Language / en Prof uses comics to explore students' linguistic identities, lived experiences /news/prof-uses-comics-explore-students-linguistic-identities-lived-experiences <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Prof uses comics to explore students' linguistic identities, lived experiences</span> <div class="field field--name-field-featured-picture field--type-image field--label-hidden field__item"> <img loading="eager" srcset="/sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_370/public/1103AiTaniguchi005-crop_0.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=ku5CaFLX 370w, /sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_740/public/1103AiTaniguchi005-crop_0.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=TdWg_wDP 740w, /sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_1110/public/1103AiTaniguchi005-crop_0.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=G_Y1GLdJ 1110w" sizes="(min-width:1200px) 1110px, (max-width: 1199px) 80vw, (max-width: 767px) 90vw, (max-width: 575px) 95vw" width="740" height="494" src="/sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_370/public/1103AiTaniguchi005-crop_0.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=ku5CaFLX" alt="&quot;&quot;"> </div> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"><span>Christopher.Sorensen</span></span> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"><time datetime="2022-11-10T09:12:10-05:00" title="Thursday, November 10, 2022 - 09:12" class="datetime">Thu, 11/10/2022 - 09:12</time> </span> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-field-cutline-long field--type-text-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Cutline</div> <div class="field__item">Ai Taniguchi, an assistant professor of language studies, is using comics to share student stories about their lived experiences with language (photo by Nick Iwanyshyn)</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-reporters field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/authors-reporters/kristy-strauss" hreflang="en">Kristy Strauss</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-topic field--type-entity-reference field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Topic</div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/topics/our-community" hreflang="en">Our Community</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-story-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/academics" hreflang="en">Academics</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/digital-media" hreflang="en">Digital Media</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/global" hreflang="en">Global</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/humanities" hreflang="en">Humanities</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/language" hreflang="en">Language</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/u-t-mississauga" hreflang="en">ֱ Mississauga</a></div> </div> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>When&nbsp;<strong>Ai Taniguchi</strong>&nbsp;immigrated to the United States with her family at age six, the permanency of the move hadn’t completely sunk in.</p> <p>Taniguchi – now an assistant professor in the University of Toronto Mississauga’s department of language studies – remembers goodbye parties and saying farewell to friends in Japan. She also recalls arriving in the United States and heading on a family trip to Disney World, which felt more like a vacation than a move. And she remembers driving to Georgia&nbsp;and settling into her new home in Peachtree City, an Atlanta suburb.</p> <p>But when Taniguchi started school, that’s when it finally hit her: She was now permanently living in a new country,&nbsp;didn’t speak a word of English and had trouble communicating with teachers and other students.</p> <p>“I cried all the time,” Taniguchi says, adding that there were very few options for English as a second language (ESL) classes in suburban Atlanta in the mid-1990s. “It was very, very scary.”&nbsp;</p> <p>To express her feelings, Taniguchi turned to drawing: creating comic-style art inspired by her love for Manga, a style of graphic novels that originate in Japan and are a big part of Japanese culture for both children and adults.</p> <p>The other children took notice of her drawings. It soon became a way for her to connect with her peers when linguistic communication was hard.</p> <p>“I wasn’t the weird kid that couldn’t speak English. I was the kid that could draw&nbsp;and my classmates treated me like a friend,” she says. “The power of art is pretty universal.”</p> <p>This early experience planted the seed for Taniguchi’s&nbsp;Language, Identity, Multiculturalism and Global Empowerment (L'IMAGE) project. She is working with linguistic-diverse and culture-diverse students at ֱ to create digital comics about their lived experience with language and how they navigate their identities via language. The project is funded by ֱ’s <a href="https://global.utoronto.ca/international-student-experience-fund/">International Student Experience Fund</a> (ISEF).</p> <p><img alt src="/sites/default/files/1103AiTaniguchi001-crop_0.jpg" style="width: 750px; height: 500px;"></p> <p><em>Taniguchi says digital comics&nbsp;give students an outlet to share their experiences with language&nbsp;(photo by Nick Iwanyshyn)</em></p> <p>Starting in the winter semester, the digital comics will&nbsp;be shared through ֱ Mississauga’s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.utm.utoronto.ca/international/about-us">International Education Centre</a>&nbsp;via social media, as well as classrooms, student orientations and student-leader training programs to promote intercultural competence and empathy in the university community.&nbsp;</p> <p>While her own early experiences laid the foundation for the project, Taniguchi says she was also inspired by her students’ stories about how they cope with their own language barriers – and how similar their stories were to her own.</p> <p>“Students will tell me things like, ‘I'm so sorry, my English is so bad,’ or apologize about the language that they use,” she says. “That’s heartbreaking to me as a teacher because language is so strongly tied to your identity. It's a part of who you are.”</p> <p>Taniguchi related to their struggles and wanted to provide these students an outlet to share their experiences. She felt that digital comics were a great way to do it: they can tell a story in a simple way, and they are accessible to everyone.</p> <p>“There are a lot of things you can communicate with comics,” she explains, adding that they can be valuable tools for teaching technical aspects of language like sentence structure.</p> <p>As a linguistics educator, Taniguchi&nbsp;feels that linguistics should be centred around lived experiences.</p> <p>“I think comics humanize the discipline because you tell stories about a person, you see that person, you see the character telling us stories,” she says.</p> <p>​As part of the L'IMAGE project, each digital comic will also include an infographic that educates the readers about the language’s linguistics – for example, a comic about the Arabic language experience will be accompanied by an infographic about Arabic linguistics.</p> <p>Taniguchi hopes that the project will empower linguistic-diverse and culture-diverse students at ֱ.</p> <p>“I hope that they feel that their linguistic identity is valid and&nbsp;that&nbsp;it's OK for them to have a complex multilingual identity. I hope they feel more proud of who they are after this project,” she says, adding that the project can also serve as an education tool for all students. “If you've never heard some of these stories before, I hope that you will learn to empathize with communities that you are not a part of. I think we can create a wonderfully inclusive, diverse and welcoming environment. That's my ultimate goal here.”</p> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-home-page-banner field--type-boolean field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">News home page banner</div> <div class="field__item">Off</div> </div> Thu, 10 Nov 2022 14:12:10 +0000 Christopher.Sorensen 178021 at Pilot project uses VR simulations to help newcomers learn English /news/pilot-project-uses-vr-simulations-help-newcomers-learn-english <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Pilot project uses VR simulations to help newcomers learn English</span> <div class="field field--name-field-featured-picture field--type-image field--label-hidden field__item"> <img loading="eager" srcset="/sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_370/public/1025VRLanguage002-crop.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=TVPWQSgC 370w, /sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_740/public/1025VRLanguage002-crop.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=VCxMOIu8 740w, /sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_1110/public/1025VRLanguage002-crop.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=VxgOaz8y 1110w" sizes="(min-width:1200px) 1110px, (max-width: 1199px) 80vw, (max-width: 767px) 90vw, (max-width: 575px) 95vw" width="740" height="494" src="/sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_370/public/1025VRLanguage002-crop.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=TVPWQSgC" alt="&quot;&quot;"> </div> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"><span>Christopher.Sorensen</span></span> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"><time datetime="2022-11-02T14:46:22-04:00" title="Wednesday, November 2, 2022 - 14:46" class="datetime">Wed, 11/02/2022 - 14:46</time> </span> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-field-cutline-long field--type-text-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Cutline</div> <div class="field__item">Liz Coulson, Ji-young Shin and Paul Alexander run through a demo with some of the VR equipment they use to help newcomers to Canada learn English as part of a pilot project with the federal government (photo by Nick Iwanyshyn)</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-reporters field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/authors-reporters/ali-raza" hreflang="en">Ali Raza</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-topic field--type-entity-reference field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Topic</div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/topics/our-community" hreflang="en">Our Community</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-story-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/global" hreflang="en">Global</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/language" hreflang="en">Language</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/ontario-institute-studies-education" hreflang="en">Ontario Institute for Studies in Education</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/syria" hreflang="en">Syria</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/u-t-mississauga" hreflang="en">ֱ Mississauga</a></div> </div> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>Would you be more confident in a job interview if you had a chance to practice first? For newcomers to Canada, the answer is often a resounding “yes.”