Mother tongue teaching as a priority in the development of education: the swedish experience for Ukraine

Problem statement and relevance

In the era of globalization, most countries are at different stages of establishing cultural compliance and multiculturalism, which involves implementing the ideas of humanization, national identity, mutual understanding, and tolerance of different cultures, religions, languages, and cultural heritage. These ideas form the basis for preserving cultural identity in the global context while increasing aggressiveness due to rejection of cultures of other ethnic groups, assessment of languages of many peoples as inferior, and discrete understanding of the uniqueness of cultural diversity by many states lead to leveling the value paradigm of the development of a modern multiethnic society.

That is why the problems of balancing the development of multilingual and mother tongue education as essential factors in preserving the diversity of cultures and fostering respect for the history, cultural heritage, religion of states, ethnic groups, and peoples are becoming more relevant. And while in recent decades there has been a positive trend in the development of multilingual education in the context of forming a generation of specialists endowed with the ability to communicate in multilingual professional settings, mother tongue education is often viewed from the perspective of limited resources for professional growth, personal development, and self-realization. Instead, such deformative manifestations devalue the sacredness of the mother tongue, distort the national model of worldview, and fail to contribute to progressive state-building processes. It is important to maintain a balance in the development of multilingual and mother tongue education to preserve and enhance linguistic diversity and the axiological and cultural development of each individual who should have a clear nationally conscious and multiculturally tolerant worldview.

Analysis of recent studies and publications

Significant resources that reveal the global trends in multilingual education include the papers of Ukrainian and foreign scholars that present theoretical and practical problems of linguistic diversity in modern society (O. Matvienko, O. Pershukova, H. Pocheptsov, B. Busch, J. Ball, etc.). Theoretical and practical problems of mother tongue teaching in Ukraine are highlighted in the papers by L. Matsko, L. Palamar, M. Pentyliuk, O. Semenoh, etc. At the same time, modern studies lack a comprehensive analysis of the legislative and regulatory mechanisms for regulating the global process of mother tongue teaching, sufficient characteristics of theoretical aspects of the problem of mother tongue education, and a complete outline of the possibilities for the development of mother tongue education in foreign countries.

The purpose of the article is to outline the legislative and regulatory framework for ensuring mother tongue education in the context of Ukrainian realities, to identify valuable educational practices of mother tongue education in Sweden, and to determine possible recommendations taking into account Ukrainian realities.

The choice of methods contributes to the implementation of this purpose: content analysis for studying legislative resources on the problems of multilingual and mother tongue education, documents issued by UNESCO, the Council of Europe, etc.; theoretical analysis for determining the essential characteristics of the concepts of «mother tongue education» and «mother tongue teaching»; scientific extrapolation method for identifying opportunities for mother tongue teaching in Ukraine based on the experience of Sweden.

Statement of basic study materials

Education is a social institution that mediates the transmission from generation to generation of cognitive, spiritual, ethical, and aesthetic experience, the system of knowledge, sciences, practical competencies, values, and culture of Canadian society. At the same time, the educational environment of many developed countries has created opportunities to provide mother tongue and multilingual education, which is a modern trend in the development of modern progressive countries.

During the XX century, the activities of the UN and UNESCO were aimed at legislative and regulatory mechanisms for the development of mother tongue and multilingual education in many countries. Thus, since 1945, education has acquired the status of an important factor in preserving cultural identity, social progress, and personal development in particular. The provisions of the UN Charter of November 16, 1945, confirm the establishment of anti- discriminatory principles of language policy in the global context. Since then, the global priorities of multilingualism and mother tongue have been implemented in the language policy of many states through the efforts of these international organizations in the direction of observing the right of everyone to multilingual education with the compulsory study of the mother tongue based on the principle of equality of all languages. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1948, recognized the priority of learning one's mother tongue from childhood and consistently engaging in the study of other languages that are official languages of certain countries. It was the foundation of the global policy of multilingual education.

O. Pershukova (Першукова, 2014, р. 65-77.) retrospectively covered the process of legislative and regulatory principles of multilingual and mother tongue education in the world during the XX and early XXI centuries, outlining key events in the direction of establishing a policy of multiculturalism and, at the same time, preserving the mother tongue as a factor in maintaining statehood, cultural identity, and ethnic identity. The scholar outlined the provisions of the fundamental legislative resources aimed at implementing the principles of multiculturalism and multilingualism. These include the following: the 1953 UNESCO report on «The Use of Vernacular Languages in Education», which first used the concept of «multilingual education»; «Convention against Discrimination in Education» adopted by the UN General Assembly meeting in Paris on December 14-15, 1960, when national minorities were given the opportunity to study in their mother tongue in parallel with learning the language of the country; the European Cultural Convention (1954) adopted on December 19, 1954, in Paris when the Council of Europe recognized the development of international communication based on the study of European languages as a priority; implementation of the provisions of the 1990 World Declaration on Education for All to level racial, linguistic, ethnic, and political differences; the beginning of ratification of the 1992 European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, which defines the essence of regional or minority languages, recognizes the cultural and linguistic diversity of languages, and advocates the need for bilingual education; Resolution № 12 of the 1999 UNESCO General Conference, which clarified the concept of «multilingual education» as «the use of three or more languages in the educational process, namely a mother tongue, regional or national, international language»; 2001 UNESCO Declaration on Cultural Diversity, which substantiated the urgent task of preserving the linguistic heritage of mankind through the study of several languages, provided that primary education is delivered in the mother tongue; 2002 UNESCO document on «Education in a Multilingual World» outlines the principles of multilingual and mother tongue education: 1) teaching in the mother tongue is one of the means of improving the quality of education; 2) bilingual (multilingual) education at all levels of education contributes to social equality; 3) language is the most important component of intercultural education; in 2012, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon authored the Global Initiative «Education First», which substantiated that in the context of multilingual education, it is advisable to achieve a high level of proficiency in the mother tongue, which involves the formation of the ability to: speak the state language of the country of residence as the main means of socialization; use several languages; think globally, be ready to live and work together with representatives of other countries and peoples (Global Education First Initiative, 2022).

