Linguapax is an initiative of UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) which aims at promoting linguistic tolerance and diversity. Its main objective is to situate language education within a wider framework of education for peace. The Linguapax project is based on the belief that, in our multicultural world with its expanding links between peoples and cultures, the role of languages, whether national, mother tongue or foreign, is a key factor in promoting international understanding and cooperation.
Linguapax was created during an international UNESCO conference of language experts held in the former USSR in 1987. The Linguapax project unites linguistic researchers, language educators and educational planners from different countries within a framework established by the International Linguapax Committee. This committee meets regularly to review the general aims of the project in terms of current world needs. At present, the Committee comprises members from Germany, Catalonia, Croatia, France and Hungary. A member of the UNESCO secretariat in Paris, Mr. Joseph Poth, provides a link between the International Linguapax committee and the UNESCO Education Sector. Five international Linguapax seminars have been held so far: Linguapax I in Kiev, Ukraine (1987), Linguapax II in Sitges, Spain (1988), Linguapax III in Saarbrucken, Germany (1990), Linguapax IV in Barcelona, Spain (1994) and Linguapax V in Melbourne, Australia (1995).
Working closely with UNESCO on Linguapax is the World Federation of Modern Language Associations (FIPLV), an international umbrella organization comprising world language teaching associations for English (TESOL and IATEFL), French, German, Russian and other major languages. Although Linguapax originally developed within the regional context of Europe, it is now reaching out to cover other areas of the world including Asia-Australia (1995) and Africa, the North Pacific and Latin America (1996).
Linguapax is therefore a program fostered by UNESCO and brought to life by an international team of experts from countries around the world. Its two main areas of focus are the protection of linguistic diversity and multilingualism, and the promotion of peace, tolerance and international understanding through foreign language education. To achieve these goals, it works with UN member countries on teacher training and educational planning projects. It also works to devise specific sets of educational guidelines, methods and materials developed in regional contexts which can be adopted by teachers of foreign languages to promote peace and international understanding.
Linguistic Diversity and Multilingualism
Linguapax is a network of professionals in the teaching of languages and other subjects who believe in the importance of promoting cultural and linguistic diversity in the education systems of countries round the world. This requires placing a positive value on the diversity in each country and the world, and making a love of one's own identity compatible with respect and sympathy for the different identities of others. The United Nation's Year for Tolerance in 1995 emphasized this ideal and proposed that education systems around the world strive to achieve it through embracing an approach to education based on the concept of multiculturalism.
Approximately 3,000 languages are spoken in the world, distributed roughly as follows: North American Indian languages 50; Latin American Indian languages 250; European languages 60; Australian and Pacific languages 800; Asian languages 800; and African languages 1200. Of these, only 120 are spoken by more than one million people and of these 120, only twelve are spoken by more than 100 million people. These languages are, in order, Mandarin Chinese, English, Hindi/Urdu, Spanish, Russian, Indonesian/Malay, Arabic, Portuguese, Bengali, French, Japanese and German.
Although human beings speak 3000 languages, they are politically organised into just 184 United Nations member states. States, for practical and political reasons, declare certain languages official within the limits of their territories and structure the media and education according to these languages. The enormous demographic and political inequalities between linguistic communities, however, can give rise to linguistic imperialism and the marginalization of weaker languages.
For some years now, the scientific community has not only helped to make known the diversity of languages, but also to establish the criterion that linguistic diversity is one of humanity's great riches, comparable to the wealth of biological diversity. UNESCO's stance on this issue is quite clear: all languages are equal in dignity and each language is the heritage not only of the community that speaks it but of the whole of humankind. As the Venezuelan linguist Emilio Monsonyi said at a recent meeting of UNESCO on the future of Indian cultures, each language represents a different creation, a unique manifestation of the human spirit, an irreplaceable acquisition by the human species in its efforts to express itself through language. One aim of UNESCO's Linguapax project is therefore to promote language education policies which recognise the dignity of all languages, the importance of linguistic diversity and the need for multilingualism.
Language Learning and Cultural Otherness
We must not confuse a love of one's own language with the choice of monolingualism. One of the characteristics of today's world is the growing interrelations between cultures and, therefore, between languages. Everyone, whatever the particular culture they belong to, can frequent other cultures and become in many ways intercultural. Receiving the influence of other cultures can be enriching for everyone and for every cultural community. The same goes for languages. We probably only really know the universe of our own mother tongue. Later, we have access to other linguistic universes and can learn some of the keys offered by other languages for interpreting reality. Of course, we have the right to change language and culture, but this decision must be made carefully so as to avoid the experience of deculturalisation, superficiality or alienation. In today's world, we are lucky in that, as well as the knowledge of our own language, we can develop a knowledge of other languages that interest us for professional, cultural or recreational reasons. We are all invited to become multilingual.
