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Summer Learning to Help Students Most Impacted by the Pandemic

At the end of April, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) launched the Summer Learning & Enrichment Collaborative, providing support to 46 states, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the Bureau of Indian Education, and three territories working together to use American Rescue Plan and other federal pandemic relief funding to support as many students as possible through enriching and educational summer programming.

The Collaborative—a partnership between ED, the Council of Chief State School Officers, the National Governors Association, and other national partners—followed President Joe Biden’s call to action at ED’s National Safe School Reopening Summit to, “work together to ensure that all children have access to high quality summer learning and enrichment opportunities this summer and beyond.” Biden added that, “This is essential for all students, particularly those disproportionately impacted by the pandemic, students of color, English learners, students with disabilities, homeless students, and all those who went without in-person instruction this year.”

The Collaborative brings together state and local leaders working alongside key stakeholders to design evidence-based summer programs that address the lost instructional, social, and extracurricular time students have experienced as a result of the pandemic, especially underserved students and those disproportionately affected by COVID-19.

“Too many students have experienced interruptions in learning and negative effects on their social and emotional wellbeing due to time apart from friends and community,” said Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona. “Summer presents a key opportunity for school districts and community partners to accelerate learning and provide new avenues for students to safely engage with each other in fun activities. Let’s use this moment to reimagine what fun, engaging summer programming can look like, make it accessible for all students, and work together to make sure our communities recover and rebuild stronger than they were before the pandemic.”

The American Rescue Plan Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ARP ESSER) Fund provides nearly $122 billion to states and school districts and requires that states invest at least $1.2 billion on evidence-based summer enrichment programs. Under the ARP ESSER Fund, school districts are also required to use at least $21 billion for evidence-based initiatives to address the impact of lost instructional time, including summer programs. ED recently released the ARP ESSER state plan application template, which invites states to describe their plans for how they will engage their communities to distribute and utilize ARP ESSER funds.

The Collaborative aims to both take a national approach to understanding best practice and rapidly setting up fun, innovative, and engaging summer opportunities for students, while also facilitating regional and local level partnerships to ensure speedy and robust implementation of state- and district-level plans.

The convening included sessions on forming state-level coalitions; using evidence to inform summer programs; and using federal funds to promote equity through summer enrichment opportunities that support social, emotional, and academic development. Speakers included: Secretary Miguel Cardona, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, Illinois State Superintendent of Education Dr. Carmen Ayala, Arkansas Secretary of Education Johnny Key, Education Trust Interim CEO Denise Forte, National Summer Learning Association CEO Aaron Dworkin, and Founder of the Harlem Children’s Zone Geoffrey Canada. Participants discussed how to design summer programming in ways that create safe, welcoming, and inclusive environments that reengage students socially, emotionally, and academically as they recover from the impacts of COVID-19.

Summer activities can include opportunities to accelerate learning, along with a broad array of enrichment activities ranging from physical fitness and heal education; arts programs; science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) activities; and career and technical education (CTE) programs; to youth development. For older students, these opportunities can include a work-based learning or community service component.

The Collaborative also emphasizes the importance of offering the necessary supports to ensure all students have access to summer learning and enrichment programs—including English learners, students with disabilities, students from low-income backgrounds, and students experiencing homelessness. In addition to the launch of the Collaborative, ED recently released Volume 2 of the COVID-19 Handbook, which outlines strategies to meet the needs of underserved students, including summer learning opportunities.

Additional information about the Collaborative is available here.

“Who You Be?”: Welcoming in the Language of Critical Love

And I love myself
(The world is a ghetto with big guns and picket signs)
I love myself
(But it can do what it want whenever it want, I don’t mind)
I love myself
–Kendrick Lamar, “I”

How do educators of culturally and linguistically diverse students create space for them to boldly declare their love for themselves, with the confidence and authenticity of Kendrick Lamar, in a society and an educational context that fails to love them? In the book Young, Gifted, and Black: Promoting High Achievement among African-American Students, Theresa Perry makes legible the dilemmas that Black students face through the illustrative questions: “Can I invest in and engage my full personhood, with all of my cultural formations, in my class, my work, my school, if my teachers and the adults in the building are both attracted to and repulsed by these cultural formations—the way I use language, my relationship to my body, and my physicality, and so on?” Questions like these reveal the social, emotional, cognitive, and political adeptness that only Black and Brown children must have to perform at a high level in school and in society (Perry, 2003) and underscore the work that educators must to do to ensure students are able to rightfully and unapologetically show up to school and engage in their full personhood.

