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50 Responses to “How do we stop school languages being a barrier to learning?”

1. carole bloch says:
   February 10th, 2010 at 8:48 PM

   Hi Helen,

   Just to let you know that since 1992 our project, PRAESA has done research, training and materials development for mother tongue based bilingual education in South Africa, and in other parts of Africa. We’ve made a couple of DVD’s which might be useful, and have a series of occasional papers that can be downloaded from http://www.praesa.org.za (though not everything is on there – the website is incomplete at present).

2. Cecilia Soriano says:
   February 12th, 2010 at 2:34 AM

   The Popular Education for People’s Education, a founding member of E-Net Philippines did an encyclopedic-dictionary that documented the most used terms in the Kankana-ey language according to categories identified by a community in Atok, Benguet. This Kankana-ey dictionary was a long process of documenting stories, words and meanings with a group of community educators called Association of Bonglo Local educators.

   The local research and the encyclopedic-dictionary has become a resource for the mentoring of children in Grades 1-3 who have difficulty in reading. In Bonglo Elementary School, the repetition rate was high. When PEPE did a mentoring using the local language and stories in teaching Reading, Math and Science, the performance of students improved. In fact, in Grade 1, the repetition rate was decreased by more than 50%.

   The audio visual materials are also in local languages. There was an attempt to put together storybooks in Kankana-ey but a debate among community elders on the version of stories halted the initiative.

   Based on E-Net Philippines’ linking up with members with indigenous programs, a key strategy in MLE is linking up classroom learning with community education where the community elders are able to do storytelling. In the process, teachers who do not speak the mother tongue and who are not familiar with the indigenous life ways are assisted in their teaching. These teachers then proceed with linking the stories to classroom lessons.

3. Muhammad Zaman Sagar says:
   February 12th, 2010 at 11:02 AM

   Hi everybody
   Here in Pakistan we have started MLE pilot schools in three languages, i.e. Gawri, Palula and Torwali in the northern parts of the country. it was quite difficult for us to establish these schools in these areas where the tribal customs are followed a lot. in our case we are ourselves from those communities, so we have approached the elders or one can say the influential people of the area and we make them understand the benefit of the MLE program. So, now by the grace of God our schools are running successfully and this year we are opening some new schools (classes) in those communities. the biggest hurdle for us was to involve the female because of local culture and Talibanization, but thanks God our most of the teachers are female now and we are proud of that.

4. Prof.J.C.Sharma says:
   February 12th, 2010 at 11:14 AM

   This is unfortunate situation that children have to use a language in the school which they donot speak at home and donot understand.They spend too much energy in learnig the school language before they learn literacy skills.I donot blame the education planners , administrators and linguists alone. The blame is to be shared by the parents and society also as they have poor esteem for their own languages.The good example is of demand for English in India from the very first standard and many schools have introduced English even in rural areas from first standard.There is a need to change the attitude of persons towards their own language and they should denmand to have initial education in their mother tongues only

5. Jessie Spenceley says:
   February 12th, 2010 at 11:47 PM

   Dear Helen,

   I work in a school in London, an academy. We have a large cohort of EAL learners who represent in excess of 50 different countries and languages.

   Frequently, these learners have nil roman script teaching or English education. On occasion we have learners who start education at age 11+. Whilst our contexts are very different we do share the same challenge in that school is sometimes the only environment in which they encounter English.

   It is much easier teaching English to a home language literate child, as the concept of letters, combinations, decoding etc. does not seem ‘random’.

   Although I have not researched identity and the changing identity, nor done case studies at school. The change of attitude and an establishment of a ‘new self’ linked to a new language can often be negative for boys as they begin to reject their own cultural identity for one similar to that of their peers. In turn this break impacts home life, heritage culture and disempowers adults, as reference points become distorted.

   There is also socio/psychological aspect of identity in 2nd generation learners, and learners’ attitudes to same language New Arrivals.

   I think that when it comes to language acquisition, we must always remember that there are contextual conotations both with the language, history and ‘the capitalist west’.

   I do agree with Prof. J. C. Sharma that home language literacy skills should be taught first, in home countries. For a strong community you need cultural identity. By teaching English above a home language I believe that inadvertantly you are undermining a culture. ‘If you learn a language you learn a culture.’ In opposition, if you lose a language you lose a culture.