</p> <p>With the help of virtual reality (VR), a&nbsp;pilot project at the University of Toronto is helping those who are new to Canada learn English by giving them a chance to practice their skills in&nbsp;simulated scenarios such as job interviews, shopping or ordering food at a restaurant.</p> <p>The approach has been shown to not only to improve learners’ comprehension and speaking skills, but also their confidence.</p> <p>“In VR, it is more hands-on to learn the language – it’s a very interesting experience,” says <strong>Baian Alkailani</strong>, who is one of the students involved in the pilot. “Learning it in a more fun and interactive way is very helpful to improve language skills.”</p> <p>Alkailani says the VR simulation helps her practice real-life scenarios like shopping, banking, or ordering a coffee. “I think this is what we need,” she says.</p> <p>The three-year pilot project is funded by the Ministry of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada and the university. It was developed by ֱ Mississauga’s language studies department in conjunction with the <a href="https://syriancanadianfoundation.ca/">Syrian Canadian Foundation</a> (SCF).&nbsp;</p> <p>“They’re super motivated and we see an increase in self-confidence,” says&nbsp;<strong>Paul Alexander</strong>, the assistant principal investigator on the project who oversees the technical elements related to VR.</p> <p>“This is a new iteration with the technology,” adds&nbsp;<strong>Liz Coulson</strong>, an assistant professor, teaching stream, in the department of language studies and the&nbsp;education studies undergraduate program co-ordinator who oversees the research elements in the project.</p> <p><img alt src="/sites/default/files/1025VRLanguage006.jpg" style="width: 750px; height: 500px;"></p> <p><em>The pilot project uses VR equipment&nbsp;to help newcomers learn English&nbsp;by giving them the chance to practice in&nbsp;simulated scenarios such as a job interview&nbsp;(photo by Nick Iwanyshyn)</em></p> <p>Coulson has been involved with ֱ Mississauga’s language classes for past last five years through the department. But it’s only this year that VR and artificial intelligence were introduced to the lesson plan through the help of partnerships and collaborations.</p> <p>The language program is eight weeks long, running every Saturday at ֱ Mississauga. This fall, the university is holding two VR classes per week. There are 12 students per class, but close to 50 students total for the whole project. Classes are divided between standard language classes (without VR) and VR classes. Over a three-hour class, teachers will give a lesson before students use VR headsets in “role-play” segments with newly learned material.</p> <p>The project uses Oculus Quest or Meta Quest headsets, which are standalone VR headsets capable of displaying different environments and settings.</p> <p>“For the most part, all the students are first timers,” Alexander says.</p> <p>For now, the project remains focused on refugee and newcomer populations. ֱ Mississauga’s work with the&nbsp;Syrian Canadian Foundation&nbsp;began five years ago, which is&nbsp;when Coulson took on the initial language program before VR and AI were implemented.</p> <p>“I took it on wholeheartedly because I think it’s such an important project,” says Coulson, who applauds the work done by the foundation. “It was their inspiration at the beginning and partnership that has led to all this. It’s just an incredible team on that side.”&nbsp;</p> <p>The team includes Coulson, Alexander,&nbsp;<strong>Ji-young Shin</strong>,&nbsp;<strong>Ilan Danjoux</strong>, a group of teachers who are graduates of the education studies program, teaching assistants&nbsp;and ֱ Mississauga students, including two that went on to work with the foundation&nbsp;because of the language studies program.</p> <p>“This turned into employment opportunities for lots of students,” Coulson says, noting the&nbsp;department also works with the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE). “It’s really a family unit of UTM, OISE&nbsp;and department of language studies people.”&nbsp;</p> <p>Coulson and Alexander are also monitoring the pedagogical effectiveness of using VR to teach, pointing to the opportunities it offers beyond language studies.</p> <p>The current program wraps up later this month and resumes&nbsp;in January.</p> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-home-page-banner field--type-boolean field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">News home page banner</div> <div class="field__item">Off</div> </div> Wed, 02 Nov 2022 18:46:22 +0000 Christopher.Sorensen 177846 at Understanding babies' minds: ֱ researcher examines how infants learn language /news/understanding-babies-minds-u-t-researcher-examines-how-infants-learn-language <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Understanding babies' minds: ֱ researcher examines how infants learn language</span> <div class="field field--name-field-featured-picture field--type-image field--label-hidden field__item"> <img loading="eager" srcset="/sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_370/public/EJ_Lab_01-crop.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=2r3Lt4NE 370w, /sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_740/public/EJ_Lab_01-crop.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=m2NWld_f 740w, /sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_1110/public/EJ_Lab_01-crop.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=p1WdRu6r 1110w" sizes="(min-width:1200px) 1110px, (max-width: 1199px) 80vw, (max-width: 767px) 90vw, (max-width: 575px) 95vw" width="740" height="494" src="/sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_370/public/EJ_Lab_01-crop.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=2r3Lt4NE" alt="&quot;&quot;"> </div> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"><span>Christopher.Sorensen</span></span> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"><time datetime="2021-09-15T16:56:41-04:00" title="Wednesday, September 15, 2021 - 16:56" class="datetime">Wed, 09/15/2021 - 16:56</time> </span> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-field-cutline-long field--type-text-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Cutline</div> <div class="field__item">Researchers in Elizabeth Johnson's ֱ Mississauga lab track babies' motor responses and where they look for insights into how they learn language, but will soon be able to measure brain activity, too (photo by Drew Lesiuczok)</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-reporters field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/authors-reporters/kristy-strauss" hreflang="en">Kristy Strauss</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-topic field--type-entity-reference field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Topic</div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/topics/our-community" hreflang="en">Our Community</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-story-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/babies" hreflang="en">Babies</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/language" hreflang="en">Language</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/psychology" hreflang="en">Psychology</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/research-innovation" hreflang="en">Research &amp; Innovation</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/u-t-mississauga" hreflang="en">ֱ Mississauga</a></div> </div> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>For more than 20 years, the University of Toronto’s&nbsp;<strong>Elizabeth Johnson</strong> has studied the ways&nbsp;babies and children acquire language: How do children begin learning the meaning of words? How do they cope with unfamiliar languages and voices? How do they learn language so quickly?</p> <p>Now, with <a href="/news/detecting-earthquakes-preventing-disease-27-u-t-research-projects-receive-cfi-funding">the&nbsp;support of the Canadian Foundation for Innovation’s John R. Evans Leaders Fund</a>, the professor of psychology and&nbsp;director of the&nbsp;Child Language and Speech Studies (CLASS) Lab at ֱ Mississauga&nbsp;has the chance to delve deeper into the mysteries of language acquisition by effectively tapping into the minds of infants as young as six months old.</p> <p>While Johnson’s team focused on more traditional behavioural measures such as eye-tracking, looking time and motor responses in her CLASS lab, her new Baby Brain and Behaviour Lab (BaBBL) will&nbsp;carry out event-related potential (ERP) studies to better understand how children acquire language. ERPs are an electrophysiological measure reflecting the brain’s activity in response to specific stimulus or events in the world. The researchers will use electroencephalograms (EEG) to measure infants’ neural response to speech sounds and words.</p> <p>“It’s all really exciting because we haven’t been able to do ERP work in my lab, so it’s going to be a whole new lab component,” says Johnson, adding the procedure is safe and well-established for use in infants.&nbsp;“With this new tool, we will have a more complete window into the initial workings of the human mind.”</p> <p>As Johnson and her team study what’s happening in infants’ brains, they will also be able to physically observe&nbsp;reactions and behaviours.</p> <p>“The ERP measure will allow us to actually see how the brain is responding to words when they hear them, so I will be able to look at how neural responses line up with behavioural responses that we observe,” Johnson explains.