An Educational Project Based on the YouTuber Phenomenon for the Development of a Minority Language
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This paper presents an educational project based on the You Tuber phenomenon for the development of a minority language. The manuscript is well written and organized.
The authors need to explain the technical reason for the following questions.
- The authors must incorporate the algorithms of the proposed model without that it is very difficult to give any conclusion of the proposed manuscript.
- The computation mathematical part is missing in this manuscript.
- The authors should compare their proposed model with the existing model to show the any improvement of the proposed manuscript.
- It seems like that the authors have done only literature survey and use only theoretical concept. They have not validated by using any kind of computation mathematical or any programming language.
- The manuscript don’t have sufficient novelty.
Author Response
This article is mainly based on a theoretical review on the use of YouTube in minority languages. The statistical results are basic, because the tool we used to measure the experience was very simple and we don´t pretend to go any further, as the reviewer said in section 4.
However, we think that is an innovative manuscript, because the Basque language is a pre-Indo-European language, survived the romance languages, and it is a minority and minoritized language in some territories. Of course, Basque language does not a substantial digital presence on the Internet, and this experience has two objectives: to make de Basque Language known and to increase its use among young people.
Reviewer 2 Report
The manuscript examined the development of Basque, which is a minority language, through the experience on the social network youtube, that is, being a YouTuber. The introduction clearly explained the status, methods: The Basque government has made 10 suggestions and 24 proposals to improve the digital environment of Basque. And, reasons for choosing the youtube platform: It provides a channel for certain groups and interests as well as interconnections of media platforms and products. This section, although rather lengthy, is sequential and leads the reader to the goal of this article.
In section2, the authors first showed us the methods and summarized the data that they have got in some tables to indicate that students primarily communicated in Basque in formal academic areas of the faculty where teaching, administrative, or service staff are present. But at the end of this part, they showed that, Before and after the project, a test was used to analyze the students' linguistic habits, in which they had to specify which language they talked with each member of the collaborative group, using the following scale: 1) only in Basque, 2) primarily in Basque, 3) primarily in Spanish, and 4) exclusively in Spanish.
In the results section, the authors wanted to show that, during the project's duration, the usage of the minority language as the primary means of communication among the working group members increased. The obtained data will be presented as well as analyzed and commented on the results. It is more reasonable to show how the authors do the project, with whom, where to do it, how much, what methods to use for data analysis. So, the explanations will be more obvious.
This manuscript is concluded that: for two reasons, the creation of transmedia narratives should be incorporated into teacher training: first, as shown in graph 3 of this paper, the choice of language for communication between colleagues can change; and second, languages and their identifying characteristics are introduced through real texts and audiovisual content. The discussion section guides readers to information on organizations around the world with different implementation forms for having these results. Since then, the results of this paper have not been analyzed effectively and thoroughly. Therefore, the authors should consider analyzing the results first and then making comments and additions to strengthen their point of view. However, the manuscript in general also gives readers an overview of the language minority problem in Europe and how they deal with it.
Other confusion can be listed in this manuscript. The manuscript references is not the Journal style. The manuscript references does not link to the sources, readers are unable to fully trust it. The writers must specify which other work the information is taken from, as well as where the arguments originate. And, The last paragraph on page 9 mentions table 3, but in the footnotes of the tables in the references, there is no place where it says table 3, misleading readers and difficult to follow. However, this references is a tremendous effort and needs some consideration to improve and correct for being better.
Author Response
1) We insert in section 3 the following text:
"The future teachers, bilingual young people from the Basque Autonomous Community, carried out this project. As already explained, students of different academic levels took part in this collaborative project. The data collected in a graph with a scale of 1 to 4 (see section 2), before and after the project, has been analysed with Microsoft SPSS software."
2) We removed the name table 3 by graph 3.
3)
We corrected the references.
Reviewer 3 Report
Dear Authors,
thank you for submitting this manuscript.
But in order to be published online, there are some amendments you have to perform.
Firstly, the structure of the paper could be improved. The introduction includes information that I would include in a next section regarding theoretical background. The Results section is too short and the ideas from the discussions section seems to be more appropriate for the beginning of the paper.
Then, it is not very clear from the beginning why this paper fits for the journal Sustainability. Please include more details about how this study could be a contribution in terms of sustainability.
I think the ideas from the 4th section (Discussion) should be mostly included in the introductory part where is explained the utility and importance of this research.
The study conducted is not sufficiently detailed. It would be useful to know how it was performed, which limitations do you have, etc....
Results section is too short and needs more explanations.
The section Discussion should be revised. This section should include comments about the study conducted, how the results are in line with other studies, or comparisons with other studies, how the results could be used for future or how the study can be extended.....
Also, I would extend a little bit the theoretical background with information about how online resources can help to learn a language, about all the possibilities (language apps, online courses, tandem learning, etc.). Please mention also the factors influencing the learning or use of a language.
Thank you for considering my observations.
Best regards
Author Response
We changed the title of section 1: Theoric introduction
We specified in the results section, we changed the next paragraph: The future teachers, bilingual young people from the Basque Autonomous Community, carried out this project. As already explained, students of different academic levels took part in this collaborative project. The data collected in a graph with a scale of 1 to 4 (see section 2), before and after the project, has been analysed with Microsoft SPSS software.
Details about how this study could be a contribution in terms of sustainability are in section 1 and section 3, we made reference to: Regional Minister of Culture and Language Policy and Sustainable Development Goal Number 11 of the Euskadi 2030 Agenda.
Reviewer 4 Report
This an oportune paper sharing an interesting teacher education experience; it needs some attention with referencing revision and explicit indication of pages numbers of citations that do not provide tehm.
Author Response
We corrected the citations and page numbers.
Reviewer 5 Report
It is a really interesting and innovative article.
Authors should check one more time the use of e-references in the paper.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
We corrected the citations and page numbers.
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The paper can be accepted in its present form.
Author Response
Thank you for your review.
Reviewer 2 Report
Both the format and content of the article have been significantly revised. The authors have marked links to references, and in the conclusion, they outline the article's goals as well as how the authors completed this study. However, the discussion is broad and lengthy, focusing primarily on theoretical investigations.
Authors should consider fixing the author information, and at the end of the article, include a conclusion to clarify the content, i.e., establish a new section
Author Response
We included a conclusión to clarify the content and established a new section.
Reviewer 3 Report
Dear Authors,
thank you for submitting an improved version of your manuscript.
Unfortunately, I don't feel like all my previous comments were taken into account. In my opinion, this paper still has some flaws.
The sections 3 and 4 would need some improvements.
Section 3 is too short. In this way, the paper structure is unbalanced.
You states at the beginning: "Thus, we aim to answer the following question: does the creation of a digital resource in Basque influence the use of the language among the members of the work group? In addition, does the gender of these young participants have any bearing on the use of the language?" - Could you please explain in the conclusions the answers to these questions. I assume a more than a yes/no answer.
An more in-depth analysis of the results implications would be recommended.
Author Response
We included a conclusión to clarify the content and established a new section. We expanded section 3.