   It would be great to read more about your work and perhaps share ideas. I am sure that we must share issues in terms of staff’s expectations, consistency, delivery, participation etc.

6. Barbara Trudell says:
   February 13th, 2010 at 12:03 AM

   To respond to question 8 about helping children who do not speak the official language: Burkina Faso has a number of educational alternative programs aimed at giving a second chance to children who have not attended school or have dropped out. The goal of these programs, whether formal or nonformal, is to allow these kids to re-integrate into the primary school system and succeed at the primary school leaving exam. Every one of these programs is based on use of the child’s mother tongue as the medium of instruction, as well as controlled instruction in French as a second language. Not only are these programs finding good success, but they are able to teach the primary school curriculum in less time than the traditional, French-language school system is able to do. There are many important experiences to be shared from these programs; a Burkinabè research colleague and I are hoping to add to the literature available on these programs this year.

7. Saima Anwer says:
   February 14th, 2010 at 5:14 AM

   I hope after so much research and the evidence provided through programs, no one should still be debating the importance of beginning a child’s education in their own mother language. So we should now be shifting our focus to meeting the next big challenge, which is looking at ways in which a mother tongue based multi lingual education programme can be implemented in more complex situations, for example: small areas that are inhabited by people from very different ethnic and linguistic backgrounds ( which language do you prioritize?), how do you deliver this model in resource poor settings, and in areas that face so many challenges in providing even the very basics of education, and really thinking about how our model/proposal addresses some of these practical challenges. If we can demonstrate solutions to these problems, just like we have demonstrated why MLE is important, then we will be taking a major step forward in ensuring that many others, including governments, are implementing mother tongue based multi lingual education.

8. Sanjeev Rai says:
   February 14th, 2010 at 8:27 AM

   Dear Helen
   In India, most of the rural children do struggle with three-four languages in the school as they speak a different language at home, different language in community and another language as medium of instruction and an additional language as compulsory subject in the school. The situation becomes worst in case of tribal children of the country. For Instance- a child of Korku tribe,speak Korku at home, understand Hindi, English has become a compulsory subject in primary school and medium of instruction is Marathi so most of the children could not perform well and fall under category of learning disadvantage.
   The case of Muslim children of Andhra Pradesh is not very different from Korku children as they speak Urdu at home,Telgu at school and English is one of the compulsory subject in the school.
   The increased trend of migration have made condition very challenging specially for the school going children.The people of bordering state and districts do migrate every year and could not enroll their children near work place as medium of instruction differ from state to state. India has a more than 100 languages and 200 dialects but officially less than 20 are being used as medium of instruction.
   As Language is a byproduct of culture and with emergence of Global village concept, people want to be exposed with dominant languages to assure upward mobility and get access to information channels. New technologies have also make people feel the need of learning English than the local language.
   Government as well private players have been setting up English Medium schools in urban as well as rural India to cater the public demand. Now the majority of parents’ do’nt see value of teaching in mother tongue as the forward linkages have not been established. Even most of the prestigious institutes of management/Engineering/Medical/Higher studies do’nt offer courses in local languages. Competitive exams like-Civil Services/NDA/CDS have not given the options of local languages as part of the selection process.
   Digital divide has been emerging a new form of exclusion as the substantial contents have not been designed in local languages.
   The nature and content of the languages are also changing rapidly (SMS language/Indian English/ Mix of French-Bhojpoori-Kreaol in Mauritius) and should be considered while making new plans for the excluded children.
   Larger debate is required on this issue along with considering the public opinion!

9. Nurul says:
   February 14th, 2010 at 12:11 PM

   How can primary school teachers be supported to gain skills to introduce second language/s to children?

   Options:

   1. Teacher can introduce L2 after conceptualized the topic/subject in L1. when the children feels better then s/he can conduct the lesson in L2 to achieve the lesson objectives.

   2. Teacher can start talking about topics/subjects with known language (L1) to unknown language(L2) and then go for conceptualize the theme of the lesson. Then start teaching to achieve the objectives of the lesson.

   3.Teacher can start talking about topics/subjects with known language (L1) to unknown language(L2)and then conduct the lesson in L2. No need for conceptualize the topic/subject in L!.

