Quang, Can Dai PhD *
I. Vietnam is a multi-ethnic and
multi-lingual country
I. 1. The ethnic diversity of Vietnam
Vietnam is a
multi-ethnic country with 54 ethnic groups. The Viet (Kinh) people account for
87% of the country’s population of 86 million (2009 census). The Viet mainly
inhabit the Red River delta, the central coastal delta, the Mekong delta and
major cities. The other 53 ethnic minority groups, totaling over 13 million
people, are scattered in remote or mountainous areas (covering two-thirds of
the country’s territory) spreading from the North to the South. Only some of
Hoa, Cham, and Khmer are living in coastal (see the map 1).
List of ethnic groups in Vietnam[1]
Ethnic groups are presented in the
following table in descending order of their populations: Table 1
Ethnic Minorities with Their Populations. (source from CIA- The world factbook )
|
Population (approximate only)
|
Name of ethnic group
|
|
1 million
|
Tay, Thai, Muong, Hmong, and Khmer.
|
|
Some 100,000
|
Hoa, Dao, Jarai, Ede, Bana, Nung, Sanchay, Chama, Xodang, San Diu,
Raglai, Mnong, Hre, and Co Ho.
|
|
Some 10,000
|
Tho, Xtieng, Kho Mu, Bru-Van Kieu, Giay, Co Tu, Gie
Trieng, Ta Oi, Ma, Co, Cho Ro, Ha Nhi, Xinh Mun, Churu, Lao, Phu La, Khang,
and La Chi.
|
|
Some 1,000
|
La Hu, Lu, Pa Then, Lo Lo, Chut, Mang, Co Lao, Bo Y, La
Ha, Cong, and Ngai.
|
|
Some 100
|
Si La, Romam, Pu Peo, Brau, and Odu (General Statistic
Office, 2010)
|
a As one can see in the
table above, the Cham people has a population of about 161,729 within the
Vietnam border, and represents considerably less than 1 percent of Vietnam’s
population (General Statistic Office, 2010).
Until
now, there was a large gap in both the material and spiritual lives between
peoples living in the deltas and those living in mountain areas as well as
among ethnic minorities themselves. The Vietnamese government has worked out
specific policies and special treatments in order to help mountain people to
catch up with lowlanders, and has made great efforts to develop and preserve
traditional cultural identities of each ethnic minority group, especially their
distinct languages. At present, the projects of creating new writing scripts
for minority peoples, and studying and developing traditional culture of each
ethnic minority group together with programs of providing iodized salt for
remote villages, equipping each village’s health care and hygienic station,
fighting malaria, building free schools for ethnic minority children, settled
agriculture and fixed residence... have obtained satisfactory results.
I. 2. The linguistics diversity of Vietnam
The number and
variety of languages used by Vietnam's minorities reflect the country's ethnic
complexity. Standing in the Indochina peninsula, the gateway to mainland and
offshore Southeast Asia, Vietnam is the location of cultural intercourse in
this region. Dozens of distinct languages as well as numerous dialects continue
to unceasingly impact one another, and serve to distinguish different minority
groups. The origins and distribution of many of these 53 languages have not yet
been conclusively established. They can (exclusive of the Kinh language),
however, be grouped loosely into three major language families, i.e.
Austro-Asian Language Family, Austronesian Language Family and Sino-Tibetan
Language Family, which in turn can be divided into several subgroups as shown
in following table:
Table 2
Language Groups with Associated Ethnic Groups in Vietnam
|
Language groups
|
Ethnic groups
|
|
The Viet-Muong includes 4 ethnic groups
|
Chut, Kinh, Muong and Tho
|
|
The Tay-Thai includes 8 ethnic groups
|
Bo Y, Giay, Lao, Lu, Nung, Sanchay, Tay, and Thai
|
|
The Mon-Khmer includes 21 ethnic groups
|
Bana, Brau, Bru-Van Kieu, Cho Ro, Co, Co Ho, Co Tu, Gie
Trieng, Hre, Khang, Khmer, Kho Mu, Ma, Mang, Mnong, Odu, Romam, Ta Oi, Xinh
Mun, Xodang, and Xtieng
|
|
The Malayo-Polynesian includes 5 ethnic groups
|
Cham, Churu,
Ede, Jarai, and Raglai
|
|
The Sino Group includes 3 ethnic groups
|
Hoa, Ngai, and San Diu
|
|
The Tibeto-Burman includes 6 ethnic groups
|
Cong, Ha Nhi, La Hu, Lo Lo, Phu La, and Si La (Hoang,
1996)
|
|
The Hmong-Dao includes 3 ethnic groups
|
Dao, Hmong, and Pa Then
|
|
The Kadai includes 4 ethnic groups
|
Co Lao, La Chi, La Ha, and Pu Peo (Lewis, 2009)
|
Almost half of the
minority groups have writing scripts. Hoa, Cham, Thai, and Khmer have their own
traditional writing systems. Tay, Nung, Hmong, Muong, Koho, Ede, Bahnar, H’re,
and Jarai have romanized scripts.
