subject. I think that is This is the the if they can So according to the new national language policy the mother tongue is promoted is promoted and should be Used in education Thank you. Do you want to take? If I fully understood the question, I'll take a shot at the one with the reference to Yugoslavia and the question was I think on the priority of Language versus culture as we know what's more salient I think in many contexts it really depends on the situation but There's a position that has been out there for some time that when there are conflicts situations involving language If we look across a field of domains if we look in the economic sphere in the workplace If we look in the legal system if we look at voter rights if we look at the school system for example that conflicts revolving language usually have deeper causes and So I think you know, there's there's always something more at stake than just the language But in the specific case of Yugoslavia, I'm recalling a volume that I contributed to in 2002 The international journal sociology of language Was a thematic issue on revisiting the mother tongue question? It was a thematic title and Jim Tullison James Tullison specifically looked at the case of Yugoslavia as it was starting to break down and one of the first symptoms that he identified as the breakdown was the loss of linguistic rights in the former Yugoslavia and That became an indication that basically the these deeper Issues related to ethnicity were in fact there But you might you might want to take a look at that he's done extensive work on the Yugoslavian issue To that to maybe the second part of your comment, which is about State Department language programs and Indeed a national security language is initiative that has been quite extensive and trying to fund what are considered national security Interest languages or critical languages. I think is what they're called For national security And you asked did we fail in this kind of policy to you know not Educate the people who are sending out or whatever in languages Yes, I guess And so But there are a couple of things to it. It's not just in in not teaching Languages to improve communication or I mean That's one layer of it, but I think it's really interesting that on the one hand. We're promoting through such programs Language policy or languages for What we would call negative peace right for security purposes on the other hand in US public schools The languages that children already have in their families They already speak and many of them being national security languages these critical languages that are on this list Are not promoted in US public schools, so we have some kind of odd disconnect there between what is Promoted it's basically the critical languages are promoted for the non-speakers But they are not promoted for the families that already speak those languages and who are American citizens Serving their country and so on so there is something of A failure there as well I would argue and then on the comment about the need for Case studies on the mechanics of policy and planning. I mean I I Absolutely agree and maybe that will be the next thing I work on but There is absolutely the need for a discussion and kind of a documentation of how that goes down I think unfortunately in acute crisis and conflict contexts. It happens so rapidly and Often there isn't a possibility to document Some of the processes that take place in these contexts And so we often lose some of the best learning that can come out of documenting case studies Thank you for pointing that out. Thank you There are a number of case studies that are done and some of the major journals particularly language policy But we've also documented Negative experience of what happens when you don't have appropriate policies One of our colleagues at the Center for Applied Linguistics is publishing a book that should be out this year which is called Language as policy and consequence the Arizona case studies where the imposition of English-only policies and their effects on the minority populations there have been documented Extensively and all the way down to the level of the classroom and from the views of the students In positive sense, you know, there are examples of successful or at least promising revitalization efforts One of which is you know the revitalization of Welsh in Wales and that is a that there is a very extensive policy that begins with Preschool education all the way through university education and they have had some degree of success with that policy So there are places that we can go for some positive examples and then of course the extensive work done on Maori Maori language or the Hawaiian language would be other places to look And I just wanted to say one more thing and I completely agree with what you say Valuing the languages that are already there and how that seems such a disconnect And in policy, but I also wanted to highlight that I think that even though there are offerings of Other languages to them to populations that are not minority populations I think that we work very little in attitudinal terms to turn around people's views on bilingualism multilingualism and actually there is no greater sense I think of of Identify and sympathizing with minority populations then to actually have the experience of Learning and having to communicate but also doing with language languages all of the things that we do with languages that are not necessarily of an immediate communicative Nature Because we often associate well I don't need to learn an additional language because I can go and speak English everywhere for example You know if we're gonna take English into consideration But there are all of the other things that languages do that a person who is not given the opportunity to learn Will not be doing through these Additional languages, so I think it's not only work and I think that we focus more on You know policy that will impact minority populations and we should be doing a lot of work with the general population as well Thank you. I think we've got time for one more round before our break the far back We can work our way down My name is Ellen Street, and I'm studying TESOL at the University of Missouri online But have recently moved to the DC area to job search I I'm gonna do my thesis on motivation and so what you said really resonated with me and I thought just as one of the younger people in the room that I should explain why Why young people often don't want to learn what their parents speak because if your parents speak it, it's uncool But if you're learning Arabic and nobody else learns it. It's something that's cool and edgy It's something unique. So that's it's just got to come from your friends And it's got to come from a