</p> <p>Researchers will examine how infants’ brains respond to words through the ERP measurements. The babies will then return multiple times, at different ages, so researchers can monitor changes over the years.</p> <p>“By analyzing changes in those responses over time, we can learn a lot about what children are picking up on in the world,” Johnson says. “And, we can look at the way their brain responds to different words early on in development at six months of age, and how that might predict how well they’re speaking, and how many words they’ll know when they’re a toddler&nbsp;or when they’re older.”</p> <p>She adds that researchers will also look at the ways caregivers interact with their children, and how it might impact children's neural response to the words they hear. For example, the research team will record and analyze caregivers’ different interaction styles to see how they support children's language development.</p> <p><img alt src="/sites/default/files/Elizabeth_Johnson_07-crop.jpg" style="width: 750px; height: 500px;"></p> <p><em>Johnson says it’s important to study how children learn language in linguistically diverse environments since many Toronto children grow up in households that speak a language other than English (photo by Drew Lesiuczok)</em></p> <p>With the help of her Canada Research Chair grant, Johnson will&nbsp;also study how children learn language in linguistically-diverse environments –&nbsp; a reality for many children in the GTA.</p> <p>She says more children today are growing up in households that speak a language other than English, meaning they are learning more than one language and hearing different accents.</p> <p>One eventual application of her work could be to predict reading and speech difficulties in children – especially in linguistically-diverse populations.</p> <p>“Traditionally, infant research has been largely focused on children learning one language,” Johnson says. “But many – if not most – of the children in the world are learning more than one language, and being exposed to more than one language variety.</p> <p>“If we want to understand how language acquisition and speech development works in the real world, we have to study how children learn language in linguistically-diverse environments.”</p> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-home-page-banner field--type-boolean field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">News home page banner</div> <div class="field__item">Off</div> </div> Wed, 15 Sep 2021 20:56:41 +0000 Christopher.Sorensen 170358 at ֱ's Bonnie Jane Maracle on preserving Indigenous languages via Google Earth /news/u-t-s-bonnie-jane-maracle-preserving-indigenous-languages-google-earth <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">ֱ's Bonnie Jane Maracle on preserving Indigenous languages via Google Earth</span> <div class="field field--name-field-featured-picture field--type-image field--label-hidden field__item"> <img loading="eager" srcset="/sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_370/public/google%20earth.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=g4pOSDSS 370w, /sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_740/public/google%20earth.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=0M9swiAF 740w, /sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_1110/public/google%20earth.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=aE-H5W_i 1110w" sizes="(min-width:1200px) 1110px, (max-width: 1199px) 80vw, (max-width: 767px) 90vw, (max-width: 575px) 95vw" width="740" height="494" src="/sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_370/public/google%20earth.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=g4pOSDSS" alt="Photo of Google project"> </div> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"><span>perry.king</span></span> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"><time datetime="2019-08-12T16:25:43-04:00" title="Monday, August 12, 2019 - 16:25" class="datetime">Mon, 08/12/2019 - 16:25</time> </span> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-field-cutline-long field--type-text-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Cutline</div> <div class="field__item">Celebrating Indigenous Languages is found on Google Earth’s educational storytelling platform and features 50 Indigenous language speakers (photo by Google)</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-topic field--type-entity-reference field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Topic</div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/topics/our-community" hreflang="en">Our Community</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-story-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/first-nations-house" hreflang="en">First Nations House</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/indigenous" hreflang="en">Indigenous</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/language" hreflang="en">Language</a></div> </div> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>The University of Toronto's&nbsp;<strong>Bonnie Jane Maracle</strong> says the launch of an&nbsp;Indigenous language preservation project on Google Earth&nbsp;is validating “our languages and what we’re working at in our communities.”</p> <p>Appearing on <em>CBC News Network</em>, Maracle, a learning consultant at ֱ's First Nations House, says the <a href="https://earth.google.com/web/data=CiQSIhIgYTY1Y2U1NTk3MzE4MTFlOTkzN2RjN2JkNTNhNDc1ZGI">Celebrating Indigenous Languages</a> project makes her hopeful that the work being done in Indigenous communities is being supported.</p> <p>This project can contribute to the growth of Indigenous identity in Canada and may prove to help reconciliation,&nbsp;she says.</p> <p>“There are some really valuable sources like [the Google Earth project]&nbsp;being developed that we could utilize internally or in the education system to bring about that information on languages.”&nbsp;</p> <p>The project can be found on Google Earth’s educational storytelling platform and features 50 Indigenous language speakers so far.</p> <h3><a href="https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1585445443982">Watch the interview with Maracle&nbsp;on <em>CBC News Network</em></a></h3> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-home-page-banner field--type-boolean field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">News home page banner</div> <div class="field__item">Off</div> </div> Mon, 12 Aug 2019 20:25:43 +0000 perry.king 157528 at Lost words: how dozens of Indigenous languages in Canada are in danger of disappearing /news/lost-words-how-dozens-indigenous-languages-canada-are-danger-disappearing <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Lost words: how dozens of Indigenous languages in Canada are in danger of disappearing</span> <div class="field field--name-field-featured-picture field--type-image field--label-hidden field__item"> <img loading="eager" srcset="/sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_370/public/2017-07-31-trc-language-ran-decaire.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=0Qw7056R 370w, /sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_740/public/2017-07-31-trc-language-ran-decaire.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=BeDYhBpk 740w, /sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_1110/public/2017-07-31-trc-language-ran-decaire.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=FKMmQQU5 1110w" sizes="(min-width:1200px) 1110px, (max-width: 1199px) 80vw, (max-width: 767px) 90vw, (max-width: 575px) 95vw" width="740" height="494" src="/sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_370/public/2017-07-31-trc-language-ran-decaire.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=0Qw7056R" alt> </div> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"><span>ullahnor</span></span> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"><time datetime="2017-07-31T16:18:15-04:00" title="Monday, July 31, 2017 - 16:18" class="datetime">Mon, 07/31/2017 - 16:18</time> </span> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-field-cutline-long field--type-text-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Cutline</div> <div class="field__item">Ryan DeCaire, an assistant professor at ֱ's Centre for Indigenous Studies and department of linguistics, learned how to speak the Mohawk language (Kanien’kéha) in his early 20s. He now teaches it to students (photo by Diana Tyszko)</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-legacy field--type-string field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Author legacy</div> <div class="field__item">Nikki Wiart</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-story-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/indigenous" hreflang="en">Indigenous</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/language" hreflang="en">Language</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/truth-and-reconciliation" hreflang="en">Truth and Reconciliation</a></div> </div> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>“Vrrrrrrrrrrrrriiiiiiiibbbbbb.” <strong>Jennifer Sylvester</strong>’s hands grip an imaginary steering wheel; her foot presses hard against an invisible gas pedal. The 40-year-old student and mother is sitting on a colourful, padded chair in the common area of the University of Toronto’s <a href="http://indigenousstudies.utoronto.ca/">Centre for Indigenous Studies</a>, located at 563 Spadina (or <em>ishpadinaa</em>, the Anishinaabemowin, or Ojibwe, word for high hill). She’s surrounded by about a dozen other people. It smells of sage, and of winter.</p> <p>Sylvester is about to get up and walk away from her make-­­­believe car, when someone in the circle shouts: “<em>Maaciipiso!”</em>&nbsp;– Anishinaabemowin for leaving a vehicle. The group is playing a game called <em>Baapaase</em>, or woodpecker. It’s a marriage of Jenga and charades: blocks with Anishinaabemowin words and phrases written on them are stacked one on top of the other. Participants tap, tap, tap the blocks out of the stack, and then perform whatever action is on that block. Sylvester had an easy one – there’s also <em>aagonigebagizo</em> (skinny-dip) and <em>boogidigwaami</em> (fart in one’s sleep).