Although they
speak different languages, the ethnic groups live close to one another and so
one group can know the language of others through everyday relations. And
although they are involved in cultural exchange, they keep retaining the
identity of their own culture. The diversity of the cultures of ethnic groups
does not take them off the track of the common development of the nation, just
as the unity in the diversity.
II. The policies and implementation of
Bilingual education
II. 1. Language policy of the Vietnamese
government
After the
Declaration of Independence was announced in Ba Dinh Square on 2nd
September 1945, the Vietnamese government, from The Democratic Republic of
Vietnam to The Socialist Republic of Vietnam, paid attention to linguistics
policy and followed bilingualism consistently to build a unified society in
this multilingual nation. This is manifested in legal documents.
Since 1946
Vietnam's Constitution, which has been amended three times, in 1959, 1980 and
1992, has clearer provisions of more consistent aims at equality among
different languages in the nation. Article 5 of the
first Constitution (1946) stated: “Ethnic minorities have the right to receive
compulsory and free primary and lower-secondary education in their languages.”
Article 5 of the 1981 Constitution
reconfirms this principle: “Ethnic minorities have the right to use their own
languages and scripts, maintain and develop their good traditions, practices,
custom and culture[2].” Article 5 of 1992
Constitutional amendment of the socialist republic of Vietnam stipulated
that: “Ethnic minorities have the right to receive compulsory and free primary
and lower-secondary education in their languages, use their own languages and
scripts, maintain and develop their good traditions, practices, custom and
culture.”[3]
Other documents
were issued to detail the activities in different localities to apply to
different ethnicities in the whole country. For example, on 10th August 1969 the Government Council
issued Decision 153/CP on the establishment, improvement, and use of ethnic
scripts; reviewed the results of the implementation of Decree 206/CP; and
stipulated the scope and extent of using the scripts of the ethnic groups in
primary and lower-secondary schools: “Where the pupils know a little of the national
language, the ethnic minority scripts together with the Vietnamese language and
scripts shall be taught in kindergarten and other grades of elementary
education.” (1969, p. 11)
After the liberation of South Vietnam, the Central
Communist Party Committee issued a decree on 11th November 1977,
which specified: “The languages and writings of all ethnic groups shall be
respected”. Right after that, Decree No. 23/CT-TW on 15th
December 1977 about the management of ethnic issues in the current situation was
proclaimed and included information about government project 135 on the
development of the social, economy and education in ethnic, remote and
mountainous areas. Decision 153-CP of the
Government Council focused on language policy and was to be implemented in
accordance with the situation of South Vietnam. To further settle the language
policy, the Government Council promulgated Decision 53-CP on 22nd
February 1980, which concerned the writing systems of ethnic minority groups.
The decision emphasized “the right and duty of all Vietnamese citizens to learn
the national language” and stipulated that “in ethnic minority areas, the
ethnic minority languages and writing shall be taught together with the
national language in primary schools and Continuing education centers.” (1980,
p. 8). The above documents deeply affected the implementation and the
results of developing ethnic language and sustaining multilingualism in
Vietnam.
The Ministry of
Education Circular 01was issued on the 3rd of February 1997 and provided
detailed guidelines to implement the language policies and regulations
mentioned in the previous decision. Article 4 of Education Law is the basis of
these words from the Circular: “Elementary education was implemented in
Vietnamese. Ethnic minority groups have the right to use their own language
together with Vietnamese for instruction in elementary education.”[4]
However these sound policies and thoughtful regulations may only be properly
realized if there is a measure of cooperation between government and language
communities together seeking successful implementation.
