With a multitude of problems and the diversity of languages, the medium of instruction remains a topic of impassioned debate.
VIEW
Shabana Shaikh
The National Curriculum Framework 2005, which lays down broad guidelines for teaching and learning, sums up the views of experts when it says: “A renewed effort should be made to implement the three-language formula, stressing on the recognition of children’s home language(s) or mother tongue(s) as the best medium of instruction. These include tribal languages.” The framework recommends that English should find a place with other Indian languages.
With a multitude of problems and the diversity of languages, the medium of instruction remains a topic of impassioned debate. Teaching in the mother tongue fuels pride, but English is here to stay. Fostering multi-lingualism in our schools, however, is far from smooth sailing.
The complexity of the issue is addressed by a paper on multi-lingual education brought out by UNESCO in 2003, which looks at the “contrasting and deeply felt positions” that the choice of language of instruction evokes in people. “Questions of identity, nationhood and power are closely linked to the use of specific languages in the classroom. Language itself, moreover, possesses its own dynamics and is constantly undergoing processes of both continuity and change, impacting upon the communication modes of different societies as it evolves,” says the introduction to the paper.
The paper supports multilingual education, and points to a resolution adopted by UNESCO in 1999, which says that the “specific needs of particular, culturally and linguistically distinct communities can only be addressed by multilingual education”.
Internationally, experiments by experts have pointed to the fact that one learns best through one’s mother tongue. “This is also the basis of UNESCO’s recommendations on multi-lingual education.
When English is the medium of instruction, many children could get “thrown out of the system” if they have not been exposed to the language in domains such as homes or playgrounds. According to the study by Nepalese scholar, K. P Malla, English as a medium of instruction was in itself such a frightening prospect for many of the students that they chose to drop out of schools.
If children learn in English, they are often not exposed to the literature in their mother tongue. A major part of the linguistic experience comes from literature. One way of tackling this problem is to teach English as a subject well.
Human child is the most helpless and most dependent at its infancy and requires the longest period of nursing among all the living beings. It is only natural that the language he or she picks up from and with the mother shapes and influences the mind of the child. This explains the name of mother tongue and the emotional identification of the child with that tongue.
Shabana Shaikh is Principal with AKI’s Kurla Girls high school in Mumbai
Counterview
Gulam Arif Khan
I agree with educationists that the child understands better in the mother tongue, but they do not do well later. It is not just about the language; the resources available to a student in vernacular medium are likely to be less as well.
Students learning in regional languages do not have the kind of resources they need, as English books, for instance, on Physics are not translated into their mother tongue. Knowledge is available only to those who understand English, and initiatives have not come from regional languages for translation. While some higher education courses are available in regional languages, the demand for these is less.
Education in the mother tongue medium assumes greater importance in the context of early education of a child in general and the minority child in particular. There is a great deal of misconception about mother tongue education.
The bilingual schooling of the transfer model is an academic strategy designed for the minority children whose home language is in different form than that of the school language i.e English or whose language for learning is different from their language in use.
It aims at a smooth transfer to the English language by the end of the primary stage. Its basic assumptions and steps are very simple. Firstly, it assumes that the linguistic wealth the child brings to the classroom must be fully exploited in the interest of good education. Secondly it envisages an orderly step by step transfer to the English language.
Gulam Arif Khan is Export Manager with Kolsite Mumbai, and President, Qartaba Wisdom Club.
(As told to M. Hanif Lakdawala)
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April 2008 |