</p> <p><em>Baapaase</em> was invented by <strong>Jenny Blackbird</strong> – co-ordinator of <a href="http://indigenousstudies.utoronto.ca/ckq/">Ciimaan/Kahuwe’yá/Qajaq (CKQ)</a>, the Indigenous language hub within the Centre for Indigenous Studies. In this role, Blackbird, who is part Nehiyaw (Plains Cree) and part Finnish, organizes events such as the Indigenous Language Games that Sylvester took part in, and offers support and resources to students in the Indigenous Studies program. She also co-hosts<em>&nbsp;</em><a href="http://www.ciut.fm/shows-2/spoken-word/indigenous-waves/"><em>Indigenous Waves</em>,</a>&nbsp;a weekly show on campus radio station CIUT that features music, storytelling and interviews.</p> <h3><a href="/news/it-s-screeble-not-scrabble-u-t-students-learn-indigenous-languages-through-games">Read more about Indigenous word games at ֱ</a></h3> <p>Earlier that day, I had sat with Blackbird at her desk, where she used Scrabble tiles to spell the word “<em>tansi</em>,” which means “hello” in Plains Cree. Blackbird believes deeply in taking language instruction outside of the classroom. Besides introducing students to word games such as <em>Baapaase</em> and sCREEble – the Indigenous-language version of Scrabble – Blackbird organizes events such as Cree Language Bingo and brings in elders to instruct traditional crafts such as beading. Indigenous languages are animated and action-oriented, so “trying to play sCREEble is more fun than writing stuff down or just reading a book,” says Blackbird.</p> <p>The CKQ activities that Blackbird organizes belong to a range of programming offered through ֱ’s Centre for Indigenous Studies that provides students with formal and informal instruction in Anishinaabemowin and Kanien’kéha (Mohawk), which are both spoken in Ontario, and Inuktitut, one of the main Inuit languages in Canada. The centre, founded in 1994 under another name, has focused on language courses from the start, says interim director <strong>Keren Rice</strong>, because of its central role in understanding Indigenous cultures.</p> <p>“There is so much knowledge to gain from language,” she says. “You get a deeper understanding of a culture, helping you to see the world through different eyes.”</p> <p>According to a <a href="http://www.unesco.org/languages-atlas/index.php?hl=en&amp;page=atlasmap">2010 UNESCO report</a>, about half of the world’s more than 6,000 languages are at risk of disappearing over the next century. Eighty-seven of these are Indigenous languages in Canada, including the South Slavey language – considered “definitely endangered” with roughly 900 speakers spread across 13 communities – and the “critically endangered” Munsee language, with fewer than 10 speakers on a single reserve in Ontario. Another source, the <a href="http://travel.nationalgeographic.com/travel/enduring-voices/"><em>National Geographic Society</em>’s Enduring Voices Project</a>, gives many of these languages a low likelihood of surviving into the next century. The project found that, in 2011, just 15 per cent of Indigenous people in Canada reported speaking an Indigenous language as their mother tongue, down from 87 per cent a half-century earlier.</p> <p>The disappearance of these languages, and these language speakers, won’t directly affect most of the world’s people – two-thirds of whom speak just 12 languages as their native tongue. But a language that goes extinct sends a bleak message, both in the erasing of cultural identity and the silencing of a world view that can never be recovered. This loss also has very real, and potentially dire, ramifications for the Indigenous communities where these languages are spoken. A 2007 study by researchers at the universities of Oxford, British Columbia and Victoria that looked at 150 Indigenous communities in B.C. found that areas where at least half of the people had a conversational knowledge of their Indigenous language, youth suicide rates were very low – and in some cases zero. In communities where fewer than half of the members had this knowledge, youth suicide rates were, on average, six times higher. (Overall, the suicide rate among First Nations youth in Canada is five to seven times higher than that of non-Indigenous youth. For Inuit youth, the figure is 11 times higher.)</p> <p>Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which released its <a href="http://www.trc.ca/websites/trcinstitution/index.php?p=890">final report</a>&nbsp;in June 2015, was created to acknowledge government-sponsored abuse at residential schools, and to offer recommendations for reparations. Included in these calls to action were the protection and strengthening of Indigenous languages. This makes eminent sense to the linguists and Indigenous-language speakers at ֱ, who see language revitalization and the broader goal of reconciliation as closely linked: a language can’t be revitalized until past trauma has been reconciled, and past trauma can’t be reconciled until a language is revitalized. It’s a chicken-­or-egg debate that makes the whole process more complicated than simply having good teachers and students with a willingness to learn.</p> <p>“It’s challenging to admit as an Indigenous person that you don’t know your language,” says <strong>Ryan DeCaire</strong>, an assistant professor of Mohawk languages at ֱ. He says many Indigenous people feel a sense of loss when they do not speak or understand their language. It is something that “we feel we should already know, and not knowing it perpetuates feelings of shame, anger and frustration.”</p> <p>DeCaire, 29, began working at ֱ in 2016, and teaches a course in Kanien’kéha and in language revitalization. In his early 20s, DeCaire enrolled in <a href="http://www.onkwawenna.info/">Onkwawenna Kentyohkwa</a>, a two-year immersion program in Kanien’kéha at the Six Nations Grand River Territory. Prior to that, DeCaire knew only the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMRCPeOWA9k">flash-card version of his language</a>: hello, goodbye, numbers and basic phrases. Today, he’s one of fewer than 10 people in his community of Wáhta Kanien’kehá:ka Territory – north of Toronto, in the Muskoka area – who is fluent; the others are all over the age of 70.</p> <p>“Learning the language has been a critical piece to understanding my own identity of being Kanien’kehá:ka,” he says. “It’s played an essential role in my own mental health and spiritual well-being.”</p> <p>Now that DeCaire is able to speak the language himself (for which he credits the “giants”&nbsp;in Mohawk communities who have been working to keep the language from “going to sleep”), he admits he feels an acute degree of responsibility to pass on what he knows.</p> <p>“On paper, I work for the University of Toronto,” says DeCaire. “But in my heart, I work for our languages – and for our people.”</p> <p>In 2011, only 545 people in Canada reported speaking Kanien’kéha as their mother tongue – UNESCO rates it as “definitely endangered.”&nbsp;DeCaire is deeply aware of the challenges to expanding this number, noting that people lose their facility with a language if they can’t practise it. He’s tried to organize his own life, he says, so he can continue speaking the language regularly. Few jobs exist for Kanien’kéha speakers (though he was fortunate to find one). At the moment, DeCaire doesn’t have children, but he knows that, if and when he does, he will raise them with Kanien’kéha as their first language. His partner will also need to speak Kanien’kéha. The stakes, he feels, are high.</p> <p>“We can lose the language in one generation – a language that has developed over hundreds of years, thousands of years,” he says. “It’s our connection to the past, our ancestors. It gives us a sense of social cohesion, and it connects us to our land.”</p> <p>DeCaire, who taught at an adult immersion program in Kahnawake, near Montreal, prior to coming to ֱ, brings that same style of teaching to his university classes. He speaks almost exclusively in Kanien’kéha to his students, and focuses less on memorization and repeat-after-me-phrases, and more on understanding the basic patterns and rules of a language in which words are made up of many different parts. The word for university, for example, is <em>Tsi Ionterihwaienstahkhwa’kó:wa </em>(dzee yoon-day-re-wa-yun-stah-kwa’-go-wa), which translates literally into “the great place of study.” In Indigenous languages such as Kanien’kéha, Anishinaabemowin and Inuktitut, the primary component of the sentence is the verb&nbsp;not the noun, as it is in English and French.</p> <p>“We describe a lot of the world around us in terms of what it does,” DeCaire says. So a chair is not just a chair, it is the thing that holds up your bottom.</p> <p><img alt class="media-image attr__typeof__foaf:Image img__fid__5399 img__view_mode__media_original attr__format__media_original" src="/sites/default/files/Language-Sidebar_withText_480.jpg" style="width: 500px; height: 396px; margin-right: 125px; margin-left: 125px;" typeof="foaf:Image"></p> <p>ֱ Professor Rice encountered a similar shift in thinking while studying the language of Dene communities in the Northwest Territories. She would be knitting a scarf, and someone would ask her why she was “wasting her yarn.” Or they would ask her to “spill them some water,” instead of pour it. She had to wrap her head around the new and neutral meanings of those words&nbsp;and ignore the negative English connotations associated with them.</p> <p>Rice, who holds a PhD in linguistics, has been studying the Dene since her years as a graduate student at ֱ in the 1970s. This was before language endangerment and the need for revitalization were even on Canada’s radar – though the importance of language was already being discussed in many Indigenous political organizations. While she’s not Indigenous herself, Rice has dedicated her life to this work – creating dictionaries and teaching guides, developing writing systems, and studying the role of storytelling in preserving language and culture. Rice says language courses offered at a university shouldn’t be taught in an “English-translated” way. “So it’s not English with words in Mohawk&nbsp;or English with words in Anishinaabemowin, but the language as it is,” she says – and that includes not only the grammatical intricacies and structural differences in the way we speak&nbsp;but the way of thinking.