In recent years,
the teaching-learning of ethnic languages has moved to a new theoretical and
practical phase of development based on Decree 82 and Circular 50. Decree
82/2010/CP, clearly allows the use of local languages to teach and reform the
curriculum in schools. Under this Decree, minority languages may be taught as a
subject in schools when they meet all the following conditions: (1) the Ethnic
minority has aspirations for the learning and maintenance of their mother
tongue; (2) the minority languages to be taught and learned in school are the
traditional forms popularly used by the community and have the approval of
specialized agencies or are supported by a letter issued by competent
authorities; (3) the programs and textbooks to be used in the minority language
teaching are compiled and assessed under the provisions of the Minister of
Education and Training; (4) teachers of minority language subjects must be
qualified by proper training at a teacher training college, or a pedagogy
university; and (5) the physical facilities in which the teaching of minority
languages meets the requirements prescribed by the Minister of Education and
Training.
Minority language
teaching at one time was mostly provided in regular elementary school. The
policies now permit the extension to secondary schools, high schools, and
colleges for teacher education, as well as teaching minority languages in
continuing education centers for people of all ages. The completion of minority
language programs is certified in accordance with regulations set by the
Ministry of Education and Training. The decree also stipulates yearly the
amount of funds to be set aside for minority language programs, training and salaries
of teachers, encouragement of minority students, and state provision of
textbooks and reference books.
Decree 82/2010/CP
regulates programs for teaching Mother Tongues in Schools and provides for the
creation of continuing education Centers. Implementation of the intent of the
decree is provided in detail in the Joint Circular 50/2011/TTLT- BGDDT-BNV-BTC
which was passed in 2011 and importantly contains guild lines for specific
financial support, and responsible units. It is too early to say that with
these powerful guidelines Vietnam will be one of the leading nations with good
models in teaching minority languages. However should Vietnam consistently
implement the language policy and plans as stated in the Decree 82/2010/CP and
other legal documents there is a source of optimism.
II. 2. Bilingual education in Vietnam
There are two
phases of implementation of bilingual education in Vietnam: before 1981 and
after 1981.
II. 2. a. Before 1981: In this period,
bilingual education was not paid much attention since the government was
occupied with the chaos of the early days of unification. Before 1975 it was
also engaged in the war to unite North and South. Even though there were many
good directions in the field, the then bilingual education programs were implemented
haphazardly. Teachers of bilingual programs were often soldiers supporting the
Northern government and so taught
revolutionary songs in ethnic minority languages in guerilla bases such as the
Raglai, Katu, Bru-Van Kieu and Ta-Oi areas or in the Northern border regions of
Hmong, Tay, and Nung. The songs were written in minority languages and were
transcribed into Latin scripts. This
encouraged the then ethnic people who didn’t know much Vietnamese to support
the government in its fight for reunification of the nation.
II. 2. b. After 1981: The real change
in the field was apparent right after the Decrees issued by the Secretary of the Central Communist Party Committee in
late 1977 that established policies towards southern ethnic minorities, and
their languages. In 1978 the Cham Textbooks Compiling Committee (CTCC) in Ninh
Thuan province was established by the local government. Some provinces in
Mekong Delta also prepared the textbooks and teachers for Khmer language
teaching program. The Council of Ministers’ directives require Khmer (1981) and
Cham (1982) provinces to strictly follow the policy on teaching ethnic writing
together with the national language. To fulfill this brand new task, the
officials had to compiled textbooks from grade 1 to grade 5, to train teachers,
to set up experimental classes as models then extending in other schools. There
were supervision system and updates every year. Then the support from
the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) to teach ethnic minority writing,
allows curricula to be drawn up, teaching manuals and textbooks to be
published, teachers to be trained, lesson plans and teaching methodologies to
be developed for different languages in order to make the programs closer to
the practical requirements.
Some collaborative field projects with foreign
organizations helped bilingual education in Vietnam to develop at many levels.
In January 1996, a workshop was conducted with experts and key teachers from
four ethnic minority groups to produce bilingual curriculum materials and
accompanying teacher education modules for use in the Multigrade and Bilingual
Education Project. This workshop resulted in the production of bilingual,
localized literacy materials in the form of Big Books in Bhanar, Khmer, Cham
and Hmong as a kind of pilot experiment with the aim at developing an
appropriate model for further expansion in the whole country where applicable[5].
Also In 1996, MOET extended the Multigrade and
Bilingual Education Project into “Minority Education Project”, with the
cooperation of foreign experts from Australia, and sponsorship from UNICEF (The
Universal Primary Education for Ethnic Minority Children Project - a UNICEF
project) and the World Bank. This project set up 3 Centers for Compiling
Minority Textbooks in 3 regions and wrote or rewrote textbooks for Khmer, Cham,
Hmong, Ede, Jarai, and Bhanar and experimented with the new textbooks for 5
years. The project was concluded in Summer 2005.
