To everyone who participated in the third Language in Community festival on Saturday! What a beautiful gathering, proudly showcasing language!
This event means so much to us here at ANH and we are so proud to again partner with the incredible organisation ViệtSpeak! We first connected with ViệtSpeak through the campaign to save the Vietnamese bilingual program at Footscray Primary School. Our Coordinator (Jo’s) family speaks Spanish and English, but her kids were among the first non-Vietnamese students to learn through that program, an experience that really meaningfully shaped their experiences of growing up in Footscray.
Here at ANH, our language learning classrooms are multilingual spaces, full of dialogue, translation, code-switching and sharing meaning! A lot of this involves unlearning the imposed message that mother tongues must be abandoned, or at least seen as less than, or not enough. Too many of our community members’ kids have been shooshed at school when speaking their first languages, and in a context where so many First Nations languages have been lost, or are still being fought for.
We know that continuity of language is critical to strong and connected communities and at the core of meaningful intergenerational relationships. We know that strength in your first language is the best foundation for additional language learning, not to mention central to your identity, pride and cultural connections. Being bilingual or multilingual brings richer perspective, deepens understanding, fosters empathy, and just makes us better humans!
Everyday communities find creative ways to strengthen language across generations, and the Language in Community Festival was again a beautiful and inspiring opportunity to see some of that practice in action, to share, to network and to proudly centre language in the conversation!
Thanks so much to all of our incredible volunteers and staff who helped plan and run the day, and to the Angliss community for making the day awesome! Already looking forward to the next one!