</p> <p>Rice was a member of the steering committee that produced <a href="http://www.provost.utoronto.ca/Assets/Provost+Digital+Assets/TRC_FinalReport.pdf">ֱ’s Truth and Reconciliation report</a>, released in January. The report contains three calls to action involving Indigenous languages, including naming spaces on ֱ’s campuses using Indigenous languages. Rice says that much like making a statement of land acknowledgement (Toronto sits on Anishinaabe territory) or replacing “thank you” with “<em>miigwetch</em>,” giving university spaces an Indigenous name could help familiarize many people with the language.</p> <p>“There’s English all over the place,” Rice says. “So it’s just part of your environment. But Indigenous knowledge is not present in any kind of sense that people can see it. [By] naming things, people can start using those words.”</p> <h3><a href="/news/humility-responsibility-and-opportunity-u-t-responds-final-trc-steering-committee-report">Read about ֱ's response to the report</a></h3> <p>In the months and years to come, Sylvester hopes to see “more emphasis on the importance of reclaiming Indigenous knowledge, because a lot of our Indigenous knowledge is entrenched in language, and we need to ensure that this is protected and preserved.”</p> <p>Sylvester, who’s Anishinaabe, with family from Chimnissing, or Christian Island, in Georgian Bay, already speaks a bit of Anishinaabemowin&nbsp;and is now learning Kanien’kéha in DeCaire’s class.</p> <p>“There is a spiritual connection when learning any Indigenous language,” she says, “but learning Anishinaabemowin connects me to my family and my ancestors.” On top of raising an 11-year-old son, Sylvester is president of the Indigenous Studies Students’ Union, is in the final semester of her Indigenous Studies degree and has applied to law school for the fall. She hopes to be part of the federal government’s reconciliation process, as an adviser or advocate with respect to Indigenous languages.</p> <p>Despite growing up in Toronto, Sylvester has retained the traditional knowledge passed down to her by her parents and her relatives still living on Chimnissing – something she hopes she can share upon entering, and eventually graduating from, law school. Her spirit name is <em>Mandaagtaagozid Bneshiinh Kwe</em>, or Beautiful Sounding Bird Woman, and it suits her. She’s quick to laugh – a contagious, song-like laugh – but that’s not, she’s decided, the reason for her given name.</p> <p>“It hit me within the last year,” she says. “I always thought it was because I was a singer. But it’s because I’m going to use my voice to fight for Indigenous rights.&nbsp;I’m going to fight for revitalization.&nbsp;I’m going to fight for reclamation.”</p> <p><em>The story was originally published at&nbsp;<a href="http://magazine.utoronto.ca/feature/lost-words-saving-indigenous-languages-ryan-decaire-jenny-blackbird-keren-rice-nikki-wiart/">ֱ Magazine</a>.&nbsp;</em></p> <p><em>Nikki Wiart is a freelance writer and a farmer&nbsp;with Métis roots tracing back to the Batoche settlement in Saskatchewan. She has written for </em>The Walrus, Maisonneuve <em>and</em> Maclean’s<em>.</em></p> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-home-page-banner field--type-boolean field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">News home page banner</div> <div class="field__item">Off</div> </div> Mon, 31 Jul 2017 20:18:15 +0000 ullahnor 111260 at Thanks to K-Pop and Korean dramas, Toronto's Korean speech contest at ֱ gets bigger each year /news/thanks-k-pop-and-korean-dramas-toronto-s-korean-speech-contest-u-t-gets-bigger-each-year <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Thanks to K-Pop and Korean dramas, Toronto's Korean speech contest at ֱ gets bigger each year</span> <div class="field field--name-field-featured-picture field--type-image field--label-hidden field__item"> <img loading="eager" srcset="/sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_370/public/2017-03-03-korean.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=Wew8iq6b 370w, /sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_740/public/2017-03-03-korean.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=1O2IPHnP 740w, /sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_1110/public/2017-03-03-korean.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=j8RDPJH0 1110w" sizes="(min-width:1200px) 1110px, (max-width: 1199px) 80vw, (max-width: 767px) 90vw, (max-width: 575px) 95vw" width="740" height="494" src="/sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_370/public/2017-03-03-korean.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=Wew8iq6b" alt="Korean speech"> </div> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"><span>ullahnor</span></span> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"><time datetime="2017-03-03T17:24:03-05:00" title="Friday, March 3, 2017 - 17:24" class="datetime">Fri, 03/03/2017 - 17:24</time> </span> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-field-cutline-long field--type-text-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Cutline</div> <div class="field__item">Students speaking at the Korean Speech Contest 2016</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-reporters field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/authors-reporters/kim-luke" hreflang="en">Kim Luke</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-legacy field--type-string field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Author legacy</div> <div class="field__item">Kim Luke</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-topic field--type-entity-reference field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Topic</div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/topics/global-lens" hreflang="en">Global Lens</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-story-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/language" hreflang="en">Language</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/east-asian" hreflang="en">East Asian</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/faculty-arts-science" hreflang="en">Faculty of Arts &amp; Science</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/korean" hreflang="en">Korean</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/munk-school-global-affairs-public-policy" hreflang="en">Munk School of Global Affairs &amp; Public Policy</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-subheadline field--type-string-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Subheadline</div> <div class="field__item">The competition will be held March 11</div> </div> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>The Korean Speech Contest held each year at ֱ's Munk School of Global Affairs keeps getting bigger and better since its launch 10 years ago – an upsurge in popularity that mirrors a wider trend in Korean language study.</p> <p>This year, 45 university and high school students from across Canada will give speeches in Korean on topics ranging from pop culture and food to Korean friends and their own language study experiences.</p> <h3><a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/programs/metromorning/korean-interst-1.4022395">Read more at CBC News</a></h3> <p>According to the latest figures available from the Modern Language Association of America, U.S. colleges and universities saw a 45 per cent increase in Korean language enrolments between 2009 and 2013.</p> <p><strong>Kyoungrok Ko</strong>, an associate professor in East Asian Studies at the Faculty of Arts &amp; Science&nbsp;and the organizer of the speaking contest, has seen a similar trend in Canada.</p> <p><strong>K-wave has students flocking to Korean language courses</strong></p> <p>“In 2010, only seven postsecondary institutions in Canada offered Korean language courses. Today, more than 15 do,” says Ko. &nbsp;When he joined ֱ in 2010, there were 35 students in the introductory-level Korean language course. Last year, 175 students enrolled&nbsp;with over 200 on the waiting list.</p> <p>Ko points to the K-wave – the explosion of popular pop music videos and drama from Korea – for the increasing number of students flocking to Korean language courses.</p> <p>Students agree.</p> <p>“Before coming to ֱ, the only knowledge I had about Korea was through K-pop and K-dramas on YouTube,” says <strong>Zoha Tanveer</strong>, a fourth-year Woodsworth College student specializing in East Asian Studies. &nbsp;“I basically discovered a country and I was shocked to not have known about it before.”</p> <p><strong>Korean popular culture is main motivation for learning Korean</strong></p> <p>According to Ko’s research with his own students, about 40 per cent of students say Korean popular culture is their main motivation for learning Korean. &nbsp;Others cited academic and linguistic interest, communication with family members or better career opportunities – with companies like Samsung, LG and Hyundai, Korea has the 13th largest economy in the world.</p> <p>Students from many different cultural backgrounds study Korean. It is especially popular with international students, notes Ko, who personally interviews each student who enrolls in first-year Korean language to ensure they are placed in the right course, depending on their language proficiency.</p> <p>For Ko, the main reason for hosting the Korean Speech Contest is to motivate his students – whether beginners or highly advanced – to speak Korean comfortably and persuasively in public.</p> <p><strong>Korean speech contest has become an important event for the Korean community</strong></p> <p>The competition, however, has also become an important event for the Korean community with many local business and media outlets contributing prizes and offering support. &nbsp;</p> <p>The contest is now supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Korea, the Ministry of Education in Korea, Korea Tourism Organization, LG Corporation, food and beverage company Nongshim, Korean Air, and Galleria, one of the GTA’s largest Korean supermarkets. In addition, major universities in South Korea provide five winners of the winners with place in their summer language programs.