An experimental
project on “Researching a new method of teaching for the Thai pupils of the
Primary School in Son La province” used Thai language as the first language and
was first implemented in 1996. This pilot project was promoted by HEDO
(Highland Education Development Organization) and sponsored by the Toyota
Foundation.
The project’s
implementation included two stages. In the 3 years of the 1st stage,
Thai language was taught as the 1st language for the pupils of grade
1, grade 2 and grade 3 of Primary School. In the 2 years of the 2nd
stage, the Thai language was taught as a subject[6].
The
UNICEF project on Bilingual Education uses the mother tongues of Hmong, Jarai
and Khmer from 2008-2015. The result of this project will be the premise for
robust and sustainable bilingual education policies and guidelines for a successful
bilingual program (UNICEF, 2010).
III. Some typical programs of bilingual
education reported by MOET
III. 1. Ede program: It was started in
1995. In the school year 2010-2011, almost all the Ede resident areas had Ede
classes. There were 76 elementary schools, 497 classes, 11,052 students, and 97
teachers. In comparison with the beginning year 1995-1996, there were 3
elementary schools, 5 classes, 138 students, and 8 teachers. In high schools
(specially, in minority boarding schools), Ede was taught as a subject in 12
schools, 35 classes, with 1,414 students, double in comparison with the school
year 2003-2004. Because of a shortage of Ede teachers, each teacher served
about 10 classes. There were some classes in continuing education centers for
minority and those Vietnamese adults working with minority groups as government
agents (Anh, 2012).
III. 2. Chinese program: The Chinese is
an ethnic minority received governmental attention beginning in 1995. Chinese
students could take the Chinese optional subject in elementary schools in Ho
Chi Minh City, Ca Mau, Kien Giang, Soc Trang, Can Thơ, and Hau Giang Provinces.
Though class times were from 3 to 5 periods (35 minutes) per week as other
programs, they increased up to 8 or 10 periods per week after Decree 82/2010/CP
was signed. The secondary Chinese classes were extended to 4 periods per week
and used standardized and unified textbooks. The class teachers usually were
Chinese subject teachers (Dinh, 2011).
III. 3. Khmer program: It started since
1992, from the kindergarten to grade 12 in the provinces which the Khmer
resident such as, Soc Trang, Tra Vinh, Bac Lieu, Ca Mau, Kien Giang, An Giang,
Hau Giang, Can Tho, Vinh Long, Đồng Tháp, Long An, Tien Giang, and Ben Tre.
There were 4 periods in elementary schools and 2 periods per week in high
schools. For short of teachers, each Khmer teacher had to serve 4 to 5 classes.
There were some Khmer classes in Khmer Buddhist temples and Continuing
education centers. Khmer elementary teachers were trained 3 months in the
Teacher College, while higher level teachers are standardized with university
program (Dinh, 2011).
III. 4. Cham program: It was
implemented rather soon since 1978. Cham classes were laboratory with standard
orthography very carefully before expanding to all Cham elementary schools by
1990 in Ninh Thuan and Binh Thuan. Now there were only Cham classes in
elementary level with 3 periods per week (35 minutes). Total students in the
program in Ninh Thuan in 2011 was 8,265 students, in 341 classes, with 57
teachers among 1051 Cham teachers were trained. For improper teacher assignment
was subject teachers, each Cham teacher had to teach 10 classes. This long
improper assignment (since 2004) was the main reason why Cham teachers did not
want to improve their teaching abilities. For no hope to teach Cham classes,
since 2004 to 2012 there were only 53 teacher students, who attended a teacher
training class in Qui Nhon University. However, by 2004, there were 3 types of
teacher training classes servicing about 100 teachers annually. In recent
years, the need for understanding and using Cham language has occurred in
security and military officials. CTCC has launched some 2-month courses of Cham
language for these people, together with Vietnamese and foreign researchers
(Trai, 20012). As a result, five Cham classes for more than hundred students
who were government agents and cadres were implemented annually.
IV. Evaluation of the Cham program:
After more than 30
years of implementation of the Cham language teaching program, the SIL
classified Cham status is yellow, is being replaced by Vietnamese language.