motivation of something to be oh, I'm I want to be the same as everybody else because I'm a teenager And that's what we did so that's that's what I Thank you in front right here. There you go Kira tattoo. I'm Margaret Gleason from Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand So dr. Wally I was interested in what you said about the Maori language. I'm just recently my question really is about about teacher education and sustaining teacher education one of the issues that we've had in New Zealand is that despite Maori language immersion schools in kindergarten level primary school level by the time Secretary school education starts there aren't teachers who are qualified to be subject teachers and Also have academic Maori to the extent that they can actually instruct in that language And so in the Thai situation I was really interested because at least Maori has been a written language for many years now and In the case that you were talking about The language had to be transcribed you had to choose what version you're going to use of the orthography And then you had to teach the teachers. So I'm really intrigued about how you recruited teachers How you educated the teachers what the time period was of educating the teachers and how you see this going forward Thank you. Thank you Last one right here. Thank you I'm Deborah Kennedy from the Center for Applied Linguistics and as one of the not younger people in the room One of the things that I appreciated about what each of you said you alluded to the fact that change is the only constant in the world of language And language change very frequently does come from the younger part of our populations Something that I have heard about although I haven't seen it personally is that young people in Saudi Arabia Particularly young men who have access to cell phones are using them to communicate in a combination of Arabic and English People all over the world are communicating across cultural and linguistic barriers using cell phones And I think that's really changing the way we need to think about language learning and language policy And I wonder if you could comment on that Who wants to start? I can I can address that because that's one of my interests at the moment. I'm writing about English and the internet And I think that like I mentioned, you know, there's this one particular study done by Orshan on revitalization of Hawaiian languages through the internet and they added that cool factor because now the The friends are using the internet to communicate and it's become their their language in in in many respects what we would probably see happening I think in the long run is a blending of some of these languages so that you end up with pigeons and creoles that are Internet Originated and I think that that's that's a new world And I think that we as educators and policymakers can use it to our advantage Because you know the newer generations will want to participate more Given the media But I think one of the challenges is that before we used to talk about Literacy or not and now we're talking about which kind of literacy, right? And it's almost like we need one form of literacy for each of these different Media and so if you're writing an email, it's a different kind of literacy from Working on social media, which is different from using it for Academic purposes and so on and so forth so we're not faced with literacy illiteracy anymore We're faced with what kind of literacy David Crystal has recently talked about this and he actually went on a talk show on on TV and he actually made the point that Texting is good for the English language And his point was that there are more and more people actually involved in literacy It's just not probably the way we thought of literacy before so we ourselves have to adapt to thinking of literacy in different ways but you know, I don't think in in in recent or even Less than recent history do we see so many people engaged with the written word as we see now, right? But it's just of a different nature not necessarily of that one variety that we call the standard and that will Well, that will be not only you know a matter for societal adaptation But also for our attitudes towards that literacy to perhaps change as well Thanks Just hop on While we're on that topic sake specifically related to the Arabic language It's not just that combinations of languages are being used but that To To accommodate the letters in Arabic that don't exist in the English script a range of numerals are used and this way of writing in Arabic using English script on technology Emerge very organically and is is everywhere But that's because the technology couldn't keep up with the spread in a way Even though the Arabic platform for cell phones was developed quite some time ago. In fact, my brother worked on that work but so that's Yes, it's going to keep evolving that way at the same time though Even though we can think of these multiple literacies and so on. I think the dominant discourse about standard is still extremely powerful and in Arabic or in in Related to the Arabic language in in Middle East countries It is so much so that we talk about the language almost exclusively in terms of the deficiency discourse Right that young people are completely deficient in the language. They are incompetent Speaking in this or writing Properly not one of them can speak properly not one of them can write properly and so on. It's in this country too. So On the one hand, yes, it's changing the way that we think and on the other hand the dominant discourse remains quite entrenched and and in the ways that we look at young people as being incompetent deficient Etc. Rather than seeing their multiple strengths and Yeah If you don't remember anything else remember purpose and audience from this class And then we ourselves fall into the trap of not remembering purpose and audience and thinking of the standard as you know Something that should be universally enforced in all situations. I absolutely agree I would like to answer the question about teacher training Well in the case of southern Thailand Patanima is speaking community They It's not difficult to get to get to get somebody to become a teacher Because this is for the teacher recruitment the people in in I think that the people in the area value the The teacher occupation so they want to be teacher They think that this is this is a very important job and Good job and they want to want to do that job So it's not difficult to to try to find somebody who want to be a teacher in that area another problem is that They don't they are they don't have much opportunity for for job in that area so there are a lot of newly graduate Newly graduate university graduate Without any job. So it's not Too difficult