</p> <p>The Korean Speech Language Contest is open to the public. &nbsp;More information on the contest is at <a href="http://munkschool.utoronto.ca/csk/tksc/">uoft.me/tksc</a></p> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-home-page-banner field--type-boolean field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">News home page banner</div> <div class="field__item">Off</div> </div> Fri, 03 Mar 2017 22:24:03 +0000 ullahnor 105295 at ֱ launches class on ancient Ethiopic language with a donation from The Weeknd /news/u-t-launches-class-ancient-ethiopian-language-very-nature-university <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">ֱ launches class on ancient Ethiopic language with a donation from The Weeknd</span> <div class="field field--name-field-featured-picture field--type-image field--label-hidden field__item"> <img loading="eager" srcset="/sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_370/public/Gervers%20learning%20Ge%27ez%20resized.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=Lu_yd76f 370w, /sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_740/public/Gervers%20learning%20Ge%27ez%20resized.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=BUZQhur4 740w, /sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_1110/public/Gervers%20learning%20Ge%27ez%20resized.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=aaHUqJjk 1110w" sizes="(min-width:1200px) 1110px, (max-width: 1199px) 80vw, (max-width: 767px) 90vw, (max-width: 575px) 95vw" width="740" height="494" src="/sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_370/public/Gervers%20learning%20Ge%27ez%20resized.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=Lu_yd76f" alt="Photo of Professor Michael Gervers"> </div> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"><span>geoff.vendeville</span></span> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"><time datetime="2017-01-10T10:14:44-05:00" title="Tuesday, January 10, 2017 - 10:14" class="datetime">Tue, 01/10/2017 - 10:14</time> </span> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-field-cutline-long field--type-text-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Cutline</div> <div class="field__item">Professor Michael Gervers (right) also donated $50,000 for the course. He sat in on the first class and got pointers from classmates Gelila Tilahun (centre) and her daughter Tseday Drudge, 16 (photos by Geoffrey Vendeville)</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-reporters field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/authors-reporters/geoffrey-vendeville" hreflang="en">Geoffrey Vendeville</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-legacy field--type-string field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Author legacy</div> <div class="field__item">Geoffrey Vendeville</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-topic field--type-entity-reference field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Topic</div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/topics/city-culture" hreflang="en">City &amp; Culture</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-story-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/faculty-arts-science" hreflang="en">Faculty of Arts &amp; Science</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/language" hreflang="en">Language</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/ethiopia" hreflang="en">Ethiopia</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/global" hreflang="en">Global</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/near-and-middle-eastern-civilizations" hreflang="en">Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/medieval-studies" hreflang="en">Medieval Studies</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-subheadline field--type-string-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Subheadline</div> <div class="field__item">The university is now one of the only places in the world where students can learn Ge’ez</div> </div> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>Tens of thousands of ancient Ethiopic&nbsp;manuscripts –&nbsp;maybe more – have collected dust for over a&nbsp;century because they are written in what is now a rarely studied&nbsp;language, Ge’ez.&nbsp;</p> <p>But a new course at the University of Toronto is teaching a new generation of students to understand the ancient Semitic language so that one day they can access this long-lost trove of knowledge.&nbsp;</p> <p>This week, Professor <strong>Robert Holmstedt</strong>&nbsp;of the department of Near and Middle Eastern civilizations&nbsp;welcomed 25 students and members of Toronto’s Ethiopian community&nbsp;to&nbsp;the first day of an introductory course on Ge’ez, which like Latin, is only used in religious services, in this case for the Ethiopian Orthodox and Catholic churches.</p> <h3><a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/the-weeknd-ethiopian-1.3938158">Read more about the Ge'ez course at </a><a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/programs/metromorning/ge-ez-course-1.3924012">CBC</a><a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/the-weeknd-ethiopian-1.3938158">&nbsp;News</a></h3> <p>With this&nbsp;course, ֱ becomes one of the only places in the world where students can learn the fundamentals of Ge'ez. The program came about through several significant donations, including from The Weeknd, the Ethiopian community and the Faculty of Arts &amp; Science.</p> <p>Department chair Professor <strong>Tim Harrison</strong> has said that&nbsp;he hopes, with continued support, ֱ will eventually add more courses and be positioned to launch the first Ethiopian&nbsp;studies program in North America.</p> <p><img alt class="media-image attr__typeof__foaf:Image img__fid__3082 img__view_mode__media_original attr__format__media_original" height="500" src="/sites/default/files/Holmstedt%20writing%20alphabet%20resized.jpg" typeof="foaf:Image" width="750" loading="lazy"><br> <em>Professor Robert Holmstedt, a specialist in&nbsp;Biblical Hebrew and Northwest Semitic languages, introduces&nbsp;students to orders of the alphabet in the first class on Ge'ez.&nbsp;</em></p> <p>Since the subject is so rarely taught, Holmstedt had to invent course materials and revise one of the only Ge’ez textbooks in English, the 40-year-old <em>Introduction to Classical Ethiopic: Ge'ez</em> by Thomas O. Lambdin. Ge’ez is a window into an ancient culture and offers insights into other Semitic languages, he said.</p> <p>“I like giving students access to things that 99.5 per cent of the world doesn’t have access to,” he said. “It’s part of advancing our knowledge and the pursuit of truth. This is the very nature of the university. We can’t leave this behind.”&nbsp;</p> <h3><a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/programs/metromorning/ge-ez-course-1.3924012">Hear CBC Metro Morning talk about the course on Ge'ez</a></h3> <p><strong>Michael Gervers</strong>, a history professor at ֱ Scarborough, helped launch the course with a $50,000 donation and a call to Toronto's Ethiopian community to contribute.</p> <p>The call was answered and the donation matched by none other than Toronto native and Grammy-award winning artist Abel Tesfaye, a.k.a. The Weeknd.</p> <h3><a href="/news/weeknd-backs-u-t-s-bid-launch-north-america-s-first-ethiopian-studies-program">Read about The Weeknd’s donation</a></h3> <p>The campaign for the language course has a&nbsp;$200,000 goal and has received support from the Faculty of Arts &amp; Science and&nbsp;the Bikila Awards organization, a local Ethiopian community group named after Olympic marathoner Adebe Bikila.&nbsp;</p> <p>On Monday, just as he had promised, Gervers sat in on the class, hoping to be one of the first to learn the language at ֱ.&nbsp;</p> <p>Although he has been studying ancient Ethiopia for 40 years – he has swung from ropes to explore rock-cut monasteries in Ethiopia and created a database of tens of thousands of photographs&nbsp;of Ethiopian art and culture –&nbsp;Gervers&nbsp;does not know the language.</p> <p>Amharic-speaking students helped him with his pronunciation when he was asked to recite a letter of the alphabet.&nbsp;</p> <p><img alt class="media-image attr__typeof__foaf:Image img__fid__3081 img__view_mode__media_original attr__format__media_original" height="500" src="/sites/default/files/Michael%20Gervers%20staircase%20resized.jpg" typeof="foaf:Image" width="750" loading="lazy"><br> <em>Professor Michael Gervers has studied Ethiopian history and culture for four decades and helped start the Ge'ez course at ֱ&nbsp;</em></p> <p>The&nbsp;course's first students included members of the Ethiopian and Eritrean communities, students with an interest in Ethiopian culture, medievalists and students in comparative linguistics.&nbsp;</p> <p>Before any of the students can uncover the secrets of ancient Ethiopic texts, they must learn the basics. In their first class, they were introduced to Ethiopic letters and to the present tense of verbs like “to sit.”</p> <p>Hours of memorization come next. Holmstedt urged his students to carry a ringlet of flashcards so they can learn the alphabet on the go.</p> <p>“Walk around campus memorizing words instead of looking at your phone,”&nbsp;Holmstedt&nbsp;said.&nbsp;</p> <p>Gervers said he hoped the Ge’ez course would be the first of many classes that would form the basis of an Ethiopian&nbsp;studies program at ֱ. He has proposed a graduate-level course in the history of Ethiopia.</p> <p>“Ethiopia is usually left out of the curriculum because it’s so different,” he said. “There is no point of entry through European languages like English, French, Spanish or Italian.”&nbsp;</p> <h3><a href="/news/swinging-ropes-matching-funds">Read more about Professor Gervers' research on Ethiopia</a></h3> <p>The campaign will need&nbsp;additional funding&nbsp;to add further courses in Ge'ez – and even more to kickstart Ethiopian&nbsp;studies.</p> <p>For many students in the course, the subject isn’t only academic.</p> <p><strong>Sahlegebriel Belay Gebreselassie</strong>, a third-year undergrad&nbsp;in international relations and political science, has an “intimate personal connection” with the class.&nbsp;</p> <p>“It’s a part of learning my history, my language,” he said.