Obviously, going outside of our original linguistic space allows us what is philosophically referred to as a knowledge of "the otherness of others." Only when others are recognised as others - that is, as different - can respectful relationships be created with the plural reality of human individuals and communities.
Human diversity has been a constant difficulty in the history of humankind. Different groups have often looked upon each other as enemies. Violence has been used systematically to subject diversity to the domination of the strongest. For centuries, humanity has thought it normal that "the others" should become enemies and that might should regulate conflicts between enemies. Reason and law have established a new system of relations between individuals within each society, but relations between large cultural and social communities are still usually based on criteria of opposition rather than cooperation. Even the laws of the market economy, which are positive in many aspects, work on the hypothesis that all the world's cultures accept the value that economic interest is more important than other values of human co-existence such as solidarity or the ecological health of the planet. International economic relations accept competition and aggressiveness as fundamental mechanisms, and exert subtle or not so subtle forms of violence.
The best way to discover different possible relations between human groups is through an openness to cultural differences. Perhaps certain cultures that at present are undervalued could provide values that might serve to construct happier, more humane societies. A knowledge of languages is therefore a particularly good way of exploring each culture's values, its universe of symbols, its desires and creativity.
Linguapax and Education for Peace
The second function of Linguapax is its role as an international initiative in the field of education for peace. Peace education aims to create the conviction that peace is desirable and possible in all conflict situations. It tries to replace the culture of war with the culture of peace. International peace research centres and UNESCO have been working for a long time with the aim of directing human energies towards solving the problems at the root of violence and war. Instead of investing in arms, we must have the courage to resolve extreme poverty, ignorance, the violation of human rights, and the rights of peoples. Instead of trusting in wars, we must learn to negotiate, to mediate, to prevent violence, to make better use of the international courts. Instead of just defending the rights of each state, we must perfect global democratic systems and develop the United Nations. Linguapax has a specific contribution to make in this important effort to educate for peace.
Linguapax, therefore, aims to bring a specific linguistic response to the problems posed by peace research, the defense of human rights, and the promotion of education for democracy. The means employed to attain this objective are the design of new course content for foreign language and mother tongue instruction based on tolerance, international understanding and global solidarity, and the development of teaching methods which integrate the objectives of cooperation and solidarity at the international level while eliminating stereotypes and negative prejudices. Teacher training remains a key element in this work.
As part of its preliminary plans in this area, Linguapax aims to give priority to the following actions:
- to develop on an experimental basis new content for foreign language courses which can help students deepen their understanding of important elements of the daily life, culture, literature, folklore, values and customs of the country of the language being studied
- to eliminate stereotypes and prejudices found in teaching materials
- to design effective new teaching methods for the teaching of foreign languages and the mother tongue which can help reinforce peaceful cooperation between cultures, countries and nations
- to develop specialized methods for children's language learning, language learning outside the school system and language learning for professional purposes
- to similarly develop new approaches and methods in the teaching of foreign and national literatures that will promote intercultural understanding and eliminate stereotypes
- to utilise knowledge from the field of psycho-linguistics to prevent inferior teaching methods from generating negative learner attitudes towards the foreign language and the culture that it represents, which would be contrary to the spirit of Linguapax
- to propose forms of multilingual education adapted to the needs of each linguistic community in order to harmonise the learning of the mother tongue and of other languages so as to facilitate intercultural relations
Based on proposals such as these, Linguapax works with interested United Nation member countries to introduce its specific approach aimed at achieving these objectives within the educational systems of the country concerned. This entails Linguapax involvement at the level of decision making, execution and control of the educational system:
- in the domain of program development for the teaching of the mother tongue and foreign languages
- in the conception, development and evaluation of pedagogical materials (such as teaching manuals) which translate these programs into a classroom reality
- in the formation and development of language teachers charged with using these materials in the classroom
This global approach aims for all schools and teacher training centres of the country to progressively become institutions at which all education and training programs are imbued with Linguapax recommendations and utilise materials conceived in the Linguapax approach, taking into account the specific regional and national conditions of the country.
Linguapax Guidelines and Materials
To achieve its aims, Linguapax therefore works to devise specific sets of educational guidelines, methods and materials developed in regional contexts which can be adopted by teachers of foreign languages to promote peace and international understanding. Linguapax principles and practice are documented in publications and workshop reports such as Peace through Language Teaching (Raasch, 1991), Language Teaching in a World Without Peace (Raasch, 1993), International Understanding through Foreign Language Teaching (Classen-Bauer, 1989), Linguapax IV (UNESCO, 1995) and Linguapax V (Cunningham, 1996).
