Speaking their language: The power of learning in your mother tongue

When we recently ran our AI and Data Literacy for the Wine Industry online course with Harvard Data Science Review in partnership with the Vine to Mind Conference, something remarkable happened. A significant number of participants chose to interact with our AI Tutor, Paski, in their own language. This wasn’t just a user preference, but a quiet declaration: “I learn best when I learn as myself.”

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In this course, over 600 interactions with Paski occurred in languages other than English, including German, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Hindi, Macedonian, and even Afrikaans. The outcome of a participant’s interactions with Paski became the foundation from which their personal work context was integrated with course materials, to create a personalised portion of the curriculum, including a unique podcast in their mother tongue.

But language is more than a medium, it is a foundation for learning, identity, and participation. As UNESCO (2003) highlights in its landmark report Education in a Multilingual World, using the learner’s first language in education leads to better overall academic performance, improved self-confidence, and greater classroom participation.

When participants interact with Paski and listen to a podcast in their mother tongue, the learning process becomes culturally relevant and cognitively familiar. It removes the invisible barrier of translation and lets ideas flow naturally.

We often talk about “personalised learning” in terms of data and pacing. But deeper personalisation for a global audience includes language. The language you think in, joke in, and dream in. The language you learn in.

As we shape the future of digital learning, we have a responsibility to keep linguistic belonging at the centre. Because when students can speak and learn in their own language, they don’t just engage better, they become the authors of their own growth.

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