LANGUAGE
ACROSS
THE CURRICULUM-BEd Notes
Unit 2 – Understanding language across the curriculum
Prepared by
Sabarish P
Contents
Linguistic plurality & multicultural education in India
Stages of an Multilingual Education (MLE)
Multilingualism – Indian context
Linguistic plurality & multicultural education in India
Multilingualism is the use of more than two languages, either by an individual speaker or by a community of speakers. Multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population.
"Multiculturalism" is the co-existence of diverse cultures, where culture includes racial, religious, or cultural groups and is manifested in customary behaviours, cultural assumptions and values, patterns of thinking, and communicative styles.
Multilingual Education typically refers to "first-language-first" education, that is, schooling which begins in the mother tongue and transitions to additional languages. Multicultural education refers to any form of education or teaching that incorporates the histories, texts, values, beliefs, and perspectives of people from different cultural backgrounds.
Stages of a Multilingual Education (MLE)
A widespread understanding of MLE programs (UNESCO, 2003, 2005) suggests that instruction take place in the following stages:
Stage I - learning takes place entirely in the child's home language (L1)
Stage II - building fluency in the mother tongue (L1).
Introduction of oral Language 2 (L2).
Stage III - building oral fluency in L2.
Introduction of literacy in L2.
Stage IV - using both L1 and L2 for lifelong learning.
The School structure – INDIA
Children enter school at the age of four. They do
2 years – nursery or kindergarten
4 years – primary (1st to 4th)
3 years – upper primary (5th to 7th)
3 years – secondary (8th to 10th)
2 years – higher secondary (11th to 12th)
After that……???
The School structure – INDIA (New)
Children enter school at the age of four. They do
2 years – Pre primary
5 years – primary (1st to 5th)
3 years – middle (6th to 8th)
2 years – secondary (9th to 10th)
2 years – senior secondary (11th to 12th)
After that……???
Multilingualism – Indian context
India is home to two major linguistic families: Indo-Aryan (hindustani, odia, bengali, punjabi etc.,) (spoken by about 75 per cent of the population) and Dravidian (spoken by about 25 per cent in the four southern states). India does not have a mother tongue, it has mother tongues. Besides 22 Scheduled languages, the Indian Census recorded 1576 rationalized languages as well as 1796 other mother-tongues.
Assamese, Bengali, Bodo, Dogri, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Maithili, Malayalam, Marathi, Meitei, Nepali, Oriya, Panjabi, Sanskrit, Santali, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu."The highest literary awards in the country are given in 24 literary languages in India by the National Academy of Letters, called the ‘Sahitya Akademi’, but newspapers and periodicals – 3592 in number, are published in 35 Indian languages every year.
Having recognized the importance of English as an instrument of knowledge dissemination as well as commerce as well as maintenance of international relations, a provision was left to extend the use of English language in the Article 343 on ‘Official language of the Union’ - “for all the official purposes of the Union” (for 15 years). Every child is born with a language acquisition device having innate properties that plays a role in acquiring knowledge of language.
Multilingualism is of two kinds
Elite – Language learned in a formal setting through planned and regular instruction as in a school system.
Neighbourhood – Here the language is acquired in a natural setting, acquired through the interaction with people speaking different languages.
The Indian education system is truly multilingual in its character. The Bombay Municipal Corporation runs primary schools in nine languages. The Karnataka State runs primary schools in eight languages. The secondary schools in West Bengal give their students the option to choose from 14 languages.
Multilingualism - NCF 2005
Language teaching needs to be multilingual not only in terms of the number of languages offered to children but also in terms of evolving strategies that would use the multilingual classroom as a resource. Children will receive multilingual education from the outset. In the non-Hindi speaking states, children learn Hindi.
In the case of Hindi speaking states, children learn a language not spoken in their area. Sanskrit may also be studied as Modern Indian Language in addition to these languages. At later stages, study of classical and foreign languages may be introduced.
The Three Language Formula which emerged as a political consensus on languages in school education was a strategy (not a policy) to accommodate at least three languages within the ten years of schooling.
According to this formula, every child has to learn the following:
1 The mother tongue or the regional language;
2. The official language of the union or the associate official language of the Union so long as it exists (official language of the union is Hindi and its associate official language is English);
3. Modern Indian language or a foreign language, not covered under (1) & (2) above and other than that used as the medium of instruction.
Multilingual children not only have control over several different languages but they are also academically more creative and socially more tolerant. The wide range of linguistic collection that they control equips them to negotiate different social situations more efficiently. Multilingualism in India is widely praised by the scholars.
The National Curriculum Framework 2005 (NCF) endorses the stand of human beings having an innate language faculty. Children come to school with communicative competence in their language or languages. They enter the school not only with thousands of words but also with control of the rules that govern the complex and rich structure of language at the level of sounds, words, sentences and discourse.
Language teaching needs to be multilingual not only in terms of the number of languages offered to children but also in terms of evolving strategies that would use the multilingual classroom as a resource. Children will receive multilingual education from the outset. In the non-Hindi speaking states, children learn Hindi.
In the case of Hindi speaking states, children learn a language not spoken in their area. Sanskrit may also be studied as Modern Indian Language in addition to these languages. At later stages, study of classical and foreign languages may be introduced.
Multilingualism, according to the NCF, must be used as a resource, a classroom strategy and a goal by a creative language teacher. This is not only the best use of a resource readily available, but also a way of ensuring that every child feels secure and accepted, and that no one is left behind on account of her linguistic background.
At the basic primary stage, a child's languages must be accepted as they are with almost no attempt to correct them. From Class 3 onwards, oracy and literacy will be tools for learning and for developing higher-order communicative skills and critical thinking. By Class 4, if rich and interesting exposure is made available, the child will herself acquire the standard variety and the rules of correct orthography, but care must be taken to honour and respect the child's own language(s). It should be accepted that errors are a necessary part of the process of learning and that children will correct themselves only when they are ready to do so.
Instead of focusing attention on errors and 'hard spots', it would be much better to spend time providing children comprehensible, interesting and challenging inputs. On language evaluation, the NCF says that it need not be tied to "achievement" with respect to particular syllabi but must be reoriented to the measurement of language proficiency. Ongoing assessment could document a learner's progress through the portfolio mode.
Prepared by
Sabarish P
(MSc Physics, MEd, NET)Contact: pklsabarish@gmail.com
