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Kashmiri Challenged

A boat glides across the serene Dal Lake in Kashmir
The serenity of Kashmir’s Dal Lake belies the ongoing conflict.

The Indian government’s decision to revoke the autonomy of the territory of Jammu and Kashmir may also have implications for the status of the Kashmiri language. According to the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, “The Legislative Assembly may by law adopt any one or more of the languages in use in the Union territory of Jammu and Kashmir or Hindi as the official language or languages to be used for all or any of the official purposes of the Union territory of Jammu and Kashmir.”

Written with Arabic script, Kashmiri has around seven million speakers mainly in Jammu and Kashmir. It is one of the 22 official languages of India and is taught in all schools in the Kashmir valley.

Addressing the nation on its Independence Day last month, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi argued that the government was left with only one option: “to think differently,” since previous efforts to resolve the “continuing violence, agitations, underdevelopment, and the stranglehold of a few in Jammu and Kashmir over resources hadn’t worked.” Modi has been widely criticized for his Hindu nationalism.  

In his own Independence Day speech, Jammu and Kashmir Governor Satya Pal Malik assured his people that their identity was not at stake following the abrogation of the state’s special status. The Governor said “historic changes” would open a new door of development and help various communities promote their languages and cultures in Jammu and Kashmir.

Despite fears that India is on the verge of yet another conflict inflamed by linguistic differences, Sudhi Ranjan Sen, writing in the Hindustan Times (8/22/19), contends that India has the experience to accommodate Jammu and Kashmir’s linguistic identities, “India is not new [to] managing contending identities. In the 1950s and 1960s, the founding fathers were extremely wise. Chauvinism over language led to the Bhasa Andolan [Bengali Language Movement, which advocated for the recognition of the Bengali language as an official language of the then-Dominion of Pakistan] and ultimately led to the birth of Bangladesh. Back home, India handled issues of identity with maturity. Instead of a single national language, India has as many as 22 official languages. Importantly, states in India have been formed on the basis of identity – primarily language. In addition, to accommodate the many identities the Constitution of India has special provisions for the states of Nagaland, Mizoram, Maharashtra, Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Assam, and Gujarat.”

With Jammu and Kashmir currently under a communications blockade, it seems unlikely that the region will be granted the freedom of expression it deserves.

Experts Not Hopeful on Vietnam’s English Targets

Education experts are expressed concern that the targets set for Vietnam’s foreign language proficiency are set to fail at a recent meeting on English teaching at colleges and universities held by the education ministry, Vietnamnet reports. The goals were set in the 2008-2020 national project, Teaching and Learning Foreign Languages in the National Education System. The project requires all university graduates not majoring in foreign languages to reach a B1 level of English language proficiency. The project implemented a ten-year education program English is enforced as compulsory for grade school starting in 3rd grade. The aim was for by 2020, most Vietnamese students graduating from secondary, vocational schools, colleges and universities have the ability to use the language confidently in their daily communication and study and work environments. The goals, however, have been cited as unrealistic, and leaders worry that goals will not be met.

According to a survey quoted in the meeting by university department head Nguyen Thi Lan Anh, only one in five students could achieve that level (B1) in 2015. The deputy director of Thai Nguyen University suggested that the institution lower the requirements to A2. Representatives of academic institutions said that the English level of students at high school is so low that it is difficult to improve their English proficiency when enter university, and that B1 standard upon graduation not feasible.

After eight years, the national foreign language project has failed to reach its targets, a recent investigation by the State Audit Office of Viet Nam found. The targets have not been reached for a variety of factors, including a low level of English proficiency among teachers, lack of resources, and outdated teaching techniques that focus heavily on grammar. Students rarely have a chance to practice speaking or listening.

Educating English Learners with Disabilities

California Department of Education (CDE) has released the much-anticipated “California Practitioners’ Guide for Educating English Learners with Disabilities.” The guide will help with identifying, assessing, supporting, and reclassifying English learners with disabilities.


“This resource will benefit the teachers and other professionals involved in the education of more than 220,000 identified English learner students with disabilities,” said State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond.


“In California, we serve all students. Identifying what each child needs and addressing those needs is essential so that all students can reach their full potential.”
The guide came about as a result of California Assembly Bill 2785 in 2016, which added “Education Code” 56305, requiring the CDE to develop guidance to local educational agencies on identifying English learners as individuals with exceptional needs, classifying individuals with exceptional needs as English learners, supporting pupils who are both English learners and individuals with exceptional needs, and determining when such pupils should be either removed from classification as English learners or exited from special education.