Although this is the perpetual crisis that Black and Brown people face, there is no mystery on how showing up can happen. Black educators have shown us what it looks like to live and teach within the context of White supremacy (Foster, 1997; King and Swartz, 2016; Lesesne, 2020; Walker, 1996) and maintain a positive racial identity. Therefore, it is critical for teachers to locate pedagogical practices within the context of the Black pedagogical tradition because these practices are loving, humanizing, and liberatory. Excellent Black teachers, who taught in segregated Black U.S. communities in the southern U.S., saw their students as extensions of their own families and knew their students’ destinies were intertwined with their own (Lesesne, forthcoming; Walker, 1996). These teachers held high expectations, promoted racial uplift, and fostered the critical and political consciousness of their students. Teaching was a part of their collective responsibility, and centering the beauty, brilliance, resistance, and joy of Blackness was unapologetically at the core of their teaching. During the COVID-19 pandemic and the pandemic of continuous state-sanctioned violence against and killings of Black and Brown people in our country, there has been a heightened awareness of the need for cultural responsiveness and anti-racist education.

This need is not new to those of us who experience the ills of White supremacy daily and understand that it is endemic in the educational system. In this resurgence of interest in culturally responsive, anti-racist, and liberatory language and literacy practices for all students, we must draw from the pedagogical tradition of Black educators.

To establish and maintain classrooms that are culturally responsive to the linguistic resources of students, the journey begins and ends with the teacher—teachers who understand that loving and humanizing pedagogies are not just about instruction but a way of believing and living. English classrooms can’t be reduced to language and literacy strategies only for the sake of language skill development, because there are broader implications for language development. In their article “The Weaponization of English,” Bryan and Gerald (2021) describe the weaponization of language and how it is “used as a tool to promote White supremacy and racism,” impacting one’s access, privilege, and freedoms. Therefore, students must be supported to fully tap into their linguistic strengths and abilities, knowing that Standard English is only one way to speak, not the way to speak. In this piece, this is illustrated by high school English teacher Shekema Dunlap. She exemplifies the pedagogical practices of Black teachers as she operationalizes critical love with her culturally and linguistically diverse students. Shekema explains how she shows up for her students on day one so that they can show up as and for themselves, filling the space with love of themselves.

Shekema’s development of a culturally inclusive environment is not a part of her first day back-to-school checklist; she eagerly anticipates welcoming and embracing all that her students will add to the learning environment. One of her favorite ways to begin each year is by asking her students a simple question: “Who you be?” What this question initially means to Shekema and her students—and what it ultimately reveals about them—always offers a wonderful opportunity to explore themselves in ways that inspire courage, empathy, reflexivity, and joy. By asking this question, “Who you be?”, she gives insight to who she is as a Black woman educator and her intentional use of African American Language. The following narrative is Shekema’s invocation to her students to invest in and engage in their full personhood.

Day One
Okay, so boom: we enter the Zoom room, and I immediately begin greeting my new babies. Mind you, these are eleventh graders, but they will always be my babies. After the opening salutations and a quick social–emotional learning check-in, we moved on to the word of the day and journal. I placed the classroom timer on the screen and informed my babies that they would have ten minutes to define the word and respond to the journal prompt—no right or wrong answers, just whatever came to their minds at the moment. Our word for Day One was inception. Not many of them knew the word’s definition, part of speech, or etymology, but most of my babies immediately connected with the 2010 film. Apparently, Leonardo DiCaprio has that effect. After ten minutes, volunteers were solicited to respond to the word of the day. Everything was flowing smoothly until I asked of them: “All right then. Now tell me, who you be?” I could tell by the silence alone that my question was met with confusion and suspicion. Some of my babies later reported wondering: “Who is this crazy lady, and why is she teaching me English?” Others questioned: “Isn’t that slang? What kind of English teacher would start the year off like that?!” My favorite response of all time came from a hovering parent during our first virtual session: “Nuh-unh. Nope. We’re not doing that. She’s supposed to be teaching you English. You need to be learning English!” Because this parent’s disgust was captured on camera, my students and I all had a good chuckle and kept it moving. Teaching in the time of COVID is the gift that keeps on giving.