   Thanks

10. M. Bhuvaneswari, PhD says:
    February 15th, 2010 at 7:20 AM

    1) How can primary school teachers be supported to gain skills to introduce second language/s to children & 4) How can teacher training be updated to help teachers teach second languages to children successfully?
    Both pre-service and in-service teacher education need to take onboard MT based MLE and it is both imperative and of profound valuable to have more teachers from indigenous communities formally trained as teachers
    2) How can parents be reassured that being taught in a mother-tongue and then taught a second language is likely to work? What steps should governments take to reassure parents on this?
    Sanjeev’s point about dominant language and parent’s preference is so true. In Chennai we have Urdu Medium Primary Schools run by Chennai Corporation in locations where Urdu speaking people lived in large number. However parents wanted their children to learn Tamil rather than Urdu for better future. Whereas Tamil parents prefer to send their children to ‘English-medium’ schools… Teachers made the school more attractive for parents by appointing a part-time Tamil teacher paying from their own pocket.

    1. Urdu parents believing Tamil is more valuable in Tamil Nadu and Tripura parents believing Bangla is more valuable in Bangladesh are the first step

    2. Tamil parents aspiring for Hindi or English – something more than Tamil whichever is more lucrative is the next step

    It is evident that parental preference is somewhat a myth; relative and not absolute. It is more connected to livelihood options in the name of better future rather than ‘National’ or ‘International’ language fervour.

    The first step is convincing parents and having them onboard – in Tamil Nadu, when the State Government decided in favour of Mother-tongue based (Tamil) primary education, the government lost the case because the private schools who fought against the government in court quoted CRC and highlighted medium of instruction as ‘Parents’ preference’
    Common school system / Neighbourhood schools can promote MT based MLE in a big way – when there are options / layers, parents get confused as to which is better and beneficial. It may be the state’s responsibility to decide in favour of the Child’s first language / mother tongue based on the ‘Best interest principle’ with the firm belief in all the good possible through MT based MLE
    The Mother tongue education brings back the onus to the State. The indirect encouraging of private schools and apathy towards State schools leading to low quality public schools make education of quality a distant dream for poor children. The private is unlikely to consider ‘Child’s best interest’ rather woo the parents with impossible claims.
    Mother tongue education also means reviving public schools and making education of quality a possibility for all children alike.
    We can surely document and share good examples from among the Education professionals and practitioners – I can write my story!  I am product of MT based MLE to some extent
    While our interest is often around how mother tongue becomes the tool for further learning and full cognitive development, parents’ argument is often around how the languages children learn can become tool for better earning and more ‘success’. However all these arguments test us on how clear, convinced and professional we need to be and especially in the ‘Best interest of children’.
    3) How can leaders be persuaded to adopt education in local languages if they are worried about national disunity?
    Effective integration is better than defective unity
    This can be our slogan – The pride of our diversity -only way we can reflect this is through adoption of local language in mother-tongue. A child making a good start in mother-tongue is much more likely to learn the national and foreign language and enjoy all the learning – We can drive home this message. The fears and insecurities can be addressed by this assurance
    5) What are some of the best ways to address difficulties in finding teachers who speak the children’s local languages?
    It was possible to identify and train teachers in CHT for pre-primary! It will be possible through intense efforts to evolve a team for primary and above as well. There are so many qualified young people available working with the development sector – education sector as teachers also should be possible – some intense training and investments may be the need. Start now! Invest today! –Tomorrow is too late!
    6) How can children’s literacy be supported when it’s difficult to find written forms of local languages?
    Leadership from the ethnic group and longstanding trustful relationship with the communities supports us- Bangladesh example where Save the Children UK partnered with the local communities and SIL has many lessons to offer
    7) What should donor agencies do to address these challenges? What type of leadership and funding should donors provide on language and education?
    Vision and Long-term perspective (Rather than project mode); Commitment for the cause
    8 ) Have you had any experiences of making education easier for pre or primary school children who don’t speak the official languages? What is the learning from these?
    Making pre-primary school play-way, experiential and genuinely child-friendly can take care of this. An expert opinion: In a meeting on Nursery Admission Procedures, when a head teacher shared, they want to check if the child is clear / not through a screening interview because they once had a child with autism, the Early Childhood Education present in the meeting told, “If pre-primary is the preparation for primary education and focuses on an enriched stimulating environment from which each child can pick the learning as per the child’s interest and capacity, it truly reflects the spirit of early childhood education and accommodates all children
    9) Have you had experience of helping children transition from one language of teaching to another? What learning did you get from this?
    Though I have no experience as teacher, in my case the transition from Class V to VI from Tamil medium to English medium I struggled and the time, space and understanding from parents, teachers and friends made the difference. If there was the pressure to prove and score, it would have been difficult. It was an encouraging rather than ridiculing environment. All these are possible only when there is no nasty competition or parental anxiety.
    As shared by Saima, Bangladesh has substantial evidence to prove the value of MT based MLE. In Bangladesh in the earlier project, the solution through mother-tongue-based pre-primary centers with ‘Basic Bangla’ / functional skills for children to cope in Bangla primary schools was a good example though far from being MT based MLE – it was a good start.