Developed under contract with WestEd to meet the needs of California, the 464-page guide was produced with the assistance of a broad coalition of organizations and individuals with decades of professional experience, so it should be relevant to educators nationwide.


To download the “California Practitioners’ Guide for Educating English Learners with Disabilities,” visit www.cde.ca.gov/sp/se/ac/.

$2.5 Million Grant for University LCTL Programs

Michigan State University has been awarded a four-year, $2.5 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support further development in the research and teaching of less commonly taught languages (LCTLs), with an emphasis on Indigenous languages.

 
This is the second Mellon grant received by the LCTL Partnership, led by the Center for Language Teaching Advancement (CeLTA) at Michigan State University, to facilitate the teaching of less commonly taught languages at all “big ten” universities in partnership with the Big Ten Academic Alliance (BTAA).


This multi-university initiative seeks to transform the way LCTLs are taught by leveraging cutting-edge research and advances in instructional technology with the aim of creating sustainable and effective models of instruction.


“This grant allows us to provide more students with higher levels of proficiency in languages that are less commonly taught and more difficult to sustain,” said Christopher P. Long, dean of the College of Arts and Letters and principal investigator (PI) on the grant. “This is important because a higher level of language proficiency deepens our understanding of the cultures to which these languages give voice.”
Currently, MSU offers instruction in 29 less commonly taught languages, including Vietnamese, Turkish, and Indonesian. Often the challenge in teaching these languages is having only one or two students at any given university taking a course, and in order to have a full class and higher levels of competency, a critical mass of students is needed across multiple semesters.

This issue is resolved by sharing courses across the Big Ten Academic Alliance through the CourseShare program, which enables students to take a variety of different languages online that are not sustainably teachable at individual institutions. With strategic coordination, the LCTL Partnership has taken a more proactive approach by creating innovative courses through CourseShare instead of relying on the on-demand model so often used. 

The materials that have been developed as part of the LCTL Partnership are varied, from a fully asynchronous online course in Hebrew to flexible modules in Swahili and Hindi that can be easily inserted into current courses.

“These modules will be released as open educational resources (OERs) so that the materials can continue to be reused, revised, remixed, and redistributed by instructors within the LCTL community,” said Emily Heidrich, academic specialist and project manager for the LCTL Partnership.

With this next grant cycle, the project will expand to one Indigenous language, Anishinaabemowin (Ojibwe), an Indigenous language spoken in the Michigan area and Great Lakes region. The LCTL Partnership will develop an Anishinaabemowin program that will serve the needs of Michigan’s Indigenous nations as well as establish a model for other Indigenous language instruction that is rooted within Indigenous communities and aligned with Indigenous knowledge systems. 

“For hundreds of years, generations of Indigenous people in communities throughout the Great Lakes have fought for the preservation of Anishinaabemowin,” said Gordon Henry, professor of English and co-PI on the project who is affiliated with the American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program at MSU and an enrolled member of the White Earth Chippewa Tribe of Minnesota. “It’s important for people in knowing their culture to try to live their language, to have it as a living way of communicating in a community, and that’s what a lot of tribes are trying to have happen again.”

With this grant, Michigan State University will partner with other universities, tribal colleges, and tribal communities to establish a larger community that connects and sustains Indigenous language work at all of these institutions. The initiative follows a participatory research and pedagogical model that places members of Indigenous communities, including Indigenous faculty and language instructors, at the center and in leadership positions. 

“What I am most excited about is the opportunity to think about how we can invest in the teaching of Indigenous languages and cultures to retain and recruit Indigenous students to Michigan State University and across the Big Ten Academic Alliance,” Long said.

The LCTL Partnership website (http://lctlpartnership.celta.msu.edu/) will become a repository of resources for LCTL instructors, including a language-independent manual, which will be updated in this next grant cycle.

Is the Internet Making Us Dumber? Lol, no.

Facebook posts and text messages are far from being bastions of grammar. People’s communication online has an informal quality that is often at odds with established linguistic rules, but Montreal-based linguist Gretchen McCulloch says that it’s not really that big of a problem. McCulloch’s new book, Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language explores the style of informal writing people use when talking on the internet, which mirrors a sense of hanging out with friends rather than giving a proper speech. To create this informality, to give the impression of face-to-face conversation, people have created a “typographical tone of voice.”