You First
After the initial shock wore off, I volunteered to go first. An integral part of my approach is to never ask my babies to be vulnerable in ways that I have neither modeled nor embodied, so I began by providing a cursory introduction to African American language and the power implied within the verb be. Using be in that manner was, ostensibly, grammatically incorrect; however, once I explained to my 70% Black and Chicano demographic that I translate standardized English at all times just like they do, the church bells began to ring out. I explained that I do not privilege any language over another (including my own) because my goal is to know them as they are: not merely based on their public personas. I vowed to honor each of them as sacred and sovereign and to always listen more than I speak… to learn from and with them in equal proportion to what I hope to teach them. I could hear sighs of relief and could see heads nodding in affirmation. One student remarked, “Oh, she a real one,” to which I replied: “You’n know na’an.” “PERIODT,” was placed inside the chat and followed up by a round of unmuted giggles and Zoom hand claps. Day One was the inception of our classroom community. It was a beautiful thing, and I loved to see it. After discussing the language of the prompt, we pressed forward into an examination of the question itself. I explained to my babies that, by asking who they be, my goal was to truly acknowledge their whole essence. I informed them that I wanted to know who they are when no one is gazing at them, judging them, and imposing prescribed social parameters upon them. I also challenged them to think of themselves outside of White supremacy and even outside of the U.S. if helpful. My final instructions were to center their own longings and desires in order to articulate who they would be if nothing were impossible. I knew that it would take some time for them to truly open up, so I assured them that no one else would ever see their responses. After giving them an additional ten minutes to write, I received the following sample responses. Note that I have only included responses from participants who gave their written consent. My babies’ names have been changed to protect their privacy.

“I am Doneshia. I am a to-myself type of person. I am [a] very pretty, confident, playful, and positive young lady. I like to keep myself looking like a young lady. I love to dress myself up” (Doneshia James, eleventh grade).

“I be myself” (Alejandro Martinez, eleventh grade).

“I am Issac Ramirez. I’m a junior for this year and will be graduating in 2022. I’m Hispanic and [from] a family of four. I love video games and just enjoying myself. I’m going to be looking forward to see how it going to be learning through virtual reality pandemic” (Issac Ramirez, eleventh grade).

“My name is Chez Ngolo and I am 16 years old. This is my second year at Manor and I’m excited for this school year. I play varsity football for Manor and also run varsity track. I’m a very exciting and cool person to get along with” (Chez Ngolo, eleventh grade).

“I am a Mexican American person and was born in Austin, Texas. I spoke in Spanish first before learning English” (Fernando Benaya, eleventh grade).

“When I’m with my family, I’m an outgoing person. I’m mostly quiet in public. I’m a family person. You can say I’m the peacemaker between my siblings. I love the chance to travel” (Racquel Colon, eleventh grade).

“I am Kassie Moore and I’m short with long hair. My favorite color is pink and I love to cheer, play basketball, and softball. I can have an attitude if you make me mad but I am really fun to be around. I am a quiet person [but] when you get to know me I am a funny and fun person” (Kassie Moore, twelfth grade).

“I be that person who always does what is asked. I always try to have a good reputation with everyone I interact with. I am the type of person who likes to be self-centered. I don’t like to get into trouble.

“My biggest difficulty is talking and starting conversations. I get nervous and shy a lot. Many times for the smallest and unknown reason. I tend to get really red from my face when someone picks on me” (Dominique Esquivel, twelfth grade).

“I am Lilia. I’m Filipino and Hispanic, a lot of people think I’m just Hispanic cause you can’t really see the Filipino in me. I’m not bilingual though I never learned another language when I was younger. I love doing makeup most people don’t know that either because I don’t wear it to school. I love to paint as well it’s very therapeutic to me” (Lilia Lopez, twelfth grade).

It is important to note here that these babies represent a variety of learning experiences. Some of them are English language learners (ELLs); some are Black American students who deserve the same language protections as ELLs; some receive special education services (SpEd); some are ELLs who are eligible for SpEd services. What I appreciate most about their responses is that they represent only a portion of what my students and I learned about each other on that day. Through one opening word of the day and journal prompt, we established the tone for our entire year. We established the love they have for themselves.

As we consider the pedagogical tradition of Black teachers and the ways their practices undergirded the racial identities of their students, our practices in English classrooms are imperative for affirming our students’ identities in the contexts of their language. This means coming to grips with the political nature of language and how one’s own personal views and practices around language instruction align with perpetuating the status quo around Standard English or developing a critical consciousness lens toward it. Therefore, as English teachers, in whatever way we ask our students “Who you be?”, the space must be created for them to boldly declare the love they have for themselves.