to try to get people to become the teacher but They need that they need some training. They need some training So we provide the trend the training for them the training in Reading and writing Patanima lay You know you by using the Thai script Normally, they can speak the language But they never use it in the in the formal situation like in school. So the teacher Cannot they are not familiar with speaking or using Patanima lay in school before before it was Prohibited to do that But when we start the multi-linked education program they start to kind of revival Their knowledge of the mother tongue with Patanima lay and so we have the training We have the pre-service training for the for the those who become the teacher how to Read and write in Patanima lay and also We have the training for them to understand Sometimes Ask them to come and work on the curriculum development and also lesson plan So they help in they have a participate in the curriculum development and lesson planning and also And sometimes they also or not sometimes we have a we have a workshop for them to To To work on the teaching materials we have the teaching material development so they work on that and also we have a training for the Teaching methods different kinds of teaching method You know using for teaching L1 or teaching for teaching L2 so we provide the teacher training the pre Service training and also we also have the kind of in-service training For them from time to time. So that's what is training So with that is that answer your question? Okay, thank you. Thank you Well, I think we may have come to a point where we're in a well-deserved break the I a couple of logistics We're dismissed until about 3 30 gives you a lot of time to meet people you have may have grown interest in as you heard Their questions and meet some others There's plenty of materials from the various groups that are represented here Outside and I know they'd like you to take all of those and I'd like you to join me in thanking our panel for getting our day After such a good start We're back here at 325 Okay, welcome back everyone. I'd like to introduce myself My name is Peter Weinberger. I'm a senior program officer here at the US IP Academy I'm a colleague with dr. Lopez who had to leave to catch a flight Overseas for some work that he's doing on behalf of the Institute I like to say a bit about what I do at the Institute because it will frame some of the questions I have for our colleagues here on the podium I deal with a number of courses here in the US IP Academy for those of you who are not familiar with what We do it is basically a school for professionals. We teach Diplomats military officers people who work for NGOs. We have courses here in this building online self-paced courses And we also take our programs overseas internationally to partner with organizations To learn from their expertise. I have a broad portfolio here at the Institute But I'm especially interested in everything that's being discussed today because I deal with a lot of issues relating to language Identity and culture one of the things that I encounter a lot particularly when I train American international affairs professionals who are going to work in an International context is someone who will say to me things like I'm there to do a very specific task I'm there to help reconstruct the school system or to help promote the rule of law or to actually build the physical Infrastructure and things like identity language culture are less important for me, and I don't see how that will affect my work My reaction is usually the same as what all of you are doing. I have to suppress a smile and say That if one is not mindful of things related to language identity and culture one will be terribly blindsided And in order to be effective to work with partners internationally one certainly has to understand their history their historical Narratives and certainly make an effort to learn their language. I Would say that one of the great successes of the United States Institute of Peace Is our partnerships with non-governmental organizations and educational? Institutes Internationally it's through them that we learn best practices and we're actually able to serve as a conduit to share information So in this capacity for me It's just a treasure to be here today to listen to colleagues Our next panel will be talking about some best practices that are being done on the grassroots levels Sort of zooming in if you will from the perspective of we had sort of a macro perspective now We have more of a micro perspective We have four distinguished panelists first will be Joel Chudel Following him will be Union Samo Following him will be Cecilia Ochoa and finally will be Mikhail Olson I've asked each of the panelists to speak briefly to present to their papers and afterwards will have a facilitated Q&A which I will return to the stage to do. Thanks Please Joel good afternoon I've been living in Nairobi for the last 20 years working with SIL international My area of interest for research has been literacy especially literacy in African societies But for the last three years I've been accompanying the Kenya peace network and that is that experience with the Kenya peace network is what I'm going to Share on this morning Kenya peace network is a network of 15 Kenyan organizations that come around together to to share and to get support for their activities in Peace and it's a wide range of activities. Some of them are relating to family violence situations. Some of them working working with Commercial sex workers and their orphans. Some of them are working with inter-ethnic Conflict and reconciliation a number of them are working with sharing and explaining and Communicating the new constitution the rights that are associated with the new constitution I don't know if you know the background of the Constitution in Kenya, but in 2007-2008 there was an election It was too close to call it provoked some election violence that was widespread throughout the country over a thousand people were killed Several hundred thousand were displaced much of it was along ethnic lines Kofi anon came in to help with the reconciliation process and part of the reconciliation process was the Formal forming the process of informant a new constitution and so these organizations several of them were involved in in Letting people know what was involved what their rights were what the what were the particulars of the new constitution as a part of a peacemaking process So these 15 organizations Came come together to as a network periodically to discuss their issues and to get support and funding for their own issues I'd like to say there was some profound linguistic aspect of They're coming together It's harder. I mean the