    10) What advice would you give to teachers managing classes where several children speak different languages at home, and national or international languages are not used in children’s home life?
    In any country that is diverse, children end up in a multi-lingual environment –whether designed or natural. ‘A start in mother-tongue’ provides innumerable advantages. The child feels more connected and the pride and identity are strong and may not feel lost. Mother tongue becomes the tool to learn another language – often an effective start in mother tongue or first language ensures good learning. If teachers understand and believe this, then they become the agents for change. Being the spokesperson for MT based MLE, the teachers need have clear messages and speak consistently

11. Stephen Massey says:
    February 15th, 2010 at 9:14 AM

    Further to the comments of Sanjeev Rai, I also agree that the private school system is hampering the switch to MT education. Here in Nepal, there is no accountability of teachers in government school (currently switching from teaching in Nepali to teaching in MT). This leads to poor performance of teachers in government schools, with high absence rates and little sense of the need to teach to actually empower children. From my own research, I discovered that it is largely acknowledged by all educational stakeholders, including teachers, that schools are run for the benefit of teaching staff and not for the benefit of children.

    Conversely, private schools have high levels of teacher accountability. This combined with the already selective nature of private schools, leads to a higher achievement of private school students, compared to government schools in which achievement is generally low. Since private schools invariably teach in English medium, this leads to the false perception amongst parents, and even educators, that the english medium teaching ITSELF leads to improved performance, thus increasing pressure for more schools to teach in English medium.

    In summary, any education, in whatever language, is only ever as good as the motivation and educational outlook of the teachers permit.

12. Claire Thomas says:
    February 15th, 2010 at 10:48 AM

    On Question 10, where communities are dense, it is clearly right to offer Mother Tongue Multilingual Education but where lots of different languages are spoken this is much more challenging – practially, politically, economically…. this is very common in many parts of the UK. At the pre-primary level, children do generally rapidly pick up the language that they need quite quickly. I have heard that some countries have at times allowed children who do speak the medium of education to start pre-primary or primary school one year early. They spend this year learning the langauge and then repeat the year.

    WHere MTME is not possible schools should do the utmost to value the children’s home langauges – symbolically and through personal education topics – see March is Multilingual Month suggestions avaialable from http://www.wfbilingual.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=115:march-is-multilingual-month&catid=1:latest-news&Itemid=18.

    On Question 3, political willingness, campaigners may be able to use a large global survey carried out by MRG last year on MInorities and Education – see http://www.minorityrights.org/7948/state-of-the-worlds-minorities/state-of-the-worlds-minorities-and-indigenous-peoples-2009.html

13. Alison Croft says:
    February 15th, 2010 at 1:06 PM

    Whenever I think about this issue I am always struck by how important and yet how complex it is, and the number of children affected by it in developed as well as developing countries. If language wasn’t so powerful it wouldn’t be so contested. I agree with much of what has been said above about the importance of learning in a familiar local language, but in answer to question 1 about supporting teachers to teach a second language some research I did in lower primary classes in Malawi a few years ago might be relevant:

    I looked at the classroom practice of teachers who were respected locally as good teachers, and tried to analyse this, rather than coming in with too many ideas of what good teaching in this kind of situation might look like. I found that when teaching English as a subject, teachers used English and Chichewa (the home language of most but not all pupils)together in a variety of ways, deliberately code-switching and code-mixing but keeping a focus on learning. So, they might translate quietly in an English lesson to a particularly young pupil who was having difficulty answering in front of the class, or include more translation when a lot of the class had been absent. In one lesson a teacher introduced new vocabularly by demonstration (prepositions of position – ‘the pencil is on the chair’ ‘the pencil is under the table’) and then asked the pupils to guess the meaning of the new English vocabulary by asking them the Chichewa equivalent. Other teachers used illustrations and demonstrations to support children’s understanding. This was a long way from the immediate translation to local language that is supposed to cause students to ‘switch off’ the target language, but all code-switching and code-mixing was officially frowned on.

    The point of this to me is that programmes of teacher education and development that allow teachers a certain amount of freedom to develop and time to share solutions to the challenge of multi-lingual teaching are likely to be more useful than blanket prescriptions of what ‘effective’ teaching looks like. Education has of course always evolved by borrowing and adapting ideas from near and far, and if I had to suggest something practicable that might help young children learn new languages, it would be to increase the variety of songs that they learn in the target language. Songs were used a lot in the lessons I observed but these seemed to be mainly for classroom management (eg to give the children a chance to all participate and then refocus on the lesson when they were restless) rather than for subject content

14. Wanna Tienmee says:
    February 16th, 2010 at 9:45 AM

    I would like to respond questions 5, 8, and 10 as follows:-
    Q 5: One of the best way we find is to select teaching assistants (TA) who speak the children’s local language, give the pre-service and in-service teacher trainings so as to equip them, build their capacity on teaching. In our project, they teach so well that the visitors from famous teaching college praised them and made the comments that they just did exactly like the trained teachers from the college.
    Q 5: In order to make it easier for the pre-school children, we work with the schools by providing learning materials familiar with children’ first language (L1), culture and ways of life. The materials have been developed and produced by the TAs and people in the community with the technical support from us. Children’s local language is used as a medium of instruction and a subject taught at school, starting with oral L1. The national language is also introduced but is some time later after the first local language. The qualified teachers who speak the national language are to teach the national language as a second language. They are also trained of doing that. What we find is that children enjoy coming to school and love the activities in class. They are very confident and express themselves very well. They are happy and on-track even when there are many visitors coming to visit their class. These children are very distinctive from the children of only national language used in class. Besides, children enjoy learning the national language and they are looking forward to the time. Local TAs and national teachers work in cooperation and know their roles.
    Q 10: In situation like this, the national language/dominant language is inevitably taught as a second language approach, using Total Physical Response (TPR) technique. This will be the language that the children from different local languages can use as a tool of communicate among themselves at school. Through this TPR technique, children learn the second language in a meaningful way and later can develop further language skills.

    We started the mother tongue based MLE programme with different language groups both with formal and non-formal education. We follow Dr. Susan and Dr. Dennis Malone (SIL International) idea of MT based MLE. Please also see Dr. Susan Malone’s MLE manual.

15. Agatha van Ginkel says:
    February 16th, 2010 at 5:13 PM

    All questions are quite relevant and address challenges in providing quality education for all children in multilingual situations.
    For parents it is often good to see what it does to children’s education when using a language children understand. The language groups I have helped were most convinced by seeing how their own children in the lower classes performed better than siblings in higher classes ‘only’ because the teacher used a language the children understand. The children did not only do well in reading and writing in the language they understood but also in the L2 and in mathematics. Thus, starting a pilot programme in a few schools is quite an effective advocacy tool.
    Regarding the language not having a writing system (and sometimes also not having the vocabulary to express the global concepts in the local language). Linguistics can help to develop writing systems for those languages. Involve universities to help to develop the orthographies, then work with teachers and elders of the community to expand the vocabulary of the language to help the teacher to explain some global concepts in the local language.
    Regarding the question of not having teachers available from the language community. This can be solved by working with teaching assistants from the community. I’ve seen this happen in a few communities in Africa. Sometimes non-formal classes are being organised so that the community teachers can teach the children in the local language first and help them to gain some skills in the other language. After that the children go to the formal classes where the ‘formal’ teachers are. The L1 classes are a huge support for these children. It is not the best situation, but it works. What would be helpful would be for government to recognise the community teachers and find a place for them in the system so that children will be able to receive education in a language they understand.