References
Acosta, M. M., Foster, M., and Houchen, D. F. (2018). “‘Why Seek the Living Among the Dead?’ African American Pedagogical Excellence: Exemplar Practice for Teacher Education.” Journal of Teacher Education, 69(4), 341–353.
Foster, M. (1997). Black Teachers on Teaching. New York: New Press.
King, J., and Swartz, E. (2016). The Afrocentric Praxis of Teaching for Freedom: Connecting Culture to
Learning. New York, NY: Routledge.
Lesesne, P. J. (2020). “A Sistah Circle of Seven: Black Women’s Self-Perceptions of Their Teach for America (TFA) Experiences in the U.S. Mid-Atlantic Region (147).” [Doctoral dissertation, University of Pennsylvania].
Perry, T., Steele, C., and Hilliard, A.G., (2003). Young, Gifted and Black: Promoting High
Achievement among African-American Students. Boston, MA: Beacon.
Walker, V. (1996). Their Highest Potential: An African American School Community in the Segregated South. University of North Carolina Press.

Shekema S. Dunlap (formerly Silveri) is the founder and executive director of IFE Academy of Teaching and Technology, a K–12 virtual microschool currently serving students in Atlanta, Austin, Chicago, and Indianapolis. For more about Shekema and IFE Academy, visit www.myifeacademy.org.

Dr. Millicent Carmouche is an assistant professor of special education at the University of South Alabama in Mobile, Alabama. Dr. Carmouche’s research interests include positive behavior interventions and supports (PBIS), co-teaching, special education teacher development, teacher coaching, and adolescent students with high-incidence disabilities.

Dr. Natasha Thornton is a teacher educator and the founder of Thornton Educational Consulting. Her work centers on designing professional learning and curricular materials to support organizations and schools with addressing the gap between culturally responsive theories and practice. Learn more about Natasha and her work at www.thorntonconsulting.co.

Call to Make Portuguese Official Language of UN

Ahead of the celebration of Portuguese Language Day on May 5, Portugal’s minister of foreign affairs, Augusto Santos Silva, said that Portugal is continuing its quest to have Portuguese made an official language of the United Nations (UN), but recognizes that it’s not likely soon.

Speaking at a press conference outlining the program of official commemorations of World Portuguese Language Day, Santos Silva said that progress had been made as Portuguese was already a working language in some UN organizations, like UNESCO. He pointed out the need to continue with the global promotion of Portuguese, considering it very important that, in addition to the work of the Camões Institute, the work of other countries’ Lusophone institutes, like the Brazil Cultural Network, and the Community of Portuguese-Language Countries’ International Institute of Portuguese Language (ILLP).

“This work allows us to codify the different varieties of the language, extend the international network of teaching, and also of cultural creation based on our language,” he said.

On the other hand, he added, it is essential to work within the UN system itself, pointing out, in this context, Portuguese has already been taught for three years at the International School of Languages of the UN, in New York, through a joint Portuguese/Brazilian program.

“The Portuguese language has greater coverage in international schools,” he said, also pointing out the importance to this effort of the network of Portuguese schools abroad, whether in teaching in Portuguese or in the training of Portuguese language teachers or the “international appreciation” of the cultures and literature made in Portuguese.

“This would add to a path that we are also clearing and of which the first great example is in London with the first bilingual Portuguese and English school,” the minister pointed out.

The date of 5 May was officially established in 2009 by the Community of Portuguese-speaking Countries (CPLP) – an intergovernmental organization that has been in official partnership with UNESCO since 2000, and which brings together peoples with the Portuguese language as one of the foundations of their specific identity – to celebrate the Portuguese language and Lusophone cultures. In 2019, the 40th session of UNESCO’s General Conference decided to proclaim 5 May of each year as “World Portuguese Language Day”.

The Portuguese language is not only one of the most widespread languages in the world, with more than 265 million speakers spread through all continents, but it is also the most widely spoken language in the southern hemisphere. Portuguese remains, today, a major language of international communication and a language with a strong geographical projection, destined to increase.   

The seven Embassies of the Countries of the Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries (CPLP) with diplomatic representation in Brazil – Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, Mozambique, Portugal, and Timor-Leste, in collaboration with the CPLP Executive Secretariat, the government of the Federal District, UNESCO in Brazil and the Camões Institute – a Portuguese cultural centre in Brasilia have gathered eight texts, primarily unpublished and illustrated, in a publication for children and youth dedicated to the Brazilian capital, entitled “Sonhar Brasília”. 

