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| Multilingualism in classrooms will increase learning outcomes | | | Vijay Garg
Over 30% of children enrolled in primary schools in India face a moderate to severe learning disadvantage because they are taught through a language they do not speak or understand when they first join school. These include children belonging to Adivasi communities in remote habitations; children in inter-state border areas; children of migrant labours, including seasonal migrants; children who speak languages that are considered ‘dialects’ of the standard language used at school but are different (for example Bagheli, Wagdi, Bundeli-speaking children who study through Hindi), and of course, those children who study in English-medium schools without an environment of support for the language at home.
Learning in schools happens using language, whether it is children talking, listening, thinking, collaborating with other children, reading, or writing. Research shows that learning through a familiar language that children understand well promotes self-esteem and confidence that is so crucial for early learning, supports the learning of additional languages, makes classrooms more active and learner-centered, results in better comprehension and learning in all subjects, and promotes creativity, expression, higher order thinking, and reasoning.
Sense of familiarity
The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 and the National Curriculum Framework for the Foundational Stage (NCF-FS) 2023 emphasise the use of children’s first language or the most familiar language in the initial learning phase. Students can be exposed to second and third language sequentially over time. The NEP also promotes natural exposure to multiple languages for children from an early age since children can acquire oral languages easily.
The NEP and NCF also laud the virtues of multilingualism and its use in the classroom. However, these policy formulations are not easy to implement, given the complex language situations in India. Also, there is little reliable data available about languages that children understand and speak when they first join school at age 5 or 6. Speech patterns change over short distances and it is sometimes difficult to assign a specific language label to the languages spoken by children as a few local/regional languages may influence them. There could also be multiple home languages spoken by children even in one classroom. To complicate things further, it is estimated that about 15% of primary school teachers do not understand or speak the language that is most familiar to children in their schools.
Since all languages spoken by children cannot be made Mediums of Instruction (MoI), it is important to ensure that when a child is studying a language that she does not understand or speak well when she joins the school, her strong or familiar language is given space in formal teaching, at least while speaking. A lot of conversation, higher-order thinking tasks, and expressions by children can initially be in the children’s strong language, slowly shifting to a higher usage of the language used as MoI, while never removing the children’s familiar language from the classroom.
One of the strategies that work best in the initial years of schooling in situations where children are emerging bilinguals, gradually learning a less familiar language, is for the teacher and children to use a mix of languages that are most suited to the language repertoire of children at any point in time. This will help children comprehend better, express themselves freely, and promote their emotional adjustment which is crucial for better learning. Such an approach to teaching requires the creation of a strong multilingual awareness in the education ecosystem that promotes the simultaneous development of two or more languages.
Learning three languages
While societal multilingualism is the norm in India where most people use two or more languages (or in a mixed form) in everyday life, our schools often do not reflect this multilingual reality in the teaching and learning process. The NEP 2020 specifies that children should learn three languages with reasonable proficiency, at least two of which should be native Indian languages. A multilingual society requires an inclusive approach to teaching and learning. A multilingual approach will also ensure that children develop strong language and literacy skills in English which is a strong aspiration. Some of the core principles of a multilingual approach to education include:
1. Extensive use of the children’s most familiar language formally for teaching and learning.
2. New or unfamiliar languages are taught with the support of the mother language.
3. A multilingual classroom reflects tolerance and mutual respect for all children’s languages and cultures.
4. A multilingual approach to teaching and learning should be used across the curriculum for all subjects.
5. A multilingual and multicultural approach aims to bring children’s local contexts and experiences into the classroom.
Strong oral expressions with logical thinking and reasoning, fluent reading with deep inferential comprehension, and an ability to express oneself in writing are skills at the core of success for our youth in this century. This will require an overhaul of language teaching practices in our country and the centerpiece of this reform has to be a multilingual approach to education.
Vijay Garg Retired Principal Educational columnist Eminent Educationist street kour Chand MHR Malout Punjab |
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