{"id":50764,"date":"2020-01-19T23:19:30","date_gmt":"2020-01-20T07:19:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/world.edu\/?p=50764"},"modified":"2020-01-20T07:41:55","modified_gmt":"2020-01-20T15:41:55","slug":"global-storybooks-from-arabic-to-zulu-freely-available-digital-tales-in-50-languages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/world.edu\/global-storybooks-from-arabic-to-zulu-freely-available-digital-tales-in-50-languages\/","title":{"rendered":"Global Storybooks: From Arabic to Zulu, freely available digital tales in 50+ languages"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nGlobally,\u00a0750 million youth and adults do not know how to read and write<\/a>\u00a0and 250 million children are failing to acquire basic literacy skills. Literacy is central to education and plays an important role in\u00a0development and peace<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In response to this global educational challenge, our team based at the University of British Columbia developed the open multilingual literacy portal\u00a0Global Storybooks<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This portal hosts custom sites with multilingual open-licensed books for over 40 countries and regions on five continents. Our vision is to help democratize global flows of information and resources, to facilitate language learning \u2014 including Indigenous languages \u2014 and to promote literacy.<\/p>\n

One of the United Nations\u2019\u00a0Sustainable Development Goals<\/a>\u00a0is to achieve quality education globally by the year 2030. High illiteracy rates among children are partly due to a lack of appropriate reading materials in languages familiar to children. Research has shown that children learn to read best in their\u00a0family\u2019s home language, which also establishes a strong foundation for learning any additional languages<\/a>.<\/p>\n

We believe the Global Storybooks project has the potential to promote quality education, literacy and multilingualism worldwide.\u00a0Open educational resources (OER)<\/a>\u00a0have much potential to address the lack of reading materials in poorly resourced communities, facilitate language learning and reduce inequities between communities and nations.<\/p>\n

From 150+ African languages<\/strong><\/h4>\n

The origins of this Global Storybooks digital project are found in the\u00a0African Storybook<\/a>\u00a0initiative, which digitizes and makes freely available under an open license over 1,000 original stories in over 150 African languages, as well as English, French and Portuguese.<\/p>\n

The South African organization\u00a0Saide<\/a>\u00a0began developing this site in 2013, with funding from the UK charity\u00a0Comic Relief<\/a>\u00a0and research support from UBC scholars.<\/p>\n

Grounded in a shared vision of global literacy and open technology, our UBC team collaborated on the development of\u00a0Storybooks Canada<\/a>, with seed funding from\u00a0UBC Language Sciences<\/a>.\u00a0Launched in 2018<\/a>, Storybooks Canada was the first of our\u00a0Global Storybooks<\/a>\u00a0sites. It has a growing\u00a0team<\/a>, with a range of funders, including\u00a0Education without Borders<\/a>, the\u00a0Peter Wall Institute<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Mitacs<\/a>. It is built on a curated selection of 40 openly licensed stories from the African Storybook that have been repurposed for a Canadian and global audience.<\/p>\n

The stories have been translated into 19 of the most widely spoken languages in Canada, with studio-quality audio versions.\u00a0An additional 10 languages<\/a>\u00a0are still in the process of being translated or recorded. Many of the translations and recordings, which are ongoing, are done by international graduate student volunteers with an interest in literacy and language learning.<\/p>\n

Indigenous languages and stories<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Through the Global Storybooks portal, users can also access\u00a0Indigenous Storybooks<\/a>, developed in collaboration with Haida scholar\u00a0Sara Davidson<\/a>\u00a0of the University of the Fraser Valley. This collection is based on the open licensed stories created by the\u00a0Little Cree Books<\/a>\u00a0project at the University of Alberta.<\/p>\n

The Indigenous Storybooks site now offers translations of these stories in Swampy Cree, Plains Cree, Haida (Old Masset) and Haida (Skidegate), as well as in English, French and Spanish. Recently, volunteers have also translated these stories into Huichol and Huastec, Indigenous languages of Mexico.<\/p>\n

As news of Storybooks Canada has spread internationally, many scholars, educators and community agencies have invited us to collaborate on the development of localized sites for their communities, based on the Global Storybooks platform.<\/p>\n

Features and benefits<\/strong><\/h4>\n

This platform has been specifically designed to support the development of mother tongue literacy, bilingualism, and multilingualism with the following features:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Single-click access: The stories can be reached in a single click.<\/li>\n
  2. User-friendly layout: Easy to navigate and can support self-directed learning.<\/li>\n
  3. Audio and print: Promotes reading by linking sounds and symbols.<\/li>\n
  4. Mobile-first design: Websites can be easily viewed on any device, including cell phones, tablets and desktop computers.<\/li>\n
  5. Parallel texts: Users can toggle between different translations of the same story. The more familiar language helps to scaffold understanding of the less-familiar language.<\/li>\n
  6. Downloading: Stories can be downloaded in different PDF layouts, including monolingual or bilingual and regular or wordless\/imageless versions. Users can also download in a landscape format (for reading on screens) or a booklet format (for printing).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n