Global Language Friendship

Global Language Friendship

Global Language Friendship: Convert Language Barrier into the Language Bridge!

Connecting culture throgh language friendship!

Overview 

The dominance of universal languages such as English on Internet, signage and the majority of published texts is the main hurdle in education, career and communication for native language speakers. This factor resulting in a serious problem of Digital Divide. Traveling tourism and migration are part and parcel of life in the globalization era. Language connections are inevitable. ‘Global Language Friendship’ project aims to – raise awareness about the cognitive, academic, social, cultural and economic benefits that language learning provides to students. Our mission is to ‘Convert Language Barrier into Language Bridge’ at an early age.

Background 

Human is created as a social being, hence he/she is fashioned to socialize and build relationships with other people, whether for business, friendship or romantic purposes. And in order to socialize naturally, he/she ought to communicate with other people in languages everybody can understand. Therefore, language plays an important role in building relationships. Benefits of learning a second language at an early age;

– It has a positive effect on intellectual growth, Enriches and enhances a child’s mental development. 
– Leaves students with more flexibility in thinking, greater sensitivity to language, and a better ear for listening. 
– Improves a child’s understanding of his/her native language. 
– Gives a child the ability to communicate with people s/he would otherwise not have the chance to know. 
– Opens the door to other cultures and helps a child understand and appreciate people from other countries. 
– Gives a student a head start in language requirements for college. 
– Increases job opportunities in many careers where knowing another language is a real asset.

Ongoing Work

KHANDBAHALE.COM in close association with educationalist and linguists has designed a 6-month language friendship course for school level students. We have developed a number of templates, tools, resources, classroom ideas, and activities to help teachers, students, parents to learn commonly used vocabularies of different languages. One hour in a week is scheduled as “Global Language Friendship” hour. As a class work, in this particular hour, students learn one word say for ex. ‘boy’ and what to say it in other languages. They try to learn new word themselves say for ex. ‘girl’ in multiple languages as a part of their homework. A couple of words a week increases the useful vocabulary of students at their own space. Our intention is not to teach complete language but to create awareness and sensitivity towards other languages. At the end of the course, the board of experts felicitates students with certification, which adds values to their academics and also increase their language confidence. In addition, we are conducting a specialized program for school drop-outs also. Our team go to villages and deploy languages dictionaries on their mobile phones.

Outcome

We are implementing above course in 5 different schools. The response is satisfactory and encouraging. Benefits of learning a new language can be realized. At the same time, feedback from school drop-outs is very surprising. They are learning new words while farming and doing their daily work.

Proposed Work

– To design effective course to convert language barrier into language bridge. 
– To conduct a language learning program aggressively with the high target. 
– To offer this course in the academic curriculum at large scale.

Scope

By 2020, Global smartphone users to cross 6 billion level, 90% of the world population will have access to the Internet with 4G/5G speed including rural areas. Students are used to handling electronics gadgets easily. Considering the impact of technological revolution worldwide, ‘Global Language Friendship’ project can credibly contribute to ‘Convert Language Barrier into Language Bridge’ by means of language friendship through Information and Communication Technology (ICT).