thing that comes out to me. It's a very messy Linguistic situation some of the agencies are working in local rural areas and they're using the local Kenyan languages others are urban I have urban Activities and they're using quiesla heli or English for their there the medium for their activities So there's a variety of languages and a variety of perspectives on the importance of language in each of these organizations Maybe I can illustrate through my involvements Some of the messiness and what came out of The monitoring evaluation exercise that I conducted with a team with this organism with the network We did an exercise in what's called most significant change Which is the collecting of narratives of change from the beneficiaries of the organizations and so 10 of the organizations participated in this organization in this exercise and We trained two people from each Organization to go out and collect narratives of change the question being to the beneficiaries What changed as the result of our activities in the past year? We did it last year. So it was 2012 activities and so these narratives were collected from all 10 organizations. They went out and they collected 17 I'm sorry 75 Narratives of what it changed in each of their contexts from the perspective of the beneficiaries So those 75 narrative narratives were collected and and processed and we encourage each organization To as a staff Discuss which of those narratives in their own that their own organization collected was the most significant and why what made it Significant and so there was a process of their own values of staff of what did they think was going on When they collected these narratives from the beneficiaries and so each of those 10 organizations Submitted 10 stories that they thought these are the most significant and so we printed up those stories We got the directors of all those organizations together and we had them read all the stories together And at first we just debriefed and said what did you learn through this exercise about what your beneficiaries think? But then as a as a network we got together and we said Which of these 10 stories best embodies the values of our network? Which of these 10 stories that each of your organizations submitted best embodies what we think that Kenya Peace Network is about? So as you can marry me can imagine a very lively discussion because some of them identified very much with the stories that came From their organization and so there's a lot of back and forth about well Which and we went through a ranking process a discussion process And it was it was very instructive for all of them at the end They came up with the higher ranked stories and then the story that was ranked the highest was one about Inter-ethnic conflict It was set in the north of Kenya near Mars a bit an area that were pastoralists are operating where there's been Conflict that has been going on for some time it goes back to Water rights pastoral rights But more recently these same ethnic groups the Barana the Gabra the Randeli these are the names of these ethnic groups Where they used to settle their conflicts with bows and arrows now They're settling them with automatic weapons and so entire villages were being wiped out and then in retaliation Another village would be wiped out and so the escalation of the violence was significant and so there was an one of the organizations was working in this area to try to deal with the Reconciliation issues that they saw as necessary to to bring peace to the area and so The story of the beneficiary Was one Gabra man a young man Married man who had lost number of his cousins to the violence number his friends He'd lost and he was willing to participate in this training and it was a kind of a training of reflection leading to action and As a result of the training he began to Invite people from other ethnic groups into activities that they had in common in the community He began to see them and participate and encourage them to participate across ethnic lines To the point where he said you know I used to think of all the Gabra as thieves and liars I used to think of them as is as The enemy and now as a result. I'm thinking you know I need to change my attitude It has to start with me peace has to start with me And so this was the narrative that they had selected as being the one that they felt most embodied the values of their of their network and One of the reason was it was a story of personal change that an individual who had participated in the train changed personally but it was also a story of social change because His activities had been to invite other groups to get together to and be involved socially so there was social change as well Now what can we say about this linguistically? Well the linguistics the language the identity the competition for resources The politicians that stirred all that up they conspired to create the situation in the first place and afterwards those things Still exist, but what the story? Exemplifies is that change can happen even if you don't you have the same situation on one side or the other I like What Patricia Friedrich said earlier turning around people's views? I think one of the aspects of this intervention was an attempt to change people's minds to turn around their views in the situation even though the situation itself From the from the beginning of the intervention intervention the end of the intervention Still the those the dynamics that were pushing people towards complex still exist But the efforts that they were making to turn around people's views I think with what is one of the things that they felt made it Exemplified the kinds of interventions that the network was trying to highlight So I offer that as one of the the aspects of sort of on the ground Peace peace efforts that I've been involved in in Kenya. Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone Before I start talking I would like to say I'm so sorry for my English because it's the fourth language for me My mother tongue if Tani Malay the second language is a Thai the third language is standard Malay Okay, I Would like to talking about the identity through the lens of language and script in Thailand deep south But Tani Malay situation It's about 83% of people in the three southernmost provinces or more than a million people speak Tani Malay But Tani Malay plays an important role. It's used in everyday communication We use it in Islamic teaching entertainment and radio and television but Until recently Tani Malay was not permitted to be spoken by teacher or students in government schools at present Tani Malay language and culture are declining Some young generation do not speak Tani Malay Acreal language between Tani Malay and Thai is developing in the urban areas The oral literature is dying such as games stories and tales poem and songs and so on The last one the chronic under achievement in school Tani Malay students have a lower score in the national testing It's about 40% illiterate at grade 3 Here is the languages used in the area the number one is is Tani Malay The second one is mixed Language between Tani Malay and Thai the third one is standard Thai The fourth one is southern Thai and standard Malay and the last one Arabic Is it a complexity of languages in my areas here is the language situations away? I carry out into 2007 and The result confirmed that Tani Malay is the most widely used in daily life and It's also the language that people in the area have confidence in their ability to use and The Tani Malay also the language which children know best when they start school and Also is the language that the people prefer to use in education in this slide I Will talking about the T-script that's being used in the area the number one is Javi Which is Arabic based script? It's used for writing a kind of classical Malay not but Tani Malay It is widely used in Islamic domain in Islamic religious texts its most people see it as the identity and And young people do not read and write Javi professionally The second one is Rumi, which is Romanized script It's only popular among people educated in Malaysia Indonesia or Brunei The third one is Thai script More people in the area have literacy skills in Thai than any other language The Thai script used to write Tani Malay in non-formal education and in Tani Malay lessons for Thai government officials or as a tool for documentation of cultural texts Which cannot be written in Javi or Rumi? here is the example of the Signs in in my in my area In this here is the Semestery signed Which provided three script here is the Javi script We also have a Rumi script here and also Thai based script It is very common in the area that we have a difference We have a variety of script on signs along the street along the community and so on yes, I Will skip this slide Okay This slide just to show you about the complexity the multiple identities of the Tani Malay speaker in Thailand's Deep South They have their own mother tongue at the local at the local level and They also have a Thai language and they also need to be a part of Thai nation at the national level at the same time They also have Islamic world Which is related to the classical Malay which is used the Javi script and the last one the people in the area also have a larger Malay world Which is related to the standard Malay written in Rumi script Here is the complexity of the people in the area They have to learn more languages. They have to learn Tani Malay They have to learn Thai. They have to learn Classical Malay written in Javi and also they have to learn standard Malay in the larger society The Tani Malay Thai based script is selected as a foundation for the Tani Malay Thai bilingual education What is the advantage of using the Tani Malay Thai based script? But Tani Malay Thai based script is necessary for pedagogical and political reasons because It can exactly represent local pronunciation It is easy to learn because most people in the area are familiar with the Thai script from school It can be used to record local wisdom and knowledge It helps develop the students cognitive skills and facilitate easy transition to Thai and the last one It is accepted by the government agencies and society at large But some people underestimate the values of the Tani Malay Thai based script A handful of inferential local figures feel that Thai based Tani Malay script Is another Thai government assimilation strategy to destroy the Javi script And some people do not understand the importance of the mother tongue Or find it hard to accept the use of the local language in education Some people feel that the classical Malay written in Javi is superior To the everyday spoken Tani Malay and the last one some people think standard Malay is Superior to Tani Malay How does the Tani Malay Thai bilingual education promote all this script? As Ajahn Suvelay mentioned before In our program we start with the Tani Malay Which is the mother tongue at the beginning of school And then we gradually bridge to Thai language At the second semester of KG1 And also introduce the literacy in Tani Malay in KG2 and continue the oral Thai And then for the Javi script we introduce in grade 3 And for the Rumi script or standard Malay we introduce in grade 4 So the people after they finish grade 3 at grade 6 So our children can listen in speaking, reading and writing in four languages There are Tani Malay, Thai, Rumi and Ajavi and Rumi Here are some pictures the achievement of our students They can read and write in Thai based Tani Malay They also can read and write in Javi Here And also Rumi Quality education that honors the Tani Malay identity can enhance human security and help build peace Tani Malay Thai bilingual education can contribute to security and peace Children and students will have success in school And have more opportunity in job and more opportunity in high education And also they can keep their language and culture identity For the parents and community They will dissatisfied with their children achievement They have more confidence in their Thai government school And their trust in Thai education policy and also It will fulfill their needs keep all their identity For the Thai society They will see the values of the diversity and multilingualism in this country And also they can see the importance of education for national reconciliation And they also accept the ethnic language and culture identity in the country Yes, thank you very much Cecilia Ocho and I from Save the Children and I'd like to thank the organizers for inviting us to present today I am a recent transplant to D.C. from the Philippines. So in my mother tongue So while we're waiting for the slides to come on The talk I'm going to give right now is really a little bit more skewed towards why Equity and education equity and educational outcomes is very critical to longer lasting peace And I'm so glad that a lot of the presenters earlier Had pointed to the the importance of structural causes behind conflict and why we need to be addressing Those possible causes of conflict Preventing those possible causes of conflict I guess we're waiting for these slides Yes, okay All right So as I said earlier this is about how our programs globally Are working within education to bolster Children's the use of children's home language in improving educational outcomes So a lot of the speakers earlier had already pointed out the importance of Of education as the potential and its potential for supporting Peace but there's also it's a double-edged