Multilingual Education in India
Dr. Chhaya Sawhney, Gargi College, Delhi University
Objectives
• To develop an understanding of what Multilingual Education means and entails
• To critically evaluate the need for it
• To examine the benefits of ME and the challenges that are inherent in its implementation
Multilingual Education
• Use of two or more languages as media of instruction in subjects other than the languages themselves
• Involves high level of multilingualism and multi-literacy at the end of formal schooling
• Can begin with mainly one language (mother tongue), with other teaching languages added later (example: Kond, Oriya, Hindi)
• Can involve developing mother tongues further
Setting the Context
• India: a multilingual country
• Pride in pluralism and heterogeneity
• Hierarchy of languages and power structures
• Linguistic Apartheid
• Census 2011: 19,569 raw mother tongues; 1652 languages reduced to 121 (1962-2011)
The Problem
• Adivasis/tribes in India
• Three language formula- a failure
• Mother tongues clubbed under a major regional language
• No textbooks in mother tongue
• No/inadequate teacher training in ME education
Outcomes
• Drop-outs in an unresponsive system; alien world
• Data suggests: 50% tribal children never reach school; 20% make it to grade 5; 8% pass
• Devalues culture, their languages and their identities
• 3-5 years to comprehend the teacher-too late
• Multilingual world of vanishing languages, a world of unequal languages
• Somewhere the last speaker of a language dying
• Languages are getting marginalised
• https://youtu.be/iaPOW3ZYDIk
Status of Languages
• More than 83 million tribal people in our country
• Part of a system where children internalize
• some languages are more prestigious, more useful and powerful than their own
• Their own languages have no use for them
• Endangered languages: marginalised, impoverished and socially excluded
• Weakened by social, educational, statutory, official and legal neglect
The Need for Multilingual Education
• For social justice, human dignity, democracy, and being able to find a voice in classrooms
• Experiments in some states of Orissa
• MEL Education: nurturing and liberating; sheltering and expanding
• Papua New Guinea: benefits of ML Education
Challenges
• Transition model or transfer
• When does one go from MT (mother tongue) to OT (other tongue)?
• Issues of diversity of practices: do we homogenize languages or build on heterogeneity?
Conclusion
• Refer to Youtube video
• Multilingual diversity must be maintained
• Focus on developing materials in mother tongues
• Teacher training essential
Suggested Readings
Advani, S. (2004). Pedagogy and politics: The case of English textbooks. In
Anne-Vaugier Chatterjee (Ed.), Education and democracy in India. Delhi: Manohar Publishers. (pp. 101-112)
Agnihotri, R. K. (2010). Multilinguality and the teaching of English in India. EFL Journal, 1. Hyderabad: The English and Foreign Languages University. (pp. 1-13)
Cummins, J. (2001). Empowering minority students: A framework for introduction. Harvard Educational Review, 71(4), 649-675.
Freire, P. (2000). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Continuum.
Kumar, K. (1996). Two Worlds. In Learning from Conflict. Orient Longman. (pp59-74)
