Cultural Understanding through Esperanto (CUE)

Esperanta Kultura Interkomprenigxo (EKI)

Note:

I worked up a version of this document and submitted it for a Fulbright fellowshop, which was rejected. Here's that version.

Introduction

A broad range of issues confront humankind that require a global perspective. Think globally and act locally, exhorts the well-known truism. But how can students think globally? They must have experience to reflect upon and understand their own culture in the context of language, politics, and science. Students must be able to see their own culture and contrast it with other cultures globally to understand differences in values, assumptions, and processes. A series of instructional modules, supported by networked computing, could help students to develop a global perspective on issues that they can act locally to address. While completing the modules, students could develop extended relationships with other students from countries across the globe using the International Language Esperanto, putting all of the students onto a level playing field in terms of trying to express their thoughts and ideas in a second language. Each module could be structured so that students can conduct authentic grounded activities in a topic of global interest right from the beginning and learn Esperanto along the way to interact with their peers in other countries and to share their results and ideas. Each module will offer students technical skills in a marketable field, disciplinary knowledge about a content area, and insight into how their own cultural practices compare to others.

The project will enable students to begin corresponding with peers in other countries. By helping peers in other countries understand their own culture, they will come to understand it better themselves and to appreciate different ways of thinking about things. These initial conversations may lead to lasting connections and opportunities for extended dialog. This kind of understanding is a necessary precursor to establishing peace and fostering international collaboration.

Project Description

I propose to develop a set of Esperanto-language instructional modules around key topics relevant to global issues that confront humankind. Each unit of a module will contain tasks for a team of students to gather data and information locally to be reported and shared with the teams internationally. Coupled with each unit of the modules will be Esperanto lessons sufficient to help students complete the unit, communicate their results, and understand their peers reports. Student interactions and data sharing will be supported using networked computing technologies.

The modules will be used instructionally with a teams of 2 or 3 high-school or university students at each site at 20-30 sites around the world (totalling perhaps 30-90 students working together at any one time). Each module will provide significant opportunities for discussion and collaborative project development. The goal will be to provide opportunities to communicate (in Esperanto), in increasingly complex circumstances. Modules should also be able to scale up, so that students who have already completed one module, should be able to participate in others and extend their language skills.

Each site would have teams of 2 or 3 students using a workstation (or stations) to interact with other teams around the globe. This would provide scaffolding and community in the local environment to help sustain discussions and solve problems. Students would work together to understand statements and postings (in Esperanto) made by other teams and to construct responses in Esperanto.

By using Esperanto, carefully constructing the activities in the modules, and focusing on a relatively narrow discipline it will be possible to couple the disciplinary learning and language learning at the same time. Using a national language, it would hard to envision students beginning the project without already having studied the language. Esperanto's simplied grammar and logical construction make it possible for students to start quickly. By selecting initial activities that can be completed with a limited vocabulary, it will be possible to get students talking to each other almost immediately. With just a few stock phrases such as "I live in the (countryside, village, city)" students can begin to learn about each other and initiate conversation. Gradually, by providing less structure and increasing the complexity of the task, students will develop competence and mastery in the language while learning about their own community and culture and how it relates to other cultures around the world.

The ultimate goal would be to establish an environment in which it makes sense for students to have discussions with students from other countries and which naturally discourages students falling back to discussion in national languages. In an truly multilingual environment in which Esperanto is the only language shared by everyone, it will be feasible to establish mores and patterns of behavior that favor everyone developing and exercising second-language skills.

Identifying engaging topics that require developing an international perspective is key. A particularly relevant topic related to globalism is land-use and development. Students could learn to use software for analyzing land-use data and use it to develop reports about their local area on current and historical land-use trends, native ecological communities, and then develop proposed plans for their communities to manage economic development, preserve native species, and maintain or improve quality of life. Student products would include databases, writing, maps, graphs, images, presentations, and possibly video. The beginnings of a LandUseModule based on the GRASS GIS Software are available.

Another well-suited authentic topic would be to gather ecological and environmental data and share it using on-line databases. This is a model that has been used successfully, particularly for studying migratory species that cross national boundaries (Monarch Butterflies and birds), water quality monitoring of rivers and lakes, and many other parameters of environmental quality. Buzz Hoagland and I are beginning work on a BioGeographyModule.

Other potential topics can be drawn from across the curriculum. Particularly fruitful topics include archaeology, where students would compare aboriginal inhabitants across different time periods, and journalism, where students would learn techniques and ethics of journalism while writing articles about local events to contribute to a news publication. Comparative literature is a possibility, in which students try to translate increasingly complex writing into and out of Esperanto and discuss the challenges and limits of translation. Developing one or two engaging topics that are attractive to teachers and students is the key.

