Term
Fall 2023
Capstone
Capstone Project
Degree Name
MAESL
Facilitator(s)
Laura Halldin
Content Expert
Tammy Johnson
Abstract
Within my personal and professional experience, I have observed that the Hmong oral language has declined since the Hmong people arrived in the United States. Over the past 50 years in the United States, there have been growing concerns regarding the decline in usage of the Hmong language within Hmong children. In my personal experience, my children who are second generation Hmong, only the five older children are bilingual while my three younger children only speak English. As for my seven grandchildren, who are third generation Hmong, they only speak English. They do not understand nor speak the Hmong language. As for my professional experience as a teacher (EL and mainstream), for the last 19 years and being a first-generation Hmong, I have seen second and third generation Hmong students not able to understand nor speak in Hmong. As well as not knowing, how to read or write the Hmong language, is concerning. With this discovery of the Hmong language being diminished and disappearing, it has led me to this capstone and the project of writing Hmong early childhood children’s books. This project consists of 15 Hmong books, 12 of which are picture books made up of colors, numbers, shapes and the Hmong alphabet (RPA). The last three books are easy reader books to support beginner Hmong readers. These Hmong early childhood children's books are not bilingual books like those that are in circulation. The books in this project are monolingual and are solely written in the Hmong language using the White Hmong dialect. With these Hmong early childhood books, it is my hope that they will be able to help in promoting, maintaining, revitalizing and exposing the Hmong language. These books are to provide Hmong children with literature in the Hmong language in the hope to sustain the language. In addition, it is the hope that these books will be used in the classroom both in Hmong charter schools and in the public schools to promote the Hmong language.
Project Type
Language
Keywords
Community Building, Curriculum, Early Childhood, ESL/ ELLs, Foreign Language, Literacy, Multicultural Education, Parent Involvement, Reading, Writing
Recommended Citation
Yang, Choua, "The Disappearing of the Hmong Language" (2023). School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects. 982.
https://digitalcommons.hamline.edu/hse_cp/982
dc_type
text
dc_publisher
DigitalCommons@Hamline
dc_format
application/pdf
dc_source
School of Education Student Capstone Projects