“We no longer accept that writing must be lifeless, that it can only convey our tone of voice roughly and imprecisely, or that nuanced writing is the exclusive domain of professionals,” McCulloch argues. “We’re creating new rules for typographical tone of voice. Not the kind of rules that are imposed from on high, but the kind of rules that emerge from the collective practice of a couple billion social monkeys — rules that enliven our social interactions.”

By transforming the way words are typed, people have created a new way of expressing themselves. For example, emphasis can be expressed by using ALL CAPS, or using exclamation points. Lengthening words suggest emphasis and friendliness, like nooo and misspellings often happen to mimic natural speak, such as yaassss. Emojies and smileys have morphed into digital gestures, along with animated gifs that can get a point across in an instant. Sarcasm is expressed through the use of the tilde symbol, like ~interesting~ or by typing in uppercase and lowercase letters, such as I HaD nO iDeA.

McCulloch suggests that these alterations on grammar rules does not indicate a devolution of intelligence. “Several studies show that people who use a lot of internet abbreviations perform, at worst, just as well on spelling tests, formal essays, and other measures of literacy as people who never use abbreviations — and sometimes even better,” she writes.

The Role of Equity in the Assessment of English Learners

Teresa Krastel argues for administering tests for ELs in their home languages

Imagine you and a traveling companion are visiting the Netherlands to see fine art. You tour a beautiful museum, but your guide speaks only in Dutch and all of her materials are in Dutch. Fluent in Dutch, your traveling companion has the opportunity to read about specific works, ask directions, and converse with docents. But since you do not speak Dutch, there is only so much you can glean from the tour, despite your deep interest in and knowledge of art history. In this situation, you simply do not have the tools to get what you need out of the experience. You find the entire visit frustrating.

Now imagine you are given a test, also in Dutch, assessing what you learned from your tour. The results of your test will determine whether or not you are invited to an exhibit and roundtable discussion on your favorite artist, about whose life and work you are quite knowledgeable. You would likely do poorly on the test, but it is not an accurate reflection of your knowledge. Additionally, based on your score, you would likely not be invited to participate in the discussion, although your knowledge could be very insightful in such a session. If someone provided a tour and an assessment in your native language, you could truly demonstrate your understanding. Even with something low stakes, like this fictional scenario, the situation sounds unfair and inequitable. However, this is what happens on a much larger scale to K–12 English learners (ELs) every single day when they are administered tests in English. Just as a test in your native language of your knowledge of the fine art in the Dutch museum would have been more accurate and reliable for you, for ELs, assessments in their home languages are crucial in providing reliable and accurate information about their knowledge. To get a valid measure of ELs, assessments must be offered in the students’ home languages.

What Is at Stake for Teachers and Students?


At the heart of this decision is equity and inclusion. As of 2015, there were more than 5 million ELs in the U.S., close to 10% of the entire student population, and the number continues to rise. Of those students, about 77% speak Spanish at home (NCES, 2019). These students should have the opportunity to engage with the material, and feel welcome in their classrooms, just like their English-speaking peers.
To improve student agency and buy-in, the needs and cultural background of ELs should be acknowledged and taken into account.


This is also an issue of accurate measurement. Administering ELs’ tests in English raises the question of whether educators are measuring English proficiency or the subject in question. For example, the language components of a math story problem could mask a student’s ability to demonstrate understanding of the skills in question.
As research demonstrates, this can ultimately impact assessment reliability for ELs. Since these English assessments are often used to inform instruction, determine grouping, measure proficiency, and screen for interventions, ELs and their classroom teachers have an incomplete portrait of the students’ true strengths, skills, and needs if they only use one data point.

Additionally, students come into classrooms at different points in time with different levels of English proficiency and different educational backgrounds or experiences. Student variability is something every classroom teacher contends with, but ELs add another layer of complexity. A measure in a student’s home language provides an additional data point for ELs, regardless of where they are in their learning.

Adapting and Developing New Content


The solution to this multifaceted issue sounds simple on paper—provide assessments for students in their home languages. In some instances, it is possible to translate an assessment item directly from one language to another. This is most common in the context of math, where the content is the same regardless of the language of instruction. Math is often called a universal language for this reason. In other cases, a particular skill might be relevant in multiple languages, but linguistic or cultural differences make translation problematic. To get an accurate measurement of how students perform in their home languages, particularly in reading, it is imperative districts and schools use assessment solutions that go a few steps further.
First, building any type of assessment starts with defining the purpose and claims that the assessment supports. When developing a version of the tests in a new language, it is critical the new assessment meet the same purpose, structure, and claims as the test in English, while addressing the constructs unique to the second language. High-quality assessment solutions must reflect these nuanced differences and can be achieved by transadapting English items as well as developing new items in the students’ native languages.