sword, right? So if it can be both a contributor to peace building and it can also aggravate conflict and Many of the practitioners earlier have already stated the Various aspects in terms of tolerance inclusiveness and why Incorporating a positive language policy is important But we also need to be thinking about the potential of language In terms of how it can contribute to more effective outcomes for learning for children And that's absolutely Fundamental if as we were saying earlier there's an increasingly multi-literate world And without giving children a strong foundation in the basics of literacy They will there will be an increasing language divide and literacy divide globally So we need to be looking at learning equity as well In our work globally and why do we know that learning is an issue and learning equity is an issue Several reports have pointed out to this disparity The most recent education for all report alerted us to a global learning crisis There are wide gaps and disparities in learning outcomes and going forward After the 2015 millennium development goals are passed All of us are now looking critically at how Disparity addressing disparity and addressing inequity will need to be Sort of a focal point for for development goals moving forward and language Specifically children's inability to understand the language of instruction Will be a huge factor behind why they struggle to learn and has been proven to be a huge factor behind why they struggle to learn So I just wanted to I asked my friend to quickly draw this graphic up So we're not we're not talking about equality and opportunities We want to emphasize that to be able to address language issues in learning We have to be looking at the equity question in washington dc right now equity is very sexy, right? And because of the one percent and everything else, but globally we also need to be looking at at equity and learning and I thought this graphic was really a good representation of why we need to differentiate between equality and equity And there's a really good quote there by pauline rose it's There are many populations who are struggling the most Were at the margins including ethnic minorities girls those were impoverished In terms of home literacy environments and everything else and we need to be looking at Equity in a different light. We need to be showing that there needs to be special effort extended for those groups that are struggling the most And it's not just providing equal opportunity, but really providing the boost that they need to be able to To achieve equality in learning outcomes And we also know from our work globally and save the children that Children who are coming from language minority groups are struggling we did baseline studies in a variety of countries for example in nipal where we did we did a school effectiveness Study we saw that non-native speakers of the language of instruction were significantly disadvantaged in terms of their learning outcomes And the nipali speakers were able to Sustain that advantage right so we need to be addressing The needs of those who are struggling the most with with language and education There's a similar situation in my home country in the philippines This was a study that we did in both urban sites in metro mandela as well as in mindanao The philippines is a country where there's 171 180 depending on who you talk to languages And the privilege that is being provided to children who are able to speak the language of instruction is really exacerbating the gaps between learning outcomes for many children And a similar situation was found in ethnic minority communities in vietnam Where we were also doing a lot of mother tongue language education work where the kin speakers predominantly the dominant language speakers are Particularly advantaged by their but the fact that they speak the language of instruction So knowing that these issues exist In education What has been saved the children's response? I think it's important that we not just focus on school But you also be look we also need to be looking at the earliest stages and I see Emily here Hi Emily, uh, who's uh, both a mother tongue advocate and an eccd advocate A lot of parents who are coming from the non dominant language group Do not see their skills their own vocabulary as resources, but they absolutely are And so we need to be emphasizing to parents that early stimulation parent-child interactions just speaking to your children aiding them in Knowing what the different labels are for different things. Those are absolutely critical for children's knowledge And for their learning and cognitive development We are also doing apart from our zero to three work. We're also doing a lot of work with community-based preschools Or alternative Opportunities for children to learn and within those opportunities. We are beginning to address The use of mother tongue for emergent literacy and math Activities So it's absolutely fundamental that we also be looking at the early childhood stages because actually that's That's an area where government Is very loose in terms of language policy, right? They're not as As agitated about language policy when it's it's in those critical Early stages and in basic education. We're also Promoting a program called literacy boost We combine assessment teacher training and community action and again The emphasis here is we need to be looking at it holistically and not just looking at the school or the classroom Children bring a lot of resources into the classroom and we meet and the community also brings a lot of resources So we need to be looking at various aspects of the the environment that surrounds children The language and literacy environment that surrounds children. So what we do is We provide reading materials in both the mother tongue and the language of instruction and we Expand children's exposure to that to that particular field of literacy In certain contexts, there are not a lot of materials available in the mother tongue and we work with partners like s i l or other organizations to produce those materials We train teachers on Explicit reading instruction strategies and we also have in our teacher training a specific session on why language matters and why they need to be Understanding what language resources their children bring to the classroom And then finally we have a lot of opportunities at the community level and at the home level To engage children in literacy practice. That's interesting and fun There's a lot of talk earlier about motivation and absolutely motivation will be critical If you want to sustain a culture of literacy and a culture of interest in language Throughout children's lives our results thus far We've seen that our eccd programs are helping