About This Special Issue

Guest Editors: Paula Winke, Michigan State University, USA, and Kadidja Koné, Ecole Normale d’Enseignement Technique et Professionnel (ENETP), Mali

While certain languages such as English, French, and Spanish are taught all over the world with pooled technological resources, and therefore enjoy a privileged status, other languages (e.g., Indigenous languages, African languages, Southeast Asian languages, etc.) are striving to reach a level of online-materials representation and e-sharing that will strengthen instruction and help broaden and render more salient (through multimodal instructional design) cultural understanding and awareness in the languages (see Guerrero-Rodríguez et al., 2022; Olthuis & Gerstenberger, 2019). This call is more than 10 years old across both Less Commonly Taught Languages (LCTLs; Godwin-Jones, 2013) and Indigenous languages (Auld, 2002; McHenry, 2002), but has recently seen an explosion in research potential due to advances in corpus linguistics and social media data mining techniques. Researchers in applied linguistics can harness the power of online tools and social media to advance instruction in Indigenous languages and LCTLs (e.g., Trye et al., 2022); one important innovation such research is providing is pedagogical access to how the language is “used in authentic, communicative contexts,” which can greatly improve the creation of teaching materials in the language (Trye et al., 2022, p. 1264).

One of our applied linguistics graduate students from Africa recently asked, “Why are my languages not taught, since technology is here to help us teach them and then make them exist forever.” Indeed, it is applied linguists’ duty to support the instructional advancement of Indigenous languages and LCTLs through the power of technology with a dual purpose of language empowerment and preservation.

This special issue aims to showcase the teaching and classroom-based assessment of Indigenous languages and LCTLs with technology. To that end, we are seeking articles that illustrate how these languages can be taught or formatively assessed with technological advances and innovative online tools and methodologies. We also welcome articles that report on the multimodal instruction of Indigenous languages and LCTLs. Please explicitly explain how technology has enabled instructional and assessment advances.

Guidelines for Authors

For author guidelines for the full manuscripts, please refer to the LLT submission guidelines.

Abstracts for this special issue Call for Papers should be no more than 500 words and should describe the study's aim, methodology, findings, and how these findings can be used in classroom contexts to enhance the teaching and learning of Indigenous languages and LCTLs with technology. Articles that go beyond describing technological tools and multimodal instruction by reporting on empirical data of actual language learning outcomes are strongly encouraged. 

To be considered for this special issue, which will appear in Volume 29, Issue 2 in February of 2025, please submit a title and a 500-word abstract through this online form by June 1, 2023.

Publication Schedule 

February 1, 2023: Call for papers 

June 1, 2023: Submission deadline for abstracts 

June 15, 2023: Invitation for authors to submit full manuscripts

November 1, 2023: Submission of the first drafts of full manuscripts 

July 1, 2024: Submission of revised manuscripts 

November 1, 2024: Submission of the final drafts of manuscripts

February 2025: Publication of final manuscripts in the special issue

For Further Information 

Please contact the Managing Editor at llt@hawaii.edu with questions. 

References

Auld, G. (2002). The role of the computer in learning Ndjébbana. Language Learning & Technology, 6(2), 41–58. https://doi.org/10125/25159 

Godwin-Jones, R. (2013). The technological imperative in teaching and learning less commonly taught languages. Language Learning & Technology, 17(1), 7–19. https://doi.org/10125/24502 

Guerrero-Rodríguez, P., Lomicka Anderson, L., & Lord, G. (2022). SIFTR-ing through the development of cultural awareness at home and abroad. Foreign Language Annals, 55(2), 435–454. https://doi.org/10.1111/flan.12617 

McHenry, T. (2002). Words as big as the screen: Native American languages and the internet. Language Learning & Technology, 6(2), 102–115. https://doi.org/10125/25164 

Olthuis, M.-L., & Gerstenberger, C.-V. (2019). Strengthening Indigenous languages through language technology: The case of Aanaar Saami in Finland. In T. L. McCarthy, S. E. Nicholas, & G. Wigglesworth (Eds.), A world of Indigenous languages: Politics, pedagogies, and prospects for language reclamation (pp. 153–171). Multilingual Matters.

Trye, D., Keegan, T. T., Mato, P., & Apperley, M. (2022). Harnessing Indigenous Tweets: The Reo Māori Twitter corpus. Language Resources and Evaluation, 56, 1229–1268. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10579-022-09580-w