Transadaptation is the process of adapting content for cultural differences, parallel structure, and improved clarity. For example, for Spanish-speaking students, a reading assessment with a passage about snowshoeing or a math item that asks students to measure in inches may be incongruous with their lived experience. In this case, elements of the questions may have to be rephrased and adjusted to eliminate potential cultural biases as well as to include elements of their own cultural experience.

Following that, brand-new authentic items must be written to address constructs that may only appear in certain languages, as well as the inherent differences in how children from different language backgrounds learn to read. For instance, foundational reading instruction in English typically includes a heavy emphasis on phoneme work—deconstructing words into their individual sounds. Spanish reading instruction tends to concentrate on the syllable level. High-quality assessments must address these theoretical foundations, particularly in tests for early learners. Building items that are more culturally and linguistically relevant is a way to further engage and improve agency among ELs.

Finally, transadapted and newly composed items undergo several quality-assurance checks to ensure validity, complexity, and cultural accuracy.

How Will This Benefit Students?


Assessments like these can provide data points for students new to the school or for those students who do not have enough English proficiency to participate meaningfully in English assessment. This reliable assessment data may also provide key insights into questions educators may have, such as “Where are my students on their path to academic achievement?” or “What specific instructional actions can I take to support my students’ growth?” Insights like these can be the bridge to instructional next steps, to help teachers make informed decisions for classroom instruction. For more on this topic, see Durán (2008), Abedi (2011), and Trumbull and Solano-Flores (2011).


Student achievement does not depend on language. Assessments in languages other than English provide educators with the equitable tools they need to understand, support, and engage more of their students. Students, in turn, get to bring their whole selves to the classroom and have a true opportunity to demonstrate just how much they know, all in a school or district where their language and culture are both respected and celebrated.


Given the rapidly changing demographics of our communities, a thoughtful assessment system should include high-quality Spanish-language assessments to provide valid measurements of math, reading,
and oral fluency for Spanish-speaking students. Our teachers need it. Our students deserve it.

References


Abedi, J. (2011). “Assessing English Language Learners: Critical Issues.” In M. del Rosario Basterra, E. Trumbull, and G. Solano-Flores (Eds.), Cultural Validity in Assessment, 49–71. New York, NY: Routledge.
Durán, R. (2008). “Assessing English-Language Learners’ Achievement.” Review of Research in Education, 32, 292–327. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20185119
National Center for Educational Statistics (2019). “English Language Learners in Public Schools.” https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cgf.asp.
Trumbull, E., and G. Solano-Flores (2011). “The Role of Language in Assessment.” In M. del Rosario Basterra, E. Trumbull, and G. Solano-Flores (Eds.) Cultural Validity in Assessment, 22–45. New York, NY: Routledge.

Teresa Krastel, PhD, is the Spanish solution lead for NWEA. She has taught Spanish at all levels from grades 7–12, as well as at the undergraduate and graduate levels, and English as a second language (ESL). Throughout her career, she has trained and mentored international teaching staff and has provided numerous faculty development workshops on accommodating student needs in the language classroom. She earned her PhD in Hispanic linguistics and literatures from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Her research interests include curriculum and instruction and second-language acquisition, bilingualism, and dialectology. Teresa brought her talents to NWEA in 2010 and joined the staff in 2016.

Arabic for America

In a highly globalized world, in which country borders are increasingly permeable and the migration and movement of peoples is becoming the norm, language and cultural competencies are ever more essential.

However, less than 10% of Americans speak a language other than English, but 75% of the world’s population does not know English. This easily puts Americans at a disadvantage on the global scale. Former U.S. secretary of education Arne Duncan stated, “To prosper economically and to improve relations with other countries, Americans need to read, speak, and understand other languages.”

There’s no shortage of studies that point to the benefits of students at the K—12 level learning a new language. The National Research Council (2007) found that children who study a foreign language show great cognitive development in areas such as mental flexibility, creativity, and higher-order thinking skills.

Studies have revealed that children who study a foreign language: perform better and produce higher scores on standardized tests; show greater cognitive development in such areas as mental flexibility, creativity, divergent thinking, and higher-order thinking skills; develop a sense of cultural pluralism that allows them to value, understand, and respect different cultures in the U.S. and abroad; improve their self-concepts and overall sense of achievement in school and beyond.