children who have access to ecd programs in indonesia Typically outpace those who do not have access to ecd and in our bangladesh program Where we did a study of our emergent literacy and math program. We saw that those interventions Allow the children to outperform those kids in the control schools And in literacy boost, which is now operational about 20 countries worldwide we did cross-country analysis of our results and we're seeing that These efforts to integrate language and literacy skills are working So in in our cost-country study, we saw significant effects across different countries on the different Components of reading development and we also see that in the most fundamental Aspect of reading and literacy, which is comprehension. We're able to move The needle forward not as fast as we would like but we're able to move the needle forward in terms of strengthening children's comprehension skills in terms of literacy development So As a final call to action it's Just wanted to Sort of underscore why language matters in children's learning We need to increase amount of interventions that we have and we need to go beyond the traditional interventions that just focus on teachers And classrooms and textbooks and look at what children are bringing from their home environments and in their communities to support children's literacy and If we're ever going to be fulfilling the potential of education to serve as a peace building instrument We absolutely need to be focused on equity and language is a significant aspect of Thank you I'm going to use the podium as prop here to keep me awake. I've actually Started this day Many hours ago in the north of Uganda traveled eight hours to Kampala Then caught a plane to Addis and then to Rome and then arrived here this morning. So it's been a long day I want to explore with you Some thoughts we've been having a world vision. My name is Mikhail Olson. I'm the global technical director for education and life skills there and We're sort of new in the game in terms of Improving teaching and learning we've done a lot with hardware around building schools and And supplies and scholarships and things like that. So We're trying to incorporate best practice models around The core things of of a basic education which have been defined in the Dakar goals as Functional levels of reading math and essential life skills And I'm finding it particularly interesting around the essential life skills And those that contribute to to peace and active citizenship participation In that in when we're working with ethno linguistic minorities A lot of the strengths around some of these life skills are inherent in their language and cultures and in their traditions and exchanges and It's kind of a question of who's going to teach who and do we want to bring best practices? Or to what degree do we want to draw out nascent traditional knowledge that's embedded in these cultures? So I'm going to read some of these paragraphs. So I stay on track Uh, the basic thesis is that locked within the languages of ethno linguistic minorities lie Excellent tools that can be harnessed to improve quality basic basic education for many marginalized children While at the same time Building peaceful coexistence and active citizenship capacities Among that the new generation as well as with their parents Um Many ethno linguistic minorities encode the world in collective terms Where each individual's identity is largely a function of one's ability to use their talents and strengths for the wider good That's so emphasized in in some cultures I remember ladonna harris who I used to work for at americans for indian opportunity and she was very fond of saying that That uh many comancey individuals If they couldn't find How they can use their talents and skills for the wider good. They would actually go crazy Their identity is so attached to Being part of a larger whole and contributing in that way And uh, I lived amongst the barri and poppinugini for a number of years and and learned there that they may commit suicide If for some reason in in public the wider body politic would turn on them Uh With some kind of public defame Basically because there's no way to escape you can't run to the next town you are so tied your identity is so much a part of the unit That if it turns on you you can't you know, there's no no alternative Uh, I say that just just to say Learning to live in relationship in community and in harmony with the environment is so strong Not necessarily to the degree that we all want to go to but so strong in these Many traditional cultures That they probably have more things to teach us about what it means To live collectively in community and relationship than than we might want to teach them in terms of these parts of essential life skills Um Western world views I think on the other hand western or contemporary society Frequently promote personal autonomy and uh exploitation of the environment sometimes at the expense of uh Of the collective good Um And I mentioned earlier that the car convention where the global development community gathered at the turn of the millennium Defined the heart of the basic education and the right of every child As opportunity to acquire at least at a minimum functional levels of reading Uh essential mathematical computation skills and then a few core uh essential life skills It's become powerfully clear I think due in part to the devastation of the hiv and AIDS pandemic that education If it is to prepare children for productive and fulfilling lives Is just as dependent on children learning essential social skills As it is on children learning the more cognitive reading writing and math Skills upon which much of schooling in these contexts has been based So in regard to these essential life skills in 2002 WHO unicef and many of the larger NGOs working in the field agreed upon Three core categories of essential life skills as those That are fundamental to a basic education and should be Should be taught or processes for acquiring those skills should be promoted as part of every education Learning program Those are critical thinking emotional management and self-expression About the same time in many indigenous Uh, well, let's say amongst the scholars of indigenous communities. They were also Talking about essential life skills But from a different perspective Whereas the unicef and WHO skills are are looking at the individual's abilities and skills Uh, the indigenous perspective that was coming out in works like those of ladonna harris that I referred to she did a monograph on Uh, indigeneity and and they're more very much from this collective point of view And from how the individual is part of a larger whole and so they defined them as uh Respect for they call them