The book will be launched in a virtual event, on May 5, at 3 pm (Brasília time), on the UNESCO Portuguese YouTube channel, with live broadcasting through the CPLP portal: https://www.youtube.com/user/unescoPortuguese. “This world day is a fair recognition of the global relevance of the Portuguese language. I am sure that its future will continue to be enriched by the diversity and solidarity of all its voices,” said António Guterres, Secretary-General of the UN.

U.S. Guide to Exemplary Language Programs Wins $500K Grant

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded a $500,000 grant to support the efforts of the America’s Languages Working Group in building the Guide to Exemplary Programs and Practices in U.S. Language Education—a means of expanding equitable access to language education in the U.S. The American Councils for International Education, one of the constituent organizations of the Working Group, was chosen to receive and administer the grant on behalf of its members.

John Tessitore, chair of the America’s Languages Working Group, characterizes it as “a good opportunity to move the dial on language education” in the U.S., especially since “the focus will be on access to underserved communities.”

The web-based Guide will identify and describe models of access and excellence in language education, as well as programs that can be emulated and adapted for attracting more students to language learning from diverse populations. Focusing on the language needs of Native American, heritage, immigrant and refugee populations, Latinx and English Learners, Black and people of color, and other disenfranchised and underrepresented rural and urban communities, the guide will be hosted by the University of Texas at Austin. This is the most significant initiative of the America’s Languages Working Group, a voluntary association of leaders from organizations across the language enterprise (education, business, government, Native American communities, and NGOs), which was created in 2017 to support and advance the recommendations of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences Commission report, “America’s Languages: Investing in Language Education for the 21st Century.”

Peer reviews of local programs that can be scaled up nationally will begin within a few months and the plan is to complete the project by 2022.

Civil Rights Complaint Filed over Lack of COVID-19 Provisions for Multilinguals

The National Health Law Program has filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights (OCR), the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and the Department of Homeland Security Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties contending that federal, state, and local agencies are failing to provide individuals with limited English proficiency (LEP) meaningful access to COVID services. According to the complaint, this failure violates numerous federal laws, regulations, and guidance and makes access to COVID-19 testing, vaccines, treatment, and contact tracing significantly more difficult for the nation’s nearly 66 million people with LEP. The specifics of the complaint were informed by information provided to the National Health Law Program by more than 35 organizations and individuals, nationwide.

“Everyone in this country has a right to meaningful access to health care in a language they understand, whether they are an Arabic-speaker in Michigan or a Korean-speaker in Georgia,” said senior attorney Priscilla Huang. “Our complaint describes numerous situations where health officials failed to provide needed services. Even in a place as diverse as the City and County of Los Angeles, much of the COVID assistance has only been provided in English, or when provided in other languages translated using auto-translate applications. These auto-translators are notoriously inaccurate, and this is especially true when translating medical and technical information. Officials even used these applications to translate information into Spanish, despite ample evidence early in the pandemic that Latino communities were being disproportionately impacted. Similar situations have occurred across the country. At a visit to a Department of Health vaccination site in New York’s Chinatown, signage and intake questions were not available in Chinese. Colorado, home to two federally recognized Tribes, provided no interpreters in Navajo, Pueblo, Zapotec, and Mixtec.”

“The COVID-19 public health emergency does not exempt federal fund recipients of either HHS or FEMA from complying with federal non-discrimination laws. Both agencies have told their federal fund recipients that they must provide language services during the pandemic,” said managing attorney of the DC office, Mara Youdelman.

Jane Perkins, NHeLP’s Legal Director, stated “While we have anecdotally heard about problems over the last year, our investigation reveals a nationwide problem. We are concerned by reports that the nation’s vaccination rates are leveling off, so we are asking both OCR and FEMA to take action as quickly as possible to address language access barriers.”

The Complaint suggests a number of steps the agencies should take, including:

  • Advise entities not to use automated translation software that has not been verified by a qualified translator;
  • Engage in monitoring/enforcement regarding the development and use of websites, web-based applications, call centers, and vaccination sites;
  • Advise funding recipients to prioritize the use of qualified, in-person interpretation and, for those situations involving less frequently encountered languages, OCR and FEMA should issue guidance to ensure quality remote interpreting;
  • Clarify that federal COVID funding can pay for language services and that federal funded entities should compensate community-based organizations when they are being used to provide information and assistance;
  • Ensure that data on primary language is collected from recipients, optimally at the first point of contact. This will improve future monitoring and planning activities; and
  • For written materials/information, prepare and make available high-quality translated materials and standard taglines for all federal fund recipients to use.