In an increasingly global economy, fluency in a second language not only benefits the individual but it also enhances their cultural competence. The study of language and culture can foster understanding across borders and cultures and bring youth from across the world together in a way that no other activity can.

By 2043, the U.S. is projected to become a majority-minority nation for the first time in its history. And in some states, this has already happened. This increasingly globalized environment means that our youth must have the social and professional skills needed to contribute in a meaningful way to a global society. Language is the key to collaboration, and giving youth the opportunity to master a second language is essential.

Fluency in a second language can also be an incredibly important asset to an individual’s future employers and the U.S. economy. 95% of the world’s customers live outside of the United States and one in five jobs in the U.S. is dependent on trade. Furthermore, the fastest-growing economies in the world are not English dominant. Knowing a second language, then, provides youth an advantage when entering the labor market and also stimulates our own nation’s productivity and increases our potential and standing on a global scale.

Arabic is one language in particular that can provide a number of rich opportunities. Arabic is considered a critical language by the U.S. State Department because of U.S. strategic business and security interests in the Arab world and it is currently the fifth-most-spoken language in the world. Yet fewer than one percent of public and public charter schools offer Arabic. Of the 33 million elementary school students in America today, only 24% receive global language instruction, and fewer than one percent study Arabic.

Most students do not begin studying a second language until the age of 14, putting the country behind 21 of the top 25 industrialized countries. Despite being a world leader, the U.S. suffers from “a pervasive lack of knowledge about foreign cultures and foreign languages [that] threatens [its] ability to compete in the global marketplace and produce an informed citizenry.” One in five American jobs is tied to a foreign trade; however, children in public schools are not prepared to take advantage of the benefits of the global economy, because they are not literate in a second language. At the higher-education level, Arabic has made great gains. However, to maintain these gains, and in order to make Arabic a mainstream language, Arabic instruction needs to be anchored in the K–12 context.

In 2011, the U.S. Department of Education (DoE) slashed 47% of its funding of critical languages, which include Arabic and Mandarin Chinese. In 2012, the DoE eliminated all funding for Foreign Language Assistance Program (FLAP) grants, the only source of federal education funding for K–12 foreign language innovation and best practices. Despite proven evidence that the early learning of a second language has significant developmental benefits, and general agreement that international communication is more important than ever for U.S. strategic competitiveness, an entire generation of American youth is at risk of falling behind its global peers.

Responding to this pressing need to provide opportunities for students to enroll in Arabic and to prepare students to become global citizens, as well as necessity for deeper, more positive engagement between people living inside and outside the Arab world, Qatar Foundation International (QFI) launched the Arabic Language and Culture (ALC) program in 2009. ALC’s goal is to “build bridges across cultures by increasing the number of young people in the Americas with good knowledge and understanding of Arab culture.” To do this, QFI works to increase the number and quality of Arabic programs in the Americas; supports teachers of Arabic and increases the supply of highly qualified certified teachers; and facilitates the creation of age-appropriate and effective materials and resources.

QFI’s work is context specific and driven by the needs of the community. Each school program and grant is unique, and as such, QFI does not have a blanket approach to programming. In the U.S., it was determined that no curriculum would be created, due to the standards-driven instructional model and to increase the autonomy of each school and program. Rather, QFI encourages the use of backwards planning and child-centered pedagogy in addition to using cutting-edge foreign-language teaching methodology. In Latin America, however, a lack of curriculum has been identified as an obstacle for the growth of Arabic in the region. As such, QFI is beginning to work on the creation of a curriculum in conjunction with educators both at the secondary levels and with the higher-education sector there. In all contexts, a major dearth in qualified teachers emerged as an obstacle to sustainable quality Arabic programs, and this has subsequently become a major area of focus for QFI programming.

With the world becoming more interconnected, giving youth the tools to make a meaningful contribution is critical, and language learning at the K–12 level plays an important role. Whether students learn Arabic or another language, it’s clear that the benefits do not reside solely in mastering a particular grammatical structure or vocabulary. Students also gain the ability to hold meaningful relationships with a wider array of people and to make a positive impact in different parts of the world. As one of QFI’s students eloquently stated, “Because I can speak, read, and write in Arabic, I have a second way of learning. To me, Arabic isn’t just a language, but a different outlook on life, one that always encourages hospitality and respect.”

Notes
1. National Research Council. International Education and Foreign Languages: Keys to Securing America’s Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2007.

