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10B - Task-Based Language Teaching and Indigenous Language Revitalisation

from Part IV - Methodology and Pedagogy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 November 2021

Mohammad Javad Ahmadian
Affiliation:
University of Leeds
Michael H. Long
Affiliation:
University of Maryland, College Park
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Summary

Task-based language teaching (TBLT) aims to help learners meet “present and future real-world communicative needs” (Long, 2015: 68). In Indigenous language revitalisation contexts, however, there may not be a real-world need to speak the target language, due to a lack of speakers or the widespread bilingualism associated with particular stages of language loss. Drawing on two distinct but complementary contexts, Macuiltianguis Zapotec after-school lessons (Oaxaca, Mexico) and a workshop for teachers at a Salish Qlispe immersion school (Montana, United States), we show how TBLT might be adapted for language revitalisation through the conscious creation of new spaces for meaningful communication in the target language. The Zapotec and Salish contexts represent different approaches to adapting TBLT for Indigenous language instruction. The Zapotec teachers looked for everyday communicative tasks that learners plausibly could do in Zapotec, focusing on encouraging students to speak Zapotec in situations in which they were already interacting with Zapotec speakers in the community but doing so in Spanish. The Salish teachers, on the other hand, focused on the school itself as a new space for meaningful language use. We describe how task-based methodological principles (Long, 2009, 2015) were useful for planning and teaching in these settings.

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Chapter
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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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References

Further Reading

Hermes, M. and King, K. (2019). Task-based language learning for Ojibwe: A case study of two intermediate adult language learners. In McCarty, T., Nicholas, S. E., and Wigglesworth, G., eds. A world of Indigenous languages: Politics, pedagogies and prospects for language reclamation. Blue Ridge Summit, PA: Multilingual Matters, pp. 134–52.Google Scholar
Henze, R. and Davis, K. (1999). Introduction to authenticity and identity: Lessons from indigenous language education. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 30(1), 321.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hornberger, N. H. (2008), ed. Can schools save indigenous languages? Policy and practice on four continents. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Penfield, S. D. and Tucker, B. V. (2011). From documenting to revitalizing an endangered language: Where do applied linguists fit? Language and Education, 25(4), 291305.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Riestenberg, K. J. and Sherris, A. (2018). Task-based teaching of indigenous languages: Investment and methodological principles in Macuiltianguis Zapotec and Salish Qlipse revitalization. Canadian Modern Language Review, 74(3), 434–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
White, F. (2006). Rethinking Native American language revitalization. The American Indian Quarterly, 30(1), 91109.Google Scholar

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