I MPORTANCE OF MAINTAINING M OTHER T ONGUE BI - & MULTILINGUAL CHILDREN Anne-France Muyard 27 May 2016

Agenda Mother Tongue and concepts Unesco’s Principles on Language and Education Benefits of Bilinguism and Multilingualism How to promote Mother Tongue in the class ?

Mother Tongue

PARENT PARENT LANGUAGE

Emotional and mental growthEmotional and mental growth 1 Cultural identityCultural identity 2 Basis for learning other languagesBasis for learning other languages 3 Mother Tongue’s concepts

UNESCO’s Principles on Language and Education

Unesco’s recommandations

Principle I : UNESCO supports mother-tongue instruction as a means of improving educational quality by building upon the knowledge and experience of the learners and teachers. Principle II :UNESCO supports bilingual and/or multilingual education at all levels as a means of promoting both social and gender equality, and as a key element of linguistically diverse societies.

=> Eliminate discrimination => Promote cultural [and linguistic] diversity Principle III :UNESCO supports language as an essential component of inter-cultural education in order to encourage understanding between different population groups and ensure respect for fundamental rights

BENEFITS OF BILINGUALISM & MULTILINGUALISM

Case Study Hantz Hessouh's video

What can we do to promote MT ? Mother Tongue Strong affirmative messages Multilingualism projects : culture day, songs, cooking, games Books, Reading log or journal in MT & English Wall decoration : posters, drawings, photos, words

Q UESTIONS ?

Resources df df The-Language-of-Heart-and-Mind The-Language-of-Heart-and-Mind the-advantages-of-speaking-more-than-one-language/ the-advantages-of-speaking-more-than-one-language/ bilingual_childrens_mother_tongue.pdf bilingual_childrens_mother_tongue.pdf