This article originally appeared in Language Magazine in September, 2014. At the time, Carine Allaf was director of programs at Qatar Foundation International. She focused on the improvement of the teaching of Arabic as a foreign language (TAFL) field across the Americas. As a full time lecturer in Teachers College, Columbia University’s International Education Development program from 2010 to 2013, her programs centered on women in the Arab world, education in conflict and emergency settings, strategic planning in international settings, and international development. These courses were an outgrowth of her research agenda that looked at women’s positioning in development specifically in the Arab world and on education in conflict and post conflict situations.

Allaf has also worked at the American Community School in Beirut, Lebanon; for the Center for International Development and Education (CIDE) at UCLA; Save the Children in Iraq; and UNICEF in Jordan, Sudan, and Palestine. She has also served as a consultant for the Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE) on a variety of projects. Carine obtained her Ph.D. in Comparative and International Education from UCLA, and also has a Master’s degree in Elementary Education from the Department of Curriculum and Teaching at Teachers College, Columbia University.

Celebrate UN’s Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples

Language is focus of this year’s event

Guterres was welcomed to New Zealand with a traditional Maori ceremony in May. photo: UN/Mark Garten

UN Secretary General, António Guterres, released the following statement today to mark United Nation’s Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples: “This year marks the International Year of Indigenous Languages, declared by the UN General Assembly to draw attention to the urgent need to preserve, revitalize and promote indigenous languages. 

“Languages are how we communicate, and they are inextricably linked to our cultures, histories and identity. Almost half of the world’s estimated 6,700 languages—of which most are indigenous—are in danger of disappearing. With every language that disappears, the world loses a wealth of traditional knowledge.

“There are an estimated 370 million indigenous people in the world. A significant proportion still lack basic rights, with systematic discrimination and exclusion continuing to threaten ways of life, cultures and identities. This is contrary to the intent of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, with its promise to leave no one behind.  

“I count on Member States to engage and support indigenous peoples in determining their own development through policies that are inclusive, equitable and accessible.  The United Nations stands ready to support all initiatives aimed at realizing the rights and aspirations of indigenous peoples.

“Since 1982, the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples has provided us with a unique opportunity to raise global awareness of the contributions made by indigenous peoples towards building peace and developing sustainable and resilient societies.

Audrey Azoulay, Director-General of UNESCO, also released a statement, which focused on the threats to indigenous cultures and languages, “Indigenous cultures possess a wealth of knowledge crucial for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, and particularly for the preservation of the environment and the world’s biodiversity. UNESCO has been working to preserve the intangible heritage of traditional skills and know-how, as well as to raise awareness of their importance, through programs such as Local and Indigenous Knowledge Systems (LINKS) which supports governments to create crucial interfaces between scientific and indigenous communities…

“The disappearance of indigenous languages is a major threat to indigenous communities and their unique heritage, as well as to our global diversity and our very potential for creativity and innovation. Through the International Year of Indigenous Languages (IYIL2019), UNESCO strives to focus attention on these critical issues, and to take steps towards global collective action to address them.

“UNESCO, as an institution in a unique multilateral and international position, is mobilizing a large network of individual and institutional partners such as the Latin American and the Caribbean countries for the Online Indigenous Film Festival that took place in June, to take urgent measures to support, promote and provide access to indigenous languages, as well as to share good practices.

“In March of this year, UNESCO worked to raise awareness of newly established indigenous community media and radio networks worldwide, and for the development of applications for indigenous languages, during a hackathon to develop innovative language technology solutions in the Asia-Pacific region.

“Finally, we are very excited to announce that thanks to a vast collaboration, the next edition of the El Cuento de las 1000 Palabras, a Peruvian competition on story-telling, will not only be held in Spanish, but will also be opened to the 48 indigenous languages of the country.”

“At UNESCO and the United Nations we are convinced, now more than ever, that the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals requires that no one is left behind. Indigenous peoples, their languages, values, knowledge systems and “know-how” must all play a role in the global endeavor to find just and sustainable paths forward for the living world and for humanity as a whole.”

New Media Literacy Resources Available Online

California reacts to the “fake” information crisis

The California Department of Education (CDE) has created an online media literacy resource page for educators. The page provides access to free K–12 resources, instructional materials, lesson plans, and curriculum curated by a variety of recognized experts in the area of media literacy.

“These resources will assist educators in the classroom as they teach students how to access, use, evaluate, and integrate the information they read or hear online,” said Thurmond. “Students are bombarded by information from a wide range of sources. Being media-literate is a skill that can not only help them become critical thinkers, but can also help in all areas of their education and future as informed and active civically engaged citizens.”