Moreover, with Decree 82/2010/CP and Circular 50/2011/ TTLB-BGDĐT-BNV-BTC
stipulate the goals, contents, levels, and institutes in minority language
teaching programs in schools and Continuing education centers, many minority
programs have developed effectively. Those guidelines also emerged the lagging
behind of the Cham program in term of class time and program structure. As per
the year-end summation of MOET in October 2010, the big issue of minority
language programs was a shortage of teachers. However, the Cham program had
more than one thousand trained teachers, but only 57 were assigned to teach
Cham classes.
Stakeholders and
professionals noted that Cham secondary students were falling behind compared
with their native Vietnamese-speaking peers even after their successful years
of elementary schooling. The reasons are BISC (Basic Interpersonal
Communicative Skills) and CALP (Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency)
proficiencies have not met the age or grade level of their native
Vietnamese-speaking peers. UNICEF reported in 2010 that the dropout rate of
minority students at elementary level was 30%, at secondary was 75%, while the
national rates then were under 10% (UNICEF, 2004, 2010). Cham parents and
language teachers mentioned that the MLTP achievement in elementary should have
continued to develop during their secondary schooling or up to high school by
keeping on providing MLTP classes at secondary and/or high schools.
It
was argued that teaching mother-tongue literacy in such languages would confuse
the children because of the similarity of the scripts[7].
However, ample research has confirmed that mother tongue promotion in the
school helps develop both the mother tongue and children’s abilities in the
majority school language (Cummins, 2001; Goldenberg, 2008)
The UNICEF project
in 2008 tried to improve and solve the same issues in bilingual education at
kindergarten level that minority communities and the Vietnamese government had
met and solved 10 or 15 years ago. They have already the guidelines and better
policies to revitalize and promote minority languages in Vietnam.
Theoretically, the minority language policies in Vietnam can be the model for
the world. The UNICEF projects in bilingual education should meet the needs of
specific programs and make further improvements to the programs. If not their
efforts are a waste of money, time and minority groups’ efforts while those
groups need the time and resources to save their dying languages.
V. The achievement and limitation in
bilingual education in Vietnam
V. 1. Attitude of the community and the
impact of the policy
Those who know the
Kinh well and live close to the major provincial cities have 2 directions,
bilingual to preserve the language or to focus on the Kinh national language.
Those who use their own language in daily life in family and community contexts
support the direction of preservation in order to help their children overcome
the language barriers. Those who live in underdeveloped areas, far away from
the cities, hold attitudes that are not clearly known. Because the bilingual
education programs were paid and managed by government, where the program was
run well, the local people manifested their strong support. In general, they
are proud of their mother tongue and encourage using it at home. They highly
appreciated and strongly cooperated with the bilingual education program,
because they believe that the program is a good and essential way to preserve
their identity and tradition, and that is what their children really need when
they first enter schools.
V. 2. Achievement
According the
evaluation of Donald Archibald, the programs of Cham and Khmer teaching are
successful. Thanks to the good policies, the communities’ involvement, UNICEF’s
effective assistance, and MOET’s ceaseless efforts, the number of ethnic
teachers taking part in the program has grown larger and larger. Annually over
eleven thousand Cham students and nearly one hundred thousand Khmer students
receive good bilingual education with about five hundred Cham teachers, and
over six hundred Khmer teachers[8].
This leads to a noticeable education improvement and socio-economical
development in these areas. This not only helps to maintain social bilingualism
but also extends the ethnic language learning to institutions outside
native-speaker community.
V. 3. Limitation
However, the
bilingual education program only applied to those specific groups who requested
such programs, in which cases the policies worked well and were successful.
Sadly among 53 minority groups, just two of 11 languages are taught effectively
and consistently in schools. In comparison with the practical requirements for
maintaining bilingual status, 9 other languages need to have good textbooks,
skillful teachers and relevant management to make them better and more
effective. Additionally, with other language groups that just have writing
systems, it takes a lot of time to start bilingual education because many
prerequisites have to be met first such as, (1) Language planning; (2) textbook
compiling; (3) teacher training and assignment; and (4) curriculum development.
These are difficult tasks because the languages’ communicative function is
narrow and the number of speakers is small. The challenge is much bigger with
oral-only form languages.
The linguists and
Research Institutes have to take part in the process to describe the writing
system as a pre-condition to develop bilingual education. Or at least the
languages facing extinction need to be preserved before their complete
replacement by the more dominant languages, usually Kinh or English (Cummins,
2001; Fishman, 1994). This means that 42 other languages are facing high risk
of extinction. Even though the policies are sound, the government and involved
persons seem not to know how to implement them to preserve these other
languages.
