In any specified social setup, humans require an organized medium of communication that is referred to as language. The term language holds a social complexity that makes it difficult to define, it is generally agreed amongst verbal intelligence that is designed as a system of symbols for communication. To work together to achieve a particular function this system is arranged in such a way that the collection of entities is organized into a whole.

As a medium of communication, language possesses numerous attributes amongst humans such as a system being governed by rules and performing functions such as expressing emotions and feelings, giving information, exercising authority, establishing rapport, and most importantly serving as an identity marker.

In both the written and verbal communicative practices it has been recognized that multilingualism is dominated by proficiency in one language as compared to the others. A society associated with the co-existence of several languages can be regarded as multilingual. These several languages can be generally considered to be national or international, native or foreign, and official or unofficial. 

The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) has been observing International Mother language Day on 21st February every year based on a particular theme, since 1999, for the sake of maintaining linguistic diversity for a sustainable world. The day has been inspired by the events taking place on February 21, 1952, in Bangladesh as the people of Bangladesh made themselves the only nation in history to sacrifice their lives for the right of their mother language Bangla as a state language.

Taking into consideration the situation of the educational sector during the Covid pandemic and their reflection on technologies and their potential to support multilingual teaching and e-learning, the theme for International Mother Language Day in 2022 is: ‘Using technology for multilingual learning: challenges and opportunities.

Information and communication technology (ICT) has made education ubiquitous. Therefore, there is no exception in learning a language. There are heaps of learning applications, based on ICT, that facilitate learning at our fingertips. The technology concerned with education has remarkable potential to address some of the complex challenges seen in education today. Without technology, it would not be possible to address such challenges. Effective and smart use of technology in education can ensure inclusive learning opportunities for people and life-long equitability. However, it should be guided to ensure equity in learning by the core principles of inclusive education.

Opportunities

To introduce multilingual education that is based on the mother tongue of the concerned country is one of the key components of inclusive education. In the last 10-15 years multilingual education has gained a lot of momentum. ‘first-language-first’ education typically refers to multilingualism, that is, schooling that is done based on the mother tongue and later on transitions to additional languages.

Development of cognitive and social-linguistic skills

Research performed by a large body now shows that multilingualism helps people to develop various social-linguistic and cognitive skills throughout their lifespan. Understanding of grammatical rules and structures is understood much earlier by multilingual children than monolingual children. Learning to speak two or more languages, apart from language-related skills, is proven helpful to people in developing other cognitive skills, such as in terms of confidence, inhibition, attention, and faster visual and auditory processing.

Becoming a polyglot

As suggested by several studies multilingualism has a strong influence on children’s cognitive skills is highly influenced by multilingualism that has proven to help them to perform better than children who speak only one language thus, have a limited deliverance of speech and vocabulary leading to poor academic outcomes overall. Through multilingual education, monolingual students are provided with the opportunity to become polyglots by learning a second language.

Improvement of curriculum quality in national education

The ideal educational framework of a country should consider and provide a diverse language repertoire with a better understanding of which languages people should learn for what purpose, to help them in building both academic and life skills. Regarding this, a language policy should be made that improves the quality of the curriculum, learning, and teaching in national education, as well as an effective policy that helps to orient the roles of multiple languages in a more positive context. On top of that, a multilingual education policy should be underpinned and reinforced by the integration of digital technology, as we are living in the era of advanced information and communication technology.

Neurological benefits

Neurological benefits are associated with multilingual people throughout their lives. For instance, people with attributes of multilingualism are good at observing their surroundings. anything unusual or deceptive can be easily detected by them. Moreover, multilingual people are considered to be better than their monolingual partners at identifying misleading information, which, in today’s age of data science, is considered a fundamental skill. Some other researchers also say that older people who are multilingual can slow down the onset of the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease far better than their monolingual complements by developing the imperative cognitive skills from an early age with the help of multilingual learning.

Challenges

Lack of adequate gadgets

In maintaining equity in education the Covid pandemic has put all the nations in peril. During the prolonged Covid pandemic, because of the closure of educational institutions all over the world, many countries employed technology-based alternatives to maintain the continuity of learning. A recent survey by the World Bank, UNICEF, UNESCO, and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development on national responses of 143 countries to closures of educational institutes because of Covid-19 showed that 96 percent of the high-income countries provided e-learning through online platforms for at least one level of education compared with only 58 percent of the low-income countries.

In the context of low-income countries, the majority of the countries reported using broadcast media such as television — 83 percent — and radio — 85 percent — to support the continuity of learning. In Bangladesh, keeping to several reports, only 27 percent of the total students at the secondary level could connect themselves to online classes. In 2020, according to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, only 5.6 percent of the households had a home computer and only 37.6 percent of the households had access to the internet at home. Students from the low- and lower-middle-income groups have been hit harder during the pandemic. The pandemic has harshly brought to the surface the digital divide in society that was not seen in ‘normal’ times.

Lack of skills to use digital gadgets

Furthermore, both the teachers and the learners were not prepared for the online mode of education. So, many of them lacked the required skills and readiness for using digital gadgets for distance learning and teaching. Many teachers and learners lacked the necessary equipment to follow distance learning like internet access, adapted content, and accessible content. On top of that, the distance teaching and learning programs content was not and still is not always able to reflect language diversity