In each modules, teams of students will develop persuasive presentations for their peers around the world. These presentations could be media-rich and might include videos (for schools with advanced technology support) or narrated slide presentations (for schoools with no additional support). Teams would then be responsible for translating and reporting their peers presentations to their local community.

Technical Infrastructure

The infrastructure should be built upon open standards using a client-server architecture that can be implemented entirely in free software. We should develop a model which can be easily replicated using cheap hardware and free software. Clients would need a web-browser, email and irc clients, and office productivity software, all of which are available for both linux and BSD. In schools without infrastructure, it might make sense to also provide a server, which could route for a small network of nodes, which would maximize the value of a single uplink and allow asynchronous services, like email, to be run periodically for minimum expense. By using open standards we can ensure that our resources work well with proprietary systems (e.g. Macs and Windows) as well.

The server could be most simply managed using a commercial hosting service. The services needed (principally web, email, irc) are fairly generic. For maximum flexibility, we could set up our own server and find a University or business willing to donate the bandwidth and technical support to maintain it.

For the initial installations, it might be possible to find schools that are replacing hardware and reecycle their old hardware for use in developing countries. Typically these machines are being discarded because they won't run modern Microsoft operating systems, but they are perfectly competent to run linux. Since Microsoft changed their licensing to make their OS non-transferable (meaning that although you can donate the PC, the operating system generally cannot be donated with it). Lack of awareness about linux results in few programs to recycle old hardware.

Some of the central questions that need to be answered are

Are there teachers willing to have students participate in these activities for 3-5 hours per week for a semester?

Can we create initial activities that require minimal Esperanto but are still engaging and on-task?

Can students learn enough Esperanto and enough about the topic to make the modules worthwhile?

There are a far larger number of questions related to the implementation and evaluation of the modules, if these three questions can be answered affirmatively. One particular challenge is scheduling the teams to have synchronous opportunities for dicsussion. This could be used strategically to have interesting effects: scheduling the US and Brazilian teams to work together to make sense of the last contributions by the Taiwanese and Russian teams that posted during the night.

Tasks

There is a large set of tasks that need to be accomplished to make this project work:

(1) Developing a basic technology infrastructure that could be distributed:

Workstation

Server

(2) Developing documentation for software and infrastructure

(3) Developing a topical module

(4) Developing Coupled Esperanto lessons

(6) Conduct pilot program

(7) Evaluate results and make adjustment

(8) International dissemination

Principal Investigator

I'm currently seeking support for a 2005-2006 sabbatical. I'm looking for support to (1) supplement the half-salary from my institution and (2) find a host institution where I could work to develop, implement, pilot-test, and evaluate these resources. In addition, to conduct the project a full-scale implementation, funding would be needed (1) to support collaborators in other countries to help develop the national language resources needed for the modules, (2) to provide technology and network connectivity to schools that can't afford it, and (3) to educate teachers how to participate in the project. A pilot project could be probably conducted with volunteers requiring little additional funding. Before I begin my sabbatical, I hope to get a commitment from my institution that, when I return, I could have support to continue to participate in the project.

This project offers a rich opportunity explore a cross-fertilization of the instructional technology practices in science education and language learning. Different traditions in teaching unfortunately rarely communicate effectively (simply because its hard to keep up with one literature, let alone technology and another discipline). Focusing on science education for my doctorate, I had less opportunity to learn about supporting language learning with technology. I see this opportunity as a way to immerse myself in this other domain that I believe I can enrich with a perspective from science education, but where I will also learn new things that I can bring back to science education when I return after my sabbatical.

I think my background almost uniquely qualifies me to carry out a project like this. As an undergraduate, I double-majored in Biology and Spanish (BS, 1985, Alma College). I learned Esperanto the year before I began graduate studies. During my graduate work, I often participated in esperanto-language discussions via Usenet and IRC. I was one of the original instructors (korektantoj) in the Free Esperanto Course. I coordinated the 3-a Mezlanda Konferenco de Esperanto. My graduate studies, from 1989 - 1996 (MS and PhD, 1996, Western Michigan University) provided me with the ideal opportunity to explore the explosive growth of the internet. I set up the first webserver at WMU and explored using webpages for education in the science laboratory course I co-developed with my major-professor. This work gave me the background I needed to get my current faculty position at UMass Amherst.

Since arriving at UMass, I have acted as a consultant to faculty on the implementation of technology in support of education. I co-chaired a committee that developed a comprehensive set of 'learning goals' for the department that have been influential in guiding educational reform. I have assembled and written a suite of free software tools to support pedagogically-driven technology support of teaching and learning. I have received grants from the Center for Academic Transformation, the Commonwealth Information Technology Initiative, and the UMass President's Office to develop curricula and instructional technology resources in science education. I have continued to be active with Esperanto and am currently President of the Esperanto Society of New England

References and Links

Esperanto

Environmental Monitoring:

Journalism:

Potential Collaborators:

BrewerSabbatical