Mentioning the strategic nature of the implementation of the multicultural policy enshrined in the documents of UNESCO, the Council of Europe, etc., we note that, unfortunately, mother tongue education is not given priority at many levels - at the level of interaction of national minorities within a particular state, at the level of professional formation of the individual and their individual development as a citizen of the state, first of all.

This problem is especially relevant in the context of leveling the mother tongue component in the context of modern Ukrainian realities. Without delving into the historical retrospective of the implementation of language policy at all stages of Ukraine's historical development by neighboring states, we state the current problems of mother tongue education in the period of active statebuilding (1991-2019). During this period, the functioning of the state language in independent Ukraine was regulated by Article 10 of the Constitution of Ukraine, the Law of Ukraine «On Languages in the Ukrainian SSR» (1989), the Decision of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine «On Application of State Language by Public Authorities, Local Government Bodies, and its Uses in Educational Process in Educational Institutions of Ukraine» of December 14, 1999.

In February 2012, the Verkhovna Rada adopted the Law of Ukraine «On the Principles of the State Language Policy» № 5029-VI), which granted significant rights to use regional languages (Закон України «Про засади державної мовної політики», 2012). This document entered into force in August 2012. In February 2014, the Verkhovna Rada repealed this law. Due to public concerns, including those of foreign politicians, about the possible rejection of this fact by Ukrainian society, the document was given the status of «prepared for signature» on February 28, 2018. The Constitutional Court of Ukraine declared the Law invalid.

In April 2019, the Verkhovna Rada adopted the Law of Ukraine «On Ensuring the Functioning of the Ukrainian Language as the State Language» (entered into force after being signed by the President of Ukraine on May 15, 2019) (Закон України «Про забезпечення функціонування української мови як державної», 2019). The main idea is to protect the rights of Ukrainian citizens to receive information and services in the state language, to fill the state status of the Ukrainian language with real content, and to support the Ukrainian language as one of the most important factors of Ukrainian identity, national security, and state unity.

It is from the perspective of implementing the main strategies of multilingual education policy and, at the same time, implementing the leading provisions of mother tongue education in the context of approving a new law on the status of the Ukrainian language in Ukraine that it is important to find mechanisms for balancing these two processes in society. To this end, it is worth taking advantage of the experience of the world's leading countries, which have developed significant ideas for regulating a tolerant and nationally identical language policy.

The definition of language education by O. Malenko (2014) is appropriate, as she sees it as «a socio-pedagogical phenomenon aimed at studying, preserving and reproducing national achievements in the education and upbringing of the individual, as well as ensuring the openness of the education system, its integration into the global educational environment». The researcher also notes that «all democratic societies, without exception, attach paramount importance to language education as a means of spreading state languages and establishing their unifying function, while taking care of teaching the language of international communication and minority languages» (Маленко, 2014, р. 232). We can define language education as a type of education that involves learning the mother tongue (mother tongue education) and foreign languages (bilingual and multilingual education) as a means of communication and cognition.

To substantiate the essence of the concept of «mother tongue education», it is advisable to characterize the concept of «mother tongue». P. Kononenko and T. Kononenko (1999) consider the mother tongue in the system of Ukrainian studies concepts: «The mother tongue connects a person with their family, nature, history, faith, philosophy, art (primarily verbal), with their family, ritual, calendar, and military songs and actions» (Кононенко, 2011, p. 12). The mother tongue is one of the most important concepts in ethnology, sociolinguistics, linguistics, and other sciences. Summarizing it according to various criteria, we have a definition of the mother tongue as the first language learned in childhood naturally from native speakers. Accordingly, the essence of mother tongue education is the transfer of information, knowledge, understanding, attitudes, values, skills, behavioral patterns, etc. in the mother tongue, starting from preschool age. Mother tongue education is implemented through the mediation of the family, the system of mother tongue educational institutions at all levels, religious and public organizations, and informal associations for children and adults. At the same time, the mother tongue is a leading factor in creating a mother tongue environment, which combines a set of other concepts: native - closely related, close; mother tongue - mother's language; environment.