the four Rs respect relationship reciprocity and responsibility Very social in their nature Uh, later on there's been a progression around how we articulate these life skills And the latest articulation of them by unicef Incorporates the social skills Uh, and so they've redefined these sets So that uh, the new sets are Uh, the reasoning skills personal skills and interpersonal skills where the personal skills were combined Uh With the emotional management and the interpersonal skills were combined with the self-expression But I think the point here that I'm that I'd like to make is that uh What is key is that social linguistic minorities using multilingual approaches to basic education Have at their disposal language resources That clearly encode well established easily understood vocabulary basic thought processes and patterns and illustrative examples from from uh Ceremonies and traditions and patterns in their societies for teaching essential life skills that are needed For rebuilding a culture of peace in many of the places Uh, where we're doing education with ethnolinguistic minorities Let me also mention that it's been UNESCO has given the most attention to peace building as a focus area for the acquisition of essential life skills and uh That was captured very eloquently by Margaret Sinclair in her 2008 publication Uh, which you might be familiar with called learning to live together And here peace and active citizenship are elevated As widely recognized life skill goes for the education for all movement overall As I said earlier, I just returned this morning from What was a project design workshop? Um With school management committee heads and pta heads um From schools at the a bear and a bokeh sound uh sub counties there in uh, northern Uganda just south of the south sudan border and It's really the atrocities that these communities have suffered during the 20 years of clashes between The lord's army and the government forces there As published in our infamous book the a bear girls We were actually in the a bear school with those teachers and those smc's For this workshop and and it's that experience that is really driving these local leaders to uh To take an active role themselves In participating in proving Reading but reading using the context of their traditional lango culture and society Uh to reinforce these essential life skills that have been re eroded in The current generation And so they're capitalizing on the rich linguistic and conceptual framework that That the lango language provides for doing this so that even initial literacy and and early grade reading Reinforce at an early age What learning to live together as margaret captures it Uh can mean in preparing them to go on to lead Both productive and fulfilling lives My own uh early research work was on the language and culture uh among the barai on the monaglasp plateau in Papua New Guinea And uh, it was just so apparent to me after a couple of years living and working in those communities Uh how intimately the social skills Uh are woven into the fabric of of of mother tongue languages And what an amazing untapped resources readily available for improving basic education including Life skills instruction and how that's encoded and using those stories and tales to to Improve reading outcomes Because of That language and that knowledge and and those traditions being so strong You can you by using The encoding of those life skills. You're not only teaching the life skills to the kids But that frame of reference that they've heard from moms and dads and grandmas and aunties Improves comprehension as well Couple examples about um linking Traditional cultural practices to life skills learning One of the things amongst the barai they do is reserve the richest veins of volcanic ash soil That produced the very best of the yams For the in-laws the in-laws that were drawn into the society from their traditional enemies their exogamous cultures so part of the peace building mechanisms in their society is this of marrying The traditional enemy and then Building strong close ties through uh through those marital relationships Another thing that another interesting practice is is substituting aggressive inter-tribal impulses With competitive demonstrations of giving more and better gifts Than they've ever received from the other side before and it's the same sort of aggression but it's about giving more and better and bigger Um And a further sign of respect, I think this is probably true in many traditional societies is is uh that these former enemies now come in-laws You refrain from using their names as terms of reference, but Repeatedly affirm The relationship and what it encodes by using a kin term with an affectionate Affix at the end of it so that you're affirming that new relationship with this former enemy Repeatedly whenever you want to to call their name instead of calling their name And the list goes on there's just multiple things A variety of institutionalized ceremonies like you know the breaking of the spears offering even offering orphans to former enemies for adoption Uh practice of collectively assuming responsibility for the wrongs of one of your own groups So the whole group comes and takes responsibility If if a wrong has been made rather than just the individual to ensure that Living in relationship and living in community Uh Transcend differences that arise around larger land use economic issues or Or even cultural religious issues that may arrive between the different groups So I say all that just to reiterate again that that these basic underlying skills about living in relationship living in community And living in harmony with the environment Can readily be taught and uh Using local languages as as resources Much better than trying to bring in best practices externally In conclusion rather than viewing indigenous languages as the source of division and conflict to become barriers to development Let us take advantage of the rich social structure and indigenous languages And what they encode to provide strong platform for building the core life skills so essential for peaceful coexistence Thank you I'd like to thank the the panelists those were really outstanding presentations and a lot of fascinating enriched material I'd just like to take Just two or three minutes to comment it on what I heard from my perspective as a practitioner here at the institute of peace And one of the things that stood out from all four of the presentations Was just so much of a convergence of the kind of work that My colleagues and I do here and particularly the way that we think about framing how to Deal with different peoples and how to think about What is a substantive and rich peace? 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