</p> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-home-page-banner field--type-boolean field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">News home page banner</div> <div class="field__item">Off</div> </div> Tue, 10 Jan 2017 15:14:44 +0000 geoff.vendeville 103246 at The English of a Millennium Ago: ֱ compiles "Dictionary of Old English" /news/english-millennium-ago-u-t-compiles-dictionary-old-english <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">The English of a Millennium Ago: ֱ compiles "Dictionary of Old English"</span> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"><span>ullahnor</span></span> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"><time datetime="2017-01-06T14:33:31-05:00" title="Friday, January 6, 2017 - 14:33" class="datetime">Fri, 01/06/2017 - 14:33</time> </span> <div class="field field--name-field-youtube field--type-youtube field--label-hidden field__item"><figure class="youtube-container"> <iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/TJztLQg07lY?wmode=opaque" width="450" height="315" id="youtube-field-player" class="youtube-field-player" title="Embedded video for The English of a Millennium Ago: ֱ compiles &quot;Dictionary of Old English&quot;" aria-label="Embedded video for The English of a Millennium Ago: ֱ compiles &amp;quot;Dictionary of Old English&amp;quot;: https://www.youtube.com/embed/TJztLQg07lY?wmode=opaque" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> </figure> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-reporters field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/authors-reporters/brent-ledger" hreflang="en">Brent Ledger</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-legacy field--type-string field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Author legacy</div> <div class="field__item">Brent Ledger</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-topic field--type-entity-reference field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Topic</div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/topics/city-culture" hreflang="en">City &amp; Culture</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-story-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/old-english" hreflang="en">Old English</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/faculty-arts-science" hreflang="en">Faculty of Arts &amp; Science</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/centre-medieval-studies" hreflang="en">Centre for Medieval Studies</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/language" hreflang="en">Language</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-subheadline field--type-string-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Subheadline</div> <div class="field__item">Now at “H,” the Centre for Medieval Studies' dictionary is close to defining every word from the language’s earliest days</div> </div> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>Just when you think you know your own language, along comes a <em>hellwyrgen</em>.</p> <p><strong>Rob Getz </strong>ran across the creature in a 12th-century manuscript, where it was pushing some thieves suffering torments in hell into a pit of boiling tar.</p> <p>As an interim co-editor of the <em>Dictionary of Old English</em>, a ֱ project that aims to map all of the roughly 35,000 words from the earliest form of the language, Getz is no stranger to challenging words. But this one was a stretch.</p> <p>Not so much the first part which is obvious – hell. But the second part&nbsp;looked like it might be derived directly from the verb <em>wyrgan</em> or <em>wyrigan</em> meaning “to curse, revile, condemn.” It’s actually identical to the second part of a noun used to describe the mother of the monster Grendel in the Anglo-Saxon epic <em>Beowulf</em>.</p> <p>So&nbsp;in the end, a <em>hellwyrgen</em> turns out to be something like a monstrous female creature from hell, or hell-hag.</p> <h3><a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/uoft-dictionary-of-old-english-1.3924775">Read about the dictionary at CBC News</a></h3> <p>Old English, which arose from the Germanic language of the Anglo-Saxon settlers who came to Britain from northern Europe in the fifth and sixth centuries, is the direct ancestor of our modern tongue.</p> <p>It has bequeathed us dozens of common words – from “hound” (<em>hund</em>) to “house” (<em>hūs</em>). But the language has changed so much over the centuries that anyone reading an Old English text such as <em>Beowulf</em> would not recognize most of the words. Even the alphabet was different&nbsp;with fewer letters, a different letter for “w,” the wonderful “eth” (ð) and the runic “thorn” (þ) standing in for “th.”</p> <p>Scholars at the Faculty of Arts &amp; Science's Centre for Medieval Studies have been working on a comprehensive dictionary of the tongue since the 1970s, and&nbsp;with the release of “h” this year, they have now published definitions for more than half the words.</p> <p>Computers have made things somewhat quicker, and a digitized corpus, consisting of at least one copy of every known text in Old English (from poems to royal records), means that they can now search more easily for words and citations. But scholars still have to organize the words and define their meaning.</p> <p>Here, there is no algorithm to aid them – just countless dictionaries, Latin sources and the lexicographer’s best intuition.</p> <p>Some words appear only once in the corpus, while others, such as the Old English for “hand,” “head” and “heart” are both common and complicated. The 39-page entry for <em>heorte</em> (“heart”) contains more than a dozen major meanings, including the seat of love, of courage and even of the intellectual faculties.</p> <p>The section on the letter “h” was particularly difficult, and not just because it begins with more words than any other except “s” and “f.” It contains key verbs and pronouns, as well as the interrogatives – who, what, when, where and why – all of which began with <em>hw</em> in Old English. The interrogatives “are fairly uncomplicated in terms of their meaning,” says <strong>Stephen Pelle</strong>, an interim co-editor of the dictionary&nbsp;– but they “can be very complicated grammatically.”</p> <p>Old English portrays another world, a world where rain might be described as “heaven’s showers” (<em>heofonscur</em>), but the language is also a window into the philosophical, moral, legal and linguistic roots of our own.</p> <p>If we’re to understand those roots, we need to know the language the people spoke, says Getz. To that end, the lexicographers are trying to be as comprehensive as possible, picking up words earlier dictionary makers missed.</p> <p>“If we’re doing our job right,” says Pelle, “we should be able to catch just about every word that survives in an old English text.”</p> <p><img alt class="media-image attr__typeof__foaf:Image img__fid__3060 img__view_mode__media_original attr__format__media_original" src="/sites/default/files/Hwaet_480.jpg" style="width: 480px; height: 299px;" typeof="foaf:Image"><br> <em>Illustration: Charles&amp;Thorn</em></p> <h3><strong>Ten Interesting Words from Old English</strong></h3> <p><em><strong>Hring</strong></em> – ring. A lot of words that today start with consonants like "r," "l" and "n"&nbsp;began in Old English with <em>h</em>. Thus <em>hleahtor</em> (“laughter”), <em>hnutu</em> (“nut”) and <em>hnappian</em> (“to nap”). (The <em>h</em>&nbsp;was pronounced, at least in the early Old English period&nbsp;so <em>hleahtor</em> would sound similar to the modern word laughter&nbsp;with a huff of breath at the beginning.)</p> <p><em><strong>Hē, hēo, hit </strong></em>– the ancestors of our “he,” “she” and “it.” They occur about 200,000 times in the old English corpus.</p> <p><em><strong>Hūs</strong></em> – “house,” “building” and, in some contexts, “brothel.” The Anglo-Saxons loved compound words and<em> hūs </em>figures in more than 100 of them, including <em>ealu-hūs</em> (“ale house”), <em>gyst-hūs </em>(“guest house”) and <em>pleg-hūs</em> (“theatre” or “playhouse”).</p> <p><strong><em>Heoloþ-helm</em></strong> – a helmet that makes the wearer invisible. A demon wearing one of these figures in a medieval retelling of Genesis. He sneaks into Paradise and tries to trick Adam and Eve into eating the forbidden fruit.</p> <p><em><strong>Hunig-smæc</strong></em> – It sounds like a breakfast cereal, and it certainly has a sweet side. It comes from the Old English for “honey” and “smack,” or “taste” so it means “taste or flavour of honey.”</p> <p><em><strong>Hærfest-handfull</strong></em> – “harvest handful” or&nbsp;the grain given a labourer as his due during harvest.</p> <p><em><strong>Hǣmed</strong></em> – marriage&nbsp;but also cohabitation, adultery and even “the intercourse of animals.”</p> <p><em><strong>Hwæt</strong></em> – The most famous hard-to-define word in old English, <em>hwæt </em>opens the great Anglo-Saxon epic <em>Beowulf</em>. As a pronoun, it’s well understood. As a particle or interjection, as in Beowulf, not so much. Seamus Heaney, the great Irish poet who translated the poem to acclaim in 2000, rendered it simply as “so.” Others have gone for “lo,” “hark” and “behold.” The <em>Dictionary of Old English</em>’s answer is: It depends. It might mean: “now,” “so,” “listen,” “why,” “now look,” “indeed,” etc..., but it&nbsp;depends&nbsp;on the context. The complete definition covers 26 pages.</p> <p><em>This story is republished from ֱ Magazine</em></p> <h3><a href="http://magazine.utoronto.ca/leading-edge/the-english-of-a-millennium-ago-dictionary-of-old-english-rob-getz-stephen-pelle-brent-ledger/">See more stories at ֱ Magazine</a></h3> <p>&nbsp;</p> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-home-page-banner field--type-boolean field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">News home page banner</div> <div class="field__item">Off</div> </div> Fri, 06 Jan 2017 19:33:31 +0000 ullahnor 103021 at Translating written English to Chinese is focus of new minor at UTSC /news/translating-written-english-chinese-focus-new-minor-utsc <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Translating written English to Chinese is focus of new minor at UTSC</span> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"><span>sgupta</span></span> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"><time datetime="2014-07-18T06:24:55-04:00" title="Friday, July 18, 2014 - 06:24" class="datetime">Fri, 07/18/2014 - 06:24</time> </span> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-field-cutline-long field--type-text-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Cutline</div> <div class="field__item">These four Chinese characters translate to English as "English-Chinese translation" (image courtesy UTSC)</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-reporters field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/authors-reporters/chris-garbutt" hreflang="en">Chris Garbutt</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-legacy field--type-string field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Author legacy</div> <div class="field__item">Chris Garbutt</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-story-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/more-news" hreflang="en">More News</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/language" hreflang="en">Language</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/international" hreflang="en">International</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/education" hreflang="en">Education</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/china" hreflang="en">China</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/utsc" hreflang="en">UTSC</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-subheadline field--type-string-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Subheadline</div> <div class="field__item">Chinese is now the third most commonly used language in Canada</div> </div> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>Starting in September, a new minor at &nbsp;the University of Toronto Scarborough's Centre for French and Linguistics will teach students how to translate written English to Chinese.