Efficient strategies in course planning for low-resource minority language classes in higher education: observations from Uralic studies and the example of South Estonian

ABSTRACT

This article investigates the different types of language classes for Uralic languages in higher education contexts to derive principles in course planning for minority language teaching. As a micro-level example, a foreign language class for South Estonian, aimed at a general audience at LMU Munich, is analysed and informs the discussion of economically efficient and pedagogically effective strategies in curriculum and syllabus design for this target group. The suggested approach uses authentic media in a theme-based, content-based instruction (CBI) classroom with an integrated syllabus of text-based, task-based, and media-based syllabus types, which helps to address the needs and interests of the target group consisting of university students. This enables critical engagement with minority media, development of media literacy, and autonomous student projects on the target language. Additionally, the adoption of a positive stance towards the minority identity is advocated, making the class suitable for heritage learners and allowing for intercultural understanding between students and educators as broader goals for minority language instruction.

KEYWORDS:

• South Estonian
• endangered languages
• syllabus
• media literacy
• critical pedagogy
• language revitalisation

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank all colleagues and friends who have commented on this and earlier versions of the paper, as well as those who supported the survey, not least the students in my South Estonian classes. Special thanks to Sorcha Hazelton for proofreading and commenting on all drafts - all remaining errors remain my own.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

ORCID

Tobias Weber http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1530-3568

Notes

1 For more information on the development of South Estonian and its relation to other Estonian varieties see Pajusalu (2007, 2009) and Viitso (2007), information on the sociolinguistic status of the varieties (Ehala and Niglas 2007; Koreinik 2013a, 2013b), and language policy and planning approaches (Gibson 2017; Siiner 2006)

2 Although South Estonian and Finnish share considerable amounts of their lexicon and grammatical features, it requires linguistic knowledge on the differences and historical developments of these languages for a Finnish speaker to estimate the meaning of a South Estonian sentence. Yet, both languages share common traits of the Finnic languages and are, thus, structurally close. Therefore, concepts requiring lengthy explanation for a learner group without Finnish or Estonian knowledge (e.g. stem alternations, differential object marking) can be omitted or shortened in these contexts.

3 I understand texts in a broad sense, including TV shows, news broadcasts and radio shows, digitised versions of historical sources, fiction and non-fiction literature (either in scanned versions of books or as part of websites), leaflets, databases, graphics and illustrations, or audiovisual media files containing language, which includes songs, photos of signs, videos of communicative practice.

4 It should be obvious that any publication of teaching materials will need prior approval by the communities and should only happen under the premise that community members also gain access to these materials.

5 Consider, for example, students' ability to use a dictionary in a foreign language to find relevant grammatical information, understanding the list of ingredients in a recipe, or, as used in a different example, their ability to process an announcement of an event to find place and time, contact information, and understand a timetable.

6 The number of copies for South Estonian books can be very low. For example, the comprehensive Mulgi text collection Ennemustitsel Mulgimaal (Emakeele Selts 2008) was only printed 300 times, with one copy in my possession and another in the Bavarian State Library. However, this book was later digitised, made available for free from the publishers website, and thus remains accessible for larger parts of community. While digitisation, electronic publishing, and print on demand can help to solve some issues with availability of books, their use needs to be critically monitored and evaluated (Hourigan 2007; Williams 2007). Therefore, the underlying ethical and economic considerations of outsiders' involvement in the market of minority language goods need to be addressed by future research.