Brexit Repercussions Threaten UK Programs

The UK’s withdrawal from the European Union (EU) has thrown a wrench in the country’s world language programs, with educators and school administrators throughout the nation concerned about hiring an adequate number of EU citizens who can assist with teaching their languages in the UK. A recent report from the Financial Times documents these issues, noting that new restrictions that went into place in January on EU citizens who work part time in the UK are making it difficult for schools to hire language assistants.

Although the UK officially left the EU in January 2020, citizens of both the UK and EU could still enjoy the benefits of relatively unrestricted travel between the regions. EU citizens were able to work part time in the UK restriction-free up until the beginning of January 2021, when new immigration and travel requirements went into effect.

Now, EU citizens seeking part-time work in the UK must apply for a work visa, which can be a lengthy and cumbersome process, especially compared to the pre-Brexit era. A 2018 report showed that more than two thirds of public schools and 78% of private schools in the nation employed non-British citizens of the EU as world language teachers. However, schools are now questioning the additional cost of continuing to employ so many EU citizens following the implementation of the new requirements.

Language educators and advocates have been wary of Brexit’s potential effects on world languages in the country for years now, especially since there is a an going shortage of qualified language educators with British citizenship. The British Council’s 2018 Languages Trends survey found that the number of students studying foreign languages was down significantly, and cited Brexit as having a negative impact on students’ motivation as well as parents’ attitudes toward language learning. Additionally, the European Language Equality Network noted in 2019 that Brexit could have “disastrous” effects on Celtic languages native to the British Isles, such as Welsh, Cornish, and Scottish Gaelic.

Iran Reduces Kurdish Teacher’s Sentence

Zara Mohammadi, a Kurdish language teacher and linguistic advocate in Iran who was sentenced to ten years in prison for her work, has recently had her sentence reduced to five years. According to Rudaw, a Kurdish news network, Mohammadi’s sentence reduction comes as Iran faces mounting pressure from the international community over suppression of the Kurdish people in the country.

Mohammadi is the director of the Nojin Socio-Cultural Association, an organization dedicated to preserving and promoting Kurdish culture and language. At the time of her arrest in May 2019, she was teaching Kurdish to hundreds of children in Sanandaj, the capital of Iran’s Kurdistan province, according to Rudaw. Mohammadi was arrested along with two other Kurdish teachers at the Nojin Socio-Cultural Association for alleged connections to armed Kurdish groups, but those charges were later dropped. Instead, Mohammadi was charged with “establishing a committee… that is against the stability and security of [Iran],” in reference to her efforts to teach the Kurdish language.

Numerous international groups condemned Iran for Mohammadi’s arrest—less than a month after Mohammadi was first detained, PEN International published a letter calling for her release from prison. Then, about a year later, in August 2020, a group of academics led by Noam Chomsky signed a letter condemning Iran’s discrimination against non-Persian languages like Kurdish and called on the state to release Mohammadi. “State authorities in Iran and elsewhere must understand that diversity of cultures and languages is an asset for any country and that the repression of the linguistic rights of minorities is a sign of the weakness of the state concerned and an attempt to stifle freedom and basic human rights,” wrote Simona Škrabec, PEN International’s chair of the Translation and Linguistic Rights Committee. Kurdish is an Indo-European language spoken by about 20 million people, largely in Kurdistan, a geographical region that spans across parts of Iran, Turkey, Iraq, and Syria. Throughout its history, Kurdish has largely been overshadowed by other languages in the region, namely Persian, Arabic, and Turkish. In spite of its large population of speakers (it ranks as the 40th most widely spoken language in the world, according to a 2012 report in the International Journal of the Sociology of Language), the language’s status has largely been undermined by the fact that it is spoken across a politically and culturally divided geographic area.

In Turkey, the language is banned as a language of instruction, even in regions of the country with a large Kurdish population. In Syria, the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria is led by a Kurdish government, which imposed Kurdish language education in 2016.