</p> <p>“The need for professional English and Chinese translation is growing rapidly,” says <strong>Helen Wu</strong>, senior lecturer in Linguistics at UTSC. “The ability to translate between English and Chinese has become a valuable asset in our global economy.”</p> <p>Chinese is now the third most commonly used language in Canada, and the demand for translation services is growing in fields such as community service, journalism, tourism, immigration, medical services and legal services. There’s also a need for these skills in government and multinational corporations.</p> <p>And the program will also deepen the connections between UTSC and its wider community.</p> <p>“This is a campus that cares about its languages,” says <strong>Rena Helms-Park</strong>, associate professor in the Centre for French and Linguistics. “The languages we teach reflect the communities around us.”</p> <p>The minor program will open up 30 spots in its first year. While the focus is currently on translation of English text into Chinese, there are plans to develop programs for Chinese to English translation as well.</p> <p>Students who complete the program will enter the job market with skills that give them an advantage when those translation skills are required, says Wu, but there are other benefits.</p> <p>“This program prepares top students who want to go into graduate study in this field because it equips them with both theoretical and practical skills,” she says.</p> <p>The minor will also give students the skills to get the experience they need to become accredited in translation, both in Canada and China.</p> <p>For information on the English-to-Chinese Translation program at UTSC, contact Wu at <a href="mailto:helenxy.wu@utoronto.ca">helenxy.wu@utoronto.ca</a> or the centre’s undergraduate assistant at <a href="mailto:cfl-ua@utsc.utoronto.ca">cfl-ua@utsc.utoronto.ca</a>.</p> <p><em>Chris Garbutt is a writer with UTSC</em></p> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-home-page-banner field--type-boolean field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">News home page banner</div> <div class="field__item">Off</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-picpath field--type-string field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">picpath</div> <div class="field__item">sites/default/files/2014-07-18-Chinese-translation.jpg</div> </div> Fri, 18 Jul 2014 10:24:55 +0000 sgupta 6368 at Literacy secrets: understanding how children learn to read /news/literacy-secrets-understanding-how-children-learn-read <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Literacy secrets: understanding how children learn to read </span> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"><span>sgupta</span></span> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"><time datetime="2013-11-27T05:19:43-05:00" title="Wednesday, November 27, 2013 - 05:19" class="datetime">Wed, 11/27/2013 - 05:19</time> </span> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-field-cutline-long field--type-text-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Cutline</div> <div class="field__item">Trelani Milburn conducts a shared-reading exercise with Elmirah Ewan–Ibrahim (photo by Erin Howe)</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-reporters field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/authors-reporters/jim-oldfield" hreflang="en">Jim Oldfield</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-legacy field--type-string field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Author legacy</div> <div class="field__item">Jim Oldfield</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-topic field--type-entity-reference field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Topic</div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/topics/breaking-research" hreflang="en">Breaking Research</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-story-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/children" hreflang="en">Children</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/students" hreflang="en">Students</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/medicine" hreflang="en">Medicine</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/research" hreflang="en">Research</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/literacy" hreflang="en">Literacy</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/language" hreflang="en">Language</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/utsc" hreflang="en">UTSC</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/features" hreflang="en">Features</a></div> </div> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>What are the best ways to promote literacy in children? As an early literacy specialist who taught parents and preschool teachers, <strong>Trelani Milburn</strong> answered that question many times.</p> <p>During nine years of community work in Southern Ontario, Milburn used techniques such as face-to-face interaction with infants and linking stories to events in children’s lives when reading to them. But she sometimes had trouble answering another question: “What evidence supports the advice I’m giving?”</p> <p>This second question inspired Milburn to go back to school in 2007, more than 20 years after she first became a student at the University of Toronto Scarborough. She finished an undergraduate program part-time then upgraded it to an honours degree in psycholinguistics.&nbsp;Milburn started graduate school the day her youngest child began his undergraduate program.</p> <p>Milburn is now a third-year PhD student in the Child Language Lab run by <strong>Luigi Girolametto</strong>, a professor in the Department of Speech Language Pathology. She studies emergent literacy — the foundational skills that enable children to begin to read and write — such as vocabulary, storytelling, and letter and sound recognition.</p> <p>She no longer wonders what evidence informs child literacy — she creates it.</p> <p>“There is a delicate interplay between children and adults. If we can better measure what works, we can improve the literacy of all children, and intervene more effectively to help those at risk of falling behind,” says Milburn.</p> <p>“Shared reading” is one way adults can build literacy in all kids, while limiting risk for those who face major learning challenges. Parents and teachers can learn to engage children in conversation with open questions and responsive statements, rather than reading books cover-to-cover. This interaction can enhance a child’s understanding of and ability to use language.</p> <p>But there is not a lot of evidence that shows exactly why, or how well, shared reading works.</p> <p>Milburn and her colleagues recently developed a system to measure shared reading, and to show whether it increases conversation between kids and adults. They divided educators into two groups, and trained one group in shared-reading techniques. Then they video-recorded the educators reading to their kids, and tracked the number of open questions, variety of words and “turns” in each conversation.</p> <p>“I can say emphatically that professional development changed the educators’ interactions with children,” says Milburn, the lead author on the study, which will appear in the <em>Journal of Early Childhood Literacy</em>. “We saw a statistically significant difference between the groups in a naturalistic context, and because of the strength of the study design — this was a randomized, controlled study — we’re confident the results will translate to other classrooms.”</p> <p>Girolametto has helped move several findings from the Child Language Lab into the classroom, through long-standing relationships with community organizations. For eight years, he worked at the Hanen Centre, which educates thousands of parents, educators and speech language pathologists around the world.</p> <p>“It often takes a decade or more for research to change real-world practices,” says Girolametto. “But the Hanen Centre can disseminate new knowledge as we create it and improve literacy practices right away.”</p> <p>Girolametto says Milburn is also well-positioned to make an impact on the lives of children, given the professional relationships she built before returning to school. And, she is still asking questions.</p> <p>“Trelani has a very curious mind,” he says. “It’s what led her back to school, and keeps her asking fresh questions of the data, which is great for our lab.”</p> <p><em>Jim Oldfield is a writer with the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto.</em></p> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-home-page-banner field--type-boolean field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">News home page banner</div> <div class="field__item">Off</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-picpath field--type-string field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">picpath</div> <div class="field__item">sites/default/files/Trelani-Milburn-13-11-27.jpg</div> </div> Wed, 27 Nov 2013 10:19:43 +0000 sgupta 5748 at