Two key collaborators with the CDE on the media resource page are the California School Library Association (CSLA) and public broadcast station KQED. Instructional resources were chosen based on CSLA’s eight-step criteria, which included ensuring that media literacy content was aligned with the California Model School Library Standards. KQED provided access to comprehensive, free training resources and professional development for digital media educators through its online professional learning platform KQED Teach and its online Media Literacy Education Certification program.

The Media Literacy Law (Senate Bill 830) was passed in 2018 by former Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. It was introduced by Senator Bill Dodd (D-Napa), who was inspired by a Stanford University study that found 82% of middle school students struggled to distinguish between advertisements and news stories.

For more information, visit the CDE Media Literacy Resources web page.              

Online Chat with Purpose

Chita Espino-Bravo offers advice on teaching and assessing conversation in a Spanish virtual course

Teaching any virtual conversation class is full of challenges, especially in assessing the conversations and debate sections students prepare virtually.
In spring 2018, I created a virtual course on Blackboard called Spanish Conversational Skills for intermediate/advanced students of Spanish. This course had been taught on campus, but our Spanish program was going online, so I was asked to create the virtual version. The campus course develops the students’ oral and listening skills in Spanish at the low-advanced level, in order to produce more spontaneous and natural conversations in the target language, using sugested topics presented in the textbook. Each chapter covers a main topic with some related vocabulary, topics for discussion with a short reading in Spanish, video tasks to target both content and discourse features in order to develop listening and oral skills, some grammatical points to review and use in conversations, some Spanish phonetic sounds to practice, and a final reading to provide important cultural perspectives and stimulate discussion and argumentation.

The goals of this course were:

  • Learn and use new vocabulary in Spanish and acquire precision when using this vocabulary
  • Acquire, use, and practice specific vocabulary related to the topic being studied in the lesson
  • Dominate complex grammatical Spanish structures
  • Debate about topics presented in each lesson
  • Produce short oral presentations (three to five minutes) in Spanish related to the topic of the lesson at the low-advanced level (in groups of three) to practice Spanish oral skills
  • Increase auditory comprehension and improve Spanish pronunciation through some phonetics and practice of specific Spanish sounds

Produce a longer oral presentation (ten to 15 minutes) in Spanish related to a topic of the Hispanic world at the low-advanced level (in groups of three) to practice Spanish oral skills

I wanted to give virtual students the same opportunities campus students had with this course and also wanted them to make presentations in groups, so we set a maximum of 15 students per class, to better accommodate their needs and dedicate more time to the grading of their presentations. We chose the same coursebook used on campus: Mir, Montserrat and Ángela Bailey de las Heras. ¡Qué me dices! A Task-Based Approach to Spanish Conversation. NJ: Prentice Hall (Pearson), 2015. Students can rent this book or buy a virtual access kit with e-book. I did not use the activities in the online kit but created my own grammar and vocabulary activities on Blackboard for review and tested students on grammar points, vocabulary, and readings.


The book has interesting topics in each chapter for students at the intermediate/advanced level of Spanish, like study abroad, Hispanic folklore, world news, and famous Hispanics.

The learning outcomes for this course were:

  • Be able to use new vocabulary in Spanish and have precision when using this vocabulary
  • Use specific vocabulary related to the topic being studied in the lesson
  • Dominate complex grammatical Spanish structures
  • Debate about topics presented in each lesson
  • Produce short oral presentations in Spanish related to any topic at the low-advanced level to practice Spanish oral skills
  • Increase auditory comprehension and improve Spanish pronunciation through some phonetics and practice of specific Spanish sounds
  • Be able to produce longer oral presentations in Spanish related to a topic of the Hispanic world at the low-advanced level

For the virtual presentations and debates, students had to create recordings of themselves speaking in Spanish and upload it on VoiceThread, a learning tool for enhancing student engagement and online presence. With VoiceThread, instructors and/or students can create, share, and comment on images, Microsoft PowerPoint presentations, videos, audio files, documents, and PDFs, using microphone, webcam, text, phone, and audio-file upload. Students can see each other give their recorded presentations, and they can also see the instructor of the course give instructions or feedback on the presentations and debates. I used VoiceThread to create the instructions in Spanish for the presentations and to allow the students to see me, so they actually know who I am and hear me speak in the target language. Students can access it through the Blackboard platform, and it gives virtual students a feeling of being connected to the class they are taking, so they have a sense of belonging to the conversation group.