However, the region’s Education Department has struggled to create a high-quality Kurdish language curriculum that is officially recognized in other parts of Syria, and as a result many residents—even Kurdish families—have chosen to forego the curriculum altogether by sending their children to private institutions that teach in Arabic.

FEDELE to Host Digital Event for Teachers and Language Agents May 12

The Federation of Spanish Schools as a Foreign Language (FEDELE) has announced that it will host a digital event on May 12 showcasing all Spain has to offer American teachers and language agents.

The event will feature free and open didactic sessions with lectures by K2 Internacional Escuela de Español and Vamos Escuela de Español.

All participants will receive a certificate of attendance as well as priority registration for upcoming in-person events.

For more information, visit http://campus.fedele.org/event/.

Indigenous Taiwanese Languages Now Available on Wikipedia

The overwhelming majority of the world’s languages have a very small presence on the Internet—just 35 languages make up about 99% of the content on the web. In the interest of embracing the island’s historic linguistic diversity, the government of Taiwan is working on a revitalization project for the nation’s Indigenous languages by developing web content in those languages. The Taiwanese government has launched development of Wikipedia entries in the Indigenous languages, with the most recent developments including articles in Seediq and Atayal.

On April 15, Seediq and Atayal joined Sakizaya—which was added back in 2019—as the only three Taiwanese languages with a presence on Wikipedia. Seediq and Atayal are also the 32nd and 33rd Austronesian languages available on the site. Altogether, the three languages only make up .009% of Wikipedia’s total content but the project to develop content in these languages is still a step forward for revitalization efforts.

According to the Taiwanese news outlet The News Lens International, the move is a part of a government effort to recognize the island’s Indigenous people and help breathe new life into the languages, all of which are endangered or vulnerable. Although Taiwan recognizes numerous national languages, Mandarin remains the predominant language in day-to-day life. The Formosan language group, which includes the island’s Indigenous languages, were given official status in 2017. However, only a small group of Indigenous Taiwanese people actually speak the languages, and most of the speakers are elderly. UNESCO has classified Seediq as “severely endangered” and Atayal as “vulnerable.”

“Most of those who speak Indigenous languages are the elderly,” Lim Siu-Theh, the leader of the government’s project to revitalize the languages, told The News Lens International. “Many young people know only basic vocabulary and sentences.”

Although there are about 400,000 people who belong to Taiwan’s 16 recognized Indigenous groups, just around 35% of these individuals speak their heritage language fluently. In 2005, the Taiwanese government established a standardized writing system for the languages based on the Latin alphabet, which had been used to write some of the island’s languages since Dutch missionaries began translating the Bible into the Siraya, a Formosan language which is no longer spoken in the country. Since 2005, the government has also worked on developing educational programs to improve the status of Indigenous languages.

Virginia Launches ASL support for COVID-19 Call Center

More than a year into the COVID-19 pandemic, Deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals across America are still struggling with a lack of access to information on public health measures and vaccination efforts. The state of Virginia is working to combat this gap in accessibility by launching an American Sign Language (ASL) video call center for residents of the state to access information on the pandemic in ASL.

While ASL interpreters have become commonplace at news conferences, Virginia is the first state in the nation to offer a call center that allows Deaf and hard-of-hearing residents to access information directly, without having to use interpreting services as a sort of middleman.

“American Sign Language and English are different,” Virginia Department for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing director Eric Raff said, in an interview with local news outlet WTOP. “For many interpreters, ASL isn’t their first language and they miss cues.”

For many in the Deaf and hard-of-hearing community, video call centers are a useful alternative to interpretation services because they provide individuals the opportunity to ask questions directly in their primary language, rather than having such interactions mediated through another language. Virginia’s Vaccine Call Center for American Sign Language Support currently employs a staff of deaf individuals who use ASL as their primary or native language. The ASL call center is a part of the state’s larger Vaccine Call Center, which also offers services in English and Spanish.

In developing the video call center, the state teamed up with Connect Direct, a subsidiary of the non-profit Communication Service for the Deaf (CSD) that provides translation services with a specialization in signed languages. Raff told Richmond’s ABC 8 that there are about seven other states in the country that are currently looking into similar call centers to accommodate their deaf and hard-of-hearing communities.

“Connect Direct applauds Virginia for its dedication to its ASL-using residents,” said Craig Radford, CSD’s Vice President of Strategy and Business Development. “Many state services, including health services, are often inaccessible to Deaf ASL users. We encourage more state governments to follow Virginia’s lead.”

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