Digital content as a tool of language learning and cultural immersion: Arabic-English multilingual families in the UK
The role technology plays in people's lives is evermore greater as well as the ease with which technology and other devices enter the family home (Plowman, 2015). The permeance of digital devices is prevalent across the world and makes communication between transnational families and their relatives easier (Franscisco, 2015). Additionally, video platforms such as Youtube are used as tools of learning and entertainment (Tan, 2013).
This paper presents data on the role Skype, Youtube and free reading material websites play in supporting four UK-based Arabic-English bilingual families' heritage language (HL) learning and practices. The data illustrate that for these families technology is a newfound tool in the learning and development of the HL (Said, 2021b; Palviainen & Kędra, 2020). Technology is harnessed by parents to bolster their preferred language ideologies and effectively teach children their HL. Children seem to embrace this parental enthusiasm and consume the technology whilst also learning in their own creative ways. Digital platforms appear to also support children to consciously develop a bilingual identity.
Data was collected through language background questionnaires and interviews (transcribed and analysed thematically (Clarke & Braun, 2013)) with parents. Themes that emerged from the interviews were: difficulty of transmitting a minority language that is also a language of diglossia, the challenges of attaining heritage language literacy skills, technology as supporter of parental language teaching, and technology as immersion tool.
Findings reveal that Skype offers families an opportunity to enhance the learning of the heritage language with monolingual extended family members in their home countries. Youtube videos allow parents to select specific Arabic language educational programs that are fun, modern and instrumental in helping children develop their Arabic language skills, oftentimes in ways that parents themselves could not have taught their children. Free digital reading websites not only aid children in learning new skills in HL literacy, but they seem to also support parental re-acquaintance with these skills (Said, 2021a).
Technology virtually transforms small families into extended ones through video communication, whereby the home environment becomes a hub in which the learning of the heritage language is supported. Both Skype and Youtube also seem to provide socio-pragmatic immersion of the Arabic language and support socialization into the Arabic language through its context specific provision of language use (Said, 2021b). The paper ends by suggesting that perhaps as production of digital language content improves, more parents may choose to remove their children from HL weekend schools and instead create tailor-made HL learning sessions through Youtube and other online provisions at home.
References:
Clarke, V., & Braun, V. (2013). Successful Qualitative Research: A Practical Guide for Beginners. London: Sage
Francisco, V. (2015). 'The internet is magic': Technology, intimacy and transnational families. Critical Sociology, 41(1), 173-190.
Palviainen, Å. (2020). Video calls as a nexus of practice in multilingual translocal families. Zeitschrift für Interkulturellen Fremdsprachenunterricht, (25) 1, pp.85–108.
Palviainen, Å., & Kędra, J. (2020). What's in the family app?: Making sense of digitally mediated communication within multilingual families. Journal of Multilingual Theories and Practices, 1(1), 89-111.
Plowman, L. (2015). Researching young children's everyday uses of technology in the family home. Interacting with Computers, 27(1), 36-46.
Said, F.F.S. (2021a). Arabic-English bilingual children's early home literacy environments and parental language policies. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal (EECERJ). https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/G4R5UHH6IFY9PE6MXYZ8/full?target=10.1080/1350293X.2021.1928724
Said, F.F.S. (2021b). 'Ba-SKY-aP with her each day at dinner': technology as supporter in the learning and management of home languages. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/FWM2YE9HYPASSYXAXDCW/full?target=10.1080/01434632.2021.1924755
Tan, E. (2013). Informal learning on YouTube: Exploring digital literacy in independent online learning. Learning, Media and Technology, 38(4), 463-477.oi8
