Using a Multimodal Approach to Empower Nicaraguan Rama Schoolchildren to Learn and Use Their Ethnic Language - Israel Ramon Zelaya Israel Ramon Zelaya

Using a Multimodal Approach to Empower Nicaraguan Rama Schoolchildren to Learn and Use Their Ethnic Language - Israel Ramon Zelaya Israel Ramon Zelaya

University of South-Eastern Norway Using a multimodal approach to empower Nicaraguan Rama schoolchildren to learn and use their ethnic Nicaraguan Rama schoolchildren to empower to Using a multimodal approach Faculty of Humanities, Sports and Educational Science — Doctoral dissertation no.8 2018 Israel Ramon Zelaya Using a multimodal approach to empower Nicaraguan Rama schoolchildren to learn and use their ethnic language language - Israel Ramon Zelaya Israel Ramon Zelaya Using a multimodal approach to empower Nicaraguan Rama schoolchildren to learn and use their ethnic language A PhD dissertation in Pedagogical resources and learning processes in kindergarten and school © Israel Ramon Zelaya Faculty of Humanities, Sports, and Educational Science University of South-Eastern Norway Borre, 2018 Doctoral dissertations at the University of South-Eastern Norway no. 8 ISSN: 2535-5244 (print) ISSN: 2535-5252 (online) ISBN: 978-82-7860-332-1 (print) ISBN: 978-82-7860-331-4 (online) Publications are lincenced under Creative Commons. You may copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format. You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc- sa/4.0/deed.en Print: University of South-Eastern Norway Zelaya: Using a multimodal approach to empower Nicaraguan Rama schoolchildren to learn and use their ethnic language Dedication To Jesus of Nazareth, my role model as man and as a teacher. To Dolores Zelaya, my great-grandmother who could neither read nor write, but inspired me to learn how to read. To Maya Helfenstein who trusted me and encouraged me to go and study higher education and become a teacher. To the Rama teachers who struggle for the preservation of their ethnic language. ___ I Zelaya: Using a multimodal approach to empower Nicaraguan Rama schoolchildren to learn and use their ethnic language Acknowledgments I want to express my sincere gratitude to my USN staff and colleagues for their encouragement during my stay at Vestfold Campus, especially to my thesis director Eva Maagerø for the time she devoted advising me. I also want to mention the valuable support from Gunnar Aasen, Anne Granløv and Thor Saana who stood up by my side while I was in Norway. Likewise, I want to thank Colette Grinevald for advice and support while I learned about endangered languages, especially to understand the Rama sociolinguistic situation. I want to express my gratitude to the Dynamique du Langage Institute of the University Lyon 2, for the time I spent with them learning about Language Documentation, Language Description, and Language Revitalization. I want to thank Maurice Ray (RIP) for his support as I joined the Rama Language Project team, his friendships and for sharing with me his passion for supporting the indigenous people of Nicaragua. My special gratitude to Miss Cristina, who was patient enough to listen to and correct my attempts to read Rama, and most importantly, for taking the time to teach the language and allow me to be part of the process. I also extend my gratitude to Mr. Pedro MaCrea for letting me feel part of the Rama community. I want to acknowledge Mr. Walter Ortiz’s collaboration in the transcriptions of some videos. A special mention to Javier Hodgson’s work, for taking the time to travel with me to the jungle and for his support as a translator and a mediator between the community members and me. Special thanks to Silvano Hodgson for organizing my trips to the communities, and Pedro MaCrea (Man) for transporting wherever I needed to go along the Caribbean Coasts of Nicaragua. Special thanks to Erick Benjamin, Yanelis, Katiana, Joshua, Jordy, Joleysi, Dormalin, Zeneyda, and Chavo for their participation in the workshops and staying with me all the way to the end. Without them, my project would not have been possible. ___ II Zelaya: Using a multimodal approach to empower Nicaraguan Rama schoolchildren to learn and use their ethnic language Abstract Historically, the Rama people, one the three remaining indigenous groups of Nicaragua, have suffered political and cultural oppression, which has resulted in the severe endangerment of their language. So far, several studies have been carried out on the description, documentation and sociolinguistic analysis of this language. Teaching materials have been produced; however, owing to the complicated sociolinguistic situation and because the Ramas have no literary tradition, one of the problems that linguists have faced when trying to revitalize this language has been the illiteracy level in the area. This dissertation explores the implementation of a social semiotic multimodal approach to the revitalization of this language. Furthermore, this