Moreover, with
recent innovations in elementary education in Vietnam, English is now added to
the curriculum and time for bilingual teaching becomes further limited to only
2 periods a week instead of 4 periods a week as in the official school
requirements. This practice is lowering the achievement of bilingual students,
which because of long-term efforts was previously higher. This reduction in
bilingual teaching time urgently needs to be reconsidered by authorities in
order to maintain the previous outcome of the programs. No matter how good
policies are at the national level, the present trend to reduce the
effectiveness of good programs, the tolerance of bad programs and the
non-existent programs for many minority languages, will do little to cut back
the death rate of endangered languages.
V. 4. Necessary adjustment
In order to slow
down the death rate of endangered languages effectively, action is required,
not simply academic meetings at which much is said but which results in little
change. First all nations need sound policies, and second effective
implementation that creates strong support for minority language classes. If
both these actions are not taken, nothing will change and minority languages
will continue to become extinct.
Who is most
directly affected? Speakers of endangered languages are often unaware of the
imminent loss of their languages. So it is these people who must become the
direct focus of action by the research community and governments.
Here are some
brief and feasible recommendations to begin this task of informing and
supporting speakers of endangered languages:
V. 4. a. For Vietnam: Field researchers
should thoroughly classify those existing languages most often used in family
and community by working with minority speakers who are chosen for their wish
to maintain their languages, because when native speakers do not want to use
their mother tongues that language cannot survive.
Vietnam has
developed robust language policies. So in Vietnam it is implementation that
needs to be the focus. Vietnam needs to train linguists, and recruit language
teachers from those minority language speakers who understand that there is a
serious threat to the survival of their language. In turn, these speakers must
be willing to actively improve and implement their mother tongue as supported
by the policies. A professional approach to training and providing community
support for language maintenance will require the provision of structures for
language planning, teacher training and assigning, and textbook compiling. A
joint effort from government and both research and minority communities is
essential if languages are to survive.
V. 4. b. For Asia and the Pacific: Governments
should update minority language policies with the clear aim of promoting
multilingual education and multilingualism, because as members of UNESCO and
the United Nations, they need to respect and advocate the language and
education rights of all minorities.
Local government
and education authorities must implement multilingual policy in education so as
to maintain and develop multilingualism, diversity in language and community
development.
A clear system
should be developed that recruits leaders who are speakers of endangered
languages train them to become administrators, linguists and language teachers
at the level of their communities. It is these leaders of minority speakers who
should be directly involved in their language planning, teacher training,
textbook compiling, and program structure design for each community.
In order to create
an effective minority language teaching program a team consisting of members of
government, scholars, and community people should:
Identify the
existence of minority languages
Determine if
members of the community are aware of the threat to the survival of their
language
Promote minority
language transmission within families and among community members.
Develop a plan to
train teachers of the minority language, write texts and curriculum, organize
details of time to be spent in school on the language at elementary and
secondary levels in order for language to be maintained
Create a structure
to handle the possible events within the community related to the continuing
revitalization of its language, for example the use of mass media, folk music,
dance, magazine, and local newspaper.
VI. Concluding remarks
To
slow down the language loss, the death rate of endangered languages
effectively, it is necessary to build models of successful minority language
maintenance.
To revitalize
endangered languages, one needs to understand the language situation, to
co-operate with the right persons, and to start at the right levels.
To
adopt a mechanism that slows down language loss in a specific case there are
four important factors:
1.
language status
2.
Language transmission in families and
communities
3.
How the language was taught and transferred to
younger generation
4.
How the national language policies were applied
to the language
The
actions that are needed to revitalize a threatened language must be based on
the particular situation. These actions are:
1.
Adjustment of the language policies with the
government (and community)
2.
Development of language teacher training
3.
Language planning and textbook compiling
4.
Implementation of bilingual/ multilingual
education. Pilot project and teaching and learning activities for extending the
program to 12 grade and university level.
WHO can revitalize
endangered languages? Native language speakers must take a decisive role, and
must be willing to follow their well-trained leaders in bilingual education
with strong links and the support of proper language policies, governments and
applied language institutes. The policy and micro-management of language
revitalization requires the involvement of national governments and worldwide
language institutes such as UNESCO, UNICEF, and SIL.
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[1]* E-mail: cquang@hawaii.edu or quang_can@yahoo.com. Quang Can Dai is a recent
graduate of the University of Hawaii, where he held an International Ford
fellowship Program. He is an East-West Center alumnus.
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