One important set of guidelines relevant for the language teaching profession as a whole is the 1987 Linguapax Kiev Declaration entitled "Content and Methods That Could Contribute in the Teaching of Foreign Languages and Literature to International Understanding and Peace" (UNESCO, 1987). This made the following recommendations to teachers of foreign languages and literature:
- to be aware of their responsibility in furthering international understanding through their teaching
- to make strenuous efforts to increase the effectiveness of teaching foreign languages and literature with a view to enhancing mutual understanding, respect, peaceful co-existence and co-operation among nations
- to exploit possibilities of extra-curricular activities for the development of international contacts and co-operation, such as correspondence, exchange of books as well as relevant print and audio-visual materials, visits, tours, excursions, and so forth
- as education for international cooperation must start with co-operation between students and teacher in the language learning task, classroom cooperation should be stimulated by language teaching approaches responsive to students' initiatives, interests and needs
An example of practical classroom materials produced within the framework of Linguapax is a collection of teaching units developed by Rafael Grasa of the Autonomous University of Barcelona. This has now been tested in over 30 Spanish and Catalan schools taking part in the Linguapax program. The project includes teaching units focussed on themes such as:
- We live in one world which is plural, varied, interdependent and unfair
- Getting along with others: cooperation and conflict
- Images, perceptions and stereotypes: friends and enemies at home, in the neighborhood, in the town, in the city, on the planet
- The rights of the earth: environmental problems
- The world restaurant: the food problem
Linguapax is designing similar teaching methods and materials for countries in Eastern and Western Europe. UNESCO hopes eventually to make Linguapax ideas and expertise available to all countries throughout the world.
New Projects And Activities
An additional set of aims and tasks for the Linguapax project to execute was recently decided upon by the Director General of UNESCO at a seminar on "Linguapax and Linguistic Policies" held in Bilbao, Spain in March 1996. These new aims and tasks are:
to publish every 5 years a report on the state of languages around the world in order to raise awareness of our common linguistic world heritage, spotlight world trends in language evolution, describe problems facing languages in key world areas and recommend measures for protecting modern languages
to furnish ideas and projects aimed at promoting a global multilingual culture, involving the respect of nation states for all languages spoken on their territories, language planning criteria which take into account cultural identity, the promotion of intercultural communication at both a national and international level, and the need to ensure that multilingual education remains a means of educating in a spirit of tolerance and peace
to bring support to existing initiatives and specific legal measures regarding linguistic rights in order to protect the world's rich linguistic heritage which too often falls victim to cultural domination and to political and economic interests
Other Linguapax initiatives include the LINGUA-UNI project (a network of 71 European universities cooperating in the area of foreign language teaching), a UNESCO chair in "Intercultural Dialogue and Social Interaction" at the Linguistic University in Moscow, a UNESCO chair of languages at the University of Capetown in South Africa, and a UNESCO chair of "Linguistic Management and Language Didactics" in Mons-Hainaut, Belgium which will be able to issue a "Linguapax diploma."
Conclusion
UNESCO is pleased to be sending a team of delegates to JALT96 to introduce Linguapax ideas, methods and materials to language teachers in Japan. I feel it is very symbolic that this event will take place in Hiroshima, international city of peace. I look forward to meeting JALT members in Japan and I hope that from this visit a "Linguapax Working Committee for Asia" will be formed which can design teaching guidelines and materials for the Asian region and can strive to publicize and promote the ideals of Linguapax regarding the role of foreign language teaching in furthering peace, tolerance and international understanding.
Contact Addresses
- International Linguapax Committee, Centre UNESCO de Catalogne, Mallorca 285, 08037 Barcelona, Spain. Fax: +34-3-457-5851; e-mail: eunescocat@cc.uab.es
- Linguapax Project, UNESCO Headquarters, Education Sector, Section for Humanistic, Cultural and International Education, 7 place de Fontenoy, 75007 Paris, France. Fax: +33-1-4065-9405.
References
- Classen-Bauer, I. (Ed.). (1989). International understanding through foreign language teaching. Bonn: German Commission for UNESCO.
- Cunningham, D., & Candelier, M. (Eds.). (1996). Linguapax V. Melbourne: FIPLV.
- Raasch, A. (Ed.). (1991). Peace through language teaching. Saabrucken: Universitat des Saarlandes, Germany.
- Raasch, A. (Ed.). (1993). Language teaching in a world without peace. Saabrucken: Universitat des Saarlandes, Germany.
- UNESCO. (1987). Content and methods that could contribute in the teaching of foreign languages and literature to international understanding and peace. Paris: UNESCO.
- UNESCO. (1995). Linguapax IV. Barcelona: Centre UNESCO de Catalunya.
Felix Marti is President of the International Linguapax Committee, Director of the UNESCO Center of Catalonia in Barcelona, and recipient of the 1995 UNESCO Medal for Human Rights.