method takes into account pedagogic principles of Freire and Montessori to structure a model that allows illiterate teachers of the language or those with little or no formal training to integrate children into sessions where critical reflection through creative art can enhance the revitalization of the ethnic language. This dissertation describes the model that we call the Rama Language Workshops where art and language learning are integrated through a series of steps departing from a reflection on a theme related to children’s reality, which in turn is transformed into a visual representation. Later, the teacher of the ethnic language can use this visual representation as a prompt to teach the ethnic language. With this study, I expect to contribute to the efforts of the revitalization of this language in two ways. First, I want to present a practical approach to the teachers of the Rama community, so that they can implement it regardless of their lack of formal training as teachers. Second, I want present evidence for the academic community that a social semiotic multimodal approach combined with pedagogic principles of Freire and Montessori can be functional in the revitalization of an endangered language. ___ III Zelaya: Using a multimodal approach to empower Nicaraguan Rama schoolchildren to learn and use their ethnic language Keywords: Ethnic group, freedom, generative themes, language revitalization, multimodality, oppression, participation, pedagogy, Rama language, social semiotic, sociolinguistics ___ IV Zelaya: Using a multimodal approach to empower Nicaraguan Rama schoolchildren to learn and use their ethnic language Abbreviations bE: blueEnergy (Environmentalist Non-governmental Organization) CIDCA: Centro de Investigaciones y Documentación de la Costa Atlántica (Center for Research and Documentation of the Atlantic Coast). FADCANIC: Fundación para la Autonomía y el Desarrollo de la Costa Atlántica de Nicaragua (Foundation for the Autonomy and Development of the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua). GTR-K: Gobierno Territorial Rama y Kriol (Rama and Kriol Territorial Government). INEC: Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas y Censos (National Institute of Statistics and Census) INIFOM: Instituto Nicaragüense de Fomento Municipal (National Institutefor Municipal Development) MINED Ministerio de Educación (Ministry of Education) PAR: Participant Action Research RAAN: North Atlantic Autonomous Region RAAS: South Atlantic Autonomous Region RLP: Rama Language Project RLW: Rama Language Workshops URACCAN: Universidad de las Regiones Autónomas de la Costa Caribe Nicaragüense (University of the Autonomous Regions of the Nicaraguan Caribbean Coast) ___ V Zelaya: Using a multimodal approach to empower Nicaraguan Rama schoolchildren to learn and use their ethnic language Table of Contents Dedication ................................................................................................................ I Acknowledgments .................................................................................................... II Abstract .................................................................................................................. III Abbreviations .......................................................................................................... V Table of Contents .................................................................................................... VI 1 Chapter: Introduction ............................................................................................ 1 1.1 Theme of the thesis ....................................................................................... 3 1.2 Problem statement ........................................................................................ 3 1.3 Research questions ........................................................................................ 5 1.4 The mural workshops: Inspiration for a multimodal approach to language revitalization .................................................................................................. 6 The double purpose of the workshops dissertation ...................................... 8 The principles of the Mural Workshops ...................................................... 10 Organization of the workshops .................................................................... 12 1.5 My interests in the Rama language and my initial contact with the language ...................................................................................................................... 13 1.6 Organization of this dissertation.................................................................. 14 2 Chapter: The Rama Language Project: A contextualization of the revitalization of the Rama language ...................................................................................................

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