Characterizing the essence of «mother tongue teaching», modern Ukrainian didacticians focus on the pragmatic aspects of its mastery, defining such principles as attention to the matter of language, understanding of linguistic meanings - lexical, grammatical, the role of morphemes and syntactic units; evaluation of expressiveness of speech involves teaching students to feel expressive means in language - caress, benevolence; formation of the ability to perceive poetic works; development of language sense aimed at forming of students' awareness of the correctness of their own and other people's speech; understanding the role of words, phrases in the design and transmission of thought; ability to highlight logical emphasis, slow down or speed up reading; ability to express their thoughts orally and in writing; possession of the culture of oral and written speech; coordination of oral and written speech (Вашуленко (ред.), 2011). At the same time, it is advisable to focus on the actual value aspects of mastering the mother tongue as a factor in the establishment of national identity and the formation of a linguistic picture of the world.

Many countries have positive practices of mother tongue teaching taking into account the balanced development of multilingual education. The experience of Sweden may be valuable for Ukraine.

Researchers note that in Sweden, as a multilingual country, there was no need to establish the status of Swedish as the state language at all, but there was a historical need to regulate the development of other languages in the country to show respect, avoid their decline, and support the Sami and Finnish-speaking minorities. The status of the Swedish language has never been in doubt since it has held a strong state-building position since the XVI century. The status of the Swedish language is legally confirmed only among the 20 official languages of the European Union. The status of indigenous minorities and their languages in Sweden is recognized by law - Sweden ratified the Council of Europe's Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities and the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in 1999, according to which Sami, Finnish, and Meankieli (a variety of Finnish spoken on the border with Finland in northern Sweden), as well as Gypsy, were granted the status of national minority languages. In 1977, a reform of the «home language», i.e. the language of daily communication, was launched, which provided the opportunity to study the mother tongue in educational institutions for at least two hours a week. This meant that learning the mother tongue for the personal, cognitive, and academic development of students and preserving the cultural identity of students belonging to other ethnic groups became an important educational goal. In addition, in preschool education, children whose mother tongue was different from Swedish had the opportunity to develop their mother tongue knowledge. Nowadays, mother tongue education is a separate school subject at both the general education level and upper secondary school level.

In 2001, the process of mother tongue education was procedurally improved, including a nationwide study of the extent and organization of mother tongue support and teaching in Swedish municipalities, as well as a study of attitudes toward mother tongue education and integration, diversity, and multilingualism in Swedish schools. In 2002, the National Agency for Education presented its report «More Languages - More Opportunities», which put forward several proposals to improve mother tongue support. These included measures to integrate mother tongue instruction into the daily school schedule by providing instruction in various school subjects in the mother tongue of the students. To ensure the necessary changes in attitudes, the Agency proposed measures to spread knowledge about the value of mother tongue education among civil servants and decision-makers. It also emphasized the need for new technologies, teaching methods, and textbooks in different languages. Special attention was also paid to the training of multilingual teachers and their adaptation to the profession. The proposals focused on mother tongue teaching and its important role in achieving educational goals in the development of knowledge in multicultural and multilingual Sweden (Lindberg Inger, 2007).

teaching educational mother tongue

Conclusions and prospects for further research

The analysis of the theoretical aspects of the development of mother tongue and multilingual education, their legislative and regulatory principles in Ukraine, and the identification of progressive experience in organizing multilingual education in Canadian society made it possible to determine the prospects for establishing mother tongue education in Ukraine at the legislative and regulatory, organizational and pedagogical levels.

At the legislative and regulatory level, it is necessary to carry out a consistent extrapolation of the main provisions of the Law of Ukraine «On Ensuring the Functioning of Ukrainian as the State language» to overcome contradictions related to the ratification of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, which at the same time legally confirms the possibility of developing multilingualism with priority given to Ukrainian as the only state language and creates the basis for the development of other languages by integrating the mother tongue component into the content of disciplines, studying the mother tongue at least twice a week. There is a need to conduct regular monitoring studies on the problems of teaching the mother tongue and to study the support for multilingualism in education. At the organizational and pedagogical level, mother tongue instruction should be in line with the support of multilingual education, which involves the creation of educational organizations at the level of universities, secondary schools, etc., resource centers, websites, portals, and electronic libraries on the issues of mother tongue and multilingual education.

It is advisable to preserve the Ukrainian language in mixed-type families at the level of cooperation between families, religious or public organizations, and educational institutions. In the field of pedagogical education, there is a need to improve the quality of training of bilingual teachers based on in-depth mastery of the resource wealth of the mother tongue and languages of national minorities. It is important to develop informal mother tongue education for children and adults in the context of intensified internal migration processes, in the borderlands, etc. A citizen of Ukraine who enriches the potential of mother tongue communication, masters the richness of the state language and at the same time develops communication skills in other languages of the world should become a dream come true, which will be realized in the formation of the nation's cultural and linguistic elite. Accordingly, such individuals are the foundation for preserving peace, tolerance, and intelligence in dialogic interaction at the level of states, ethnic groups, and communities.

Список використаних джерел

1. Вашуленко, М.С. (2011). Методика навчання української мови в початковій школі: навчально-методичний посібник для студентів вищих навчальних закладів. Київ: Літера ЛТД.