Part I.pdf - MTB-MLE Network

CHAPTER 6Field Visit and Reflections onObservation of Pilot ProgrammeSummary of Field Visit to Lancang CountyThe workshop participants traveled to Lancang County via Simao in order to visit the pilot programmein multilingual education for the Lahu people. The first site visit was to Banli village.In Banli, participants had the opportunity to observe a bilingual literacy class, and interview bothliteracy facilitators and literacy learners. Banli is an administrative village under which there areten natural villages, with 303 households and a total population of 1460. Most of the villagers areLahu people, but some belong to other ethnic groups such as Wa and Hani.Most of the literacy learners in the Lahu pilot project in Banli village were women. The participantswere impressed by the happiness of the learners and their active participation in literacy learning,as well as their great progress in bilingual literacy over two years of classes. Before this projectwas implemented, community members received literacy education in the national language only,and the learners reported difficulty in studying Chinese. However, they now have a bridge fromreading and writing in their own language to the official language. Music and song appear to beimportant aspects of Lahu culture. A song was shared with the workshop participants. The lyricsof the Lahu song are:Long ago we had our scriptLater, it disappeared for a very long timeWe don’t know whyNow it comes backWe are happyDue to adverse weather conditions, participants were unable to visit the second project site in Nanuokevillage.43