The grade breakdown was the following:

  • Participation: 50 points (ten points per short chapter presentation)
  • Attendance: 50 points (participating, being connected, working on homework, finishing exams and homework on time)
  • Five homework assignments on Blackboard: 300 points (60 points each)
  • Exams: 130 points
  • Five short presentations in groups (Chapters 1–5): 300 points (60 points each)
  • One final presentation (ten to 15 minutes per person, Chapter 6): 250 points

Students had to work on five short presentations on specific topics related to the book chapters and upload them on VoiceThread. They also had to work on a final presentation, which was longer and about a controversial topic related to the Hispanic world. Even though they worked in groups of two or three, each student had to present for three to five minutes during the short presentations and ten to 15 minutes for the final longer presentation. All students had to participate with a critical comment on one group presentation of their choice, posting an oral comment about the content on that VoiceThread for participation points. This was done right after presentations were due. There were five short presentations in this course, which meant all students made five short critical comments on one presentation of their choice per chapter to receive participation points. Students could not use their own presentation for participation points, nor their group presentations. Each student had to mention between two and four new words they had learned for that oral; they had to define the words in Spanish before they started their presentation, and they had to use those words while they presented. They had to watch other group presentations and other students’ recordings. The critical comments were also uploaded on VoiceThread and made public to the class, so all students could listen to them. The professor of the course would check those critical comments and give detailed pronunciation and grammar feedback for each presentation and critical comment on Blackboard.


Debates or critical comments on one presentation were designed to allow virtual students to comment on a specific presentation they enjoyed and give certain critical feedback on the content of that presentation. To avoid students getting distracted by too many topic options, I created two topics to choose from for each chapter, which were related to the main topic of the chapter. Each group had to choose one topic from the two possible options and work on it, creating a PowerPoint and recording together or just a recording of them speaking about the selected topic. The group would collect each short presentation and upload them all together in one VoiceThread. When recording the presentation, students were not allowed to read it—that is, they had to present it and memorize the presentation. This exercise would allow students to use more natural language when presenting their topic and become familiar with creating more natural structures in Spanish. By not reading the presentation, students start out memorizing what they will say but end up using more natural language by the end of the semester.


The only different aspect from the campus class was that virtual students could listen to other students’ presentations as many times as they needed. The campus presentations were live and happened only once, in class.


To help students understand what was assessed in their presentations, I provided two rubrics for students to use as guides. One rubric was for the short presentations (fewer points) and the other was for the final presentation (more points). Both rubrics (uploaded to Blackboard) assessed different parts of the presentation with points that went from an A to an F. The different parts of the presentation being assessed were organization, fluency, pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar. For the campus class, I would give each student the rubric/assessment sheet with the points they received and with the section circled and some comments on what they needed to improve. For my virtual course, I would give more detailed feedback, including pronunciation feedback by writing what needed to be corrected. This feedback could also be recorded on camera and be on video. Each instructor could choose how to give the presentation feedback/assessment to the students on Blackboard.


Cultural knowledge was also assessed—students compared what they learned about the Hispanic world, through controversial topics, to their own culture. By doing this, they learned how to convey critical comments about the world, Hispanic culture, and their own culture. Researching for the correct and relevant information and finding relevant texts and websites was very important to make the presentation interesting and current.

Students were asked to present standing in front of the class in a formal setting to enable them to effectively combine skills in the target language and apply them in professional settings within the target lingo-cultural realm—formal presentations. Students learned strategies and tips to present orally in the target language, standing in front of an audience, engaging the audience in the presentation, enunciating correctly in the target language, and projecting voice to communicate the prepared oral presentation. Students also learned to focus on the important points of a chosen topic, the relevant material, and the relevant facts and information. With the help of visual aids, students engaged the audience and kept their attention.


Most students improved their oral skills from a C to a B or from a B to an A grade. They were able to improve their pronunciation of Spanish and the use of certain complex Spanish structures, as well as their skills speaking in front of an audience about a specific topic related to the Hispanic world. They learned to use more formal Spanish when presenting and avoided reading their notes. Student were also able to give critical comments about a controversial or specific topic related to the Hispanic world and about the content of their classmates’ presentations.

Chita Espino-Bravo, PhD ([email protected]), is assistant professor of Spanish at Fort Hays State University, Kansas. Her areas of expertise and research include 18th-, 19th-, and early 20th-century Peninsular literature, women’s studies, feminism, cultural studies, film studies, and creative writing.

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