16. Fiona Willans says:
    February 17th, 2010 at 9:47 AM

    I support what many others have posted here about community and parent involvement. Governments tend to stall over concerns of cost, complexity, and public perception, so that language policy decisions are rarely about the most efficient way to teach children and are more about achieving political aims. Programmes that are implemented top-down also face barriers where they are not fully understood by teachers or communities and are therefore often contested.

    Grass-roots level participation is essential, so that local communities take some responsibility for creating materials and identifying teaching assistants. Parent involvement in the classroom also helps so that they become ambassadors of the project in the wider community. For me it is not so much about convincing parents and leaders that programmes WILL work (Q 2&3)but finding momentum to get them started, initially on a small scale, and ensuring they are implemented well enough to demonstrate that they DO work.

    In order to do this, certain things must be in place. Written forms of the languages must be developed first by trained linguists so that the languages can be used in a systematic way. Rushing at this stage will not achieve anything in the long-term. Organisations can provide training on materials development as well as templates for story books and simple technologies such as screen printing, and teachers must be well supported. It is difficult where there are several MTs in the same class but, as others have mentioned, there are alternatives such as using teaching assistants or having other initial literacy classes pre formal school.

    Governments are most likely to be convinced by looking to other countries where such programmes have been implemented successfully, whether by organisations such as SIL or national governments. However, governments in many countries will need to decentralise enough of the power in the education system in order to let bottom-up versions of a general policy be implemented effectively.

17. Viv Edwards says:
    February 17th, 2010 at 10:10 AM

    Expanding on the first comment by Carole Bloch, free training materials for early literacy learning in multilingual classrooms can be downloaded from http://www.tell.praesa.org.

    A major problem in providing mother tongue education is the dearth of learning materials. I am currently involved in a Leverhulme Trust funded project on African language materials for children. See the blog at http://africanlanguagematerialsforchildren.blogspot.com/

18. Fiona English says:
    February 17th, 2010 at 10:23 AM

    Just a note to say that there is a two day conference on Plurilingual and Pluricultural Education: Focus on ‘Languages of the Wider World’, organised for the CETL Languages of the Wider World to be held at the School of Oriental and African Studies this coming weekend. They may still be open for registration.
    Here is the link.
    http://www.soas.ac.uk/events/event52607.html

19. Anthea Fraser Gupta says:
    February 17th, 2010 at 12:41 PM

    I have written a number of papers discussing some of the issues involved in the promotion of mother tongue education at the expense of other considerations. Preprint versions of these are available on my website. The first paper I wrote on the topic was:

    1997. When mother-tongue education is *not* preferred. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 18:6, 496-506.

    I question many of the assumptions made in the Mother Tongue Education promotion.

    Your documentation suggests that you are talking about the teaching of ‘local languages’ vs ‘national’ and ‘international’. These categories are problematic. I know of no education system in the world in which a foreign language is a significant medium of instruction in early education in the public sector. Ex-colonial languages such as Spanish and English have become local languages in many parts of the world. Where they are used as an early medium of instruction, it is because they have important local use, not for their transnational value. In some countries (such as Nigeria) they are the only language with national currency. It is wrong to suggest that these are not local languages.

    Not all languages of education are ex-colonial languages, of course, and nor are they all national languages either. In India, for example, the most important languages of initial education are the official languages of the states (e.g. Bengali, Tamil). Literacy in the dominant regional language gives access to information, jobs, and opportunity that literacy in a mother tongue that is seldom used in writing would not.

    Some of the problems involved in requiring mother tongue education for the first 6 years of school are:

    1. Children bilingual from birth. In multilingual contexts children often grow up with more than one native language. Does that mean that they should be educated in all their native languages? Or would mother tongue be determined by ancestry (an invidious solution in my view). And if by ancestry, what about children who are mixed?

    2. Determining native language(s). Parental declaration? Testing of children? Ancestry? Who defines what is a language and what is a dialect? (etc.)

    3. Giving education in languages that are not traditionally languages of literacy. Parents have expectations of education, and one of these is often to develop in the child whatever are the local languages of education and of publication. Many children do not attend for more than 6 years, and would be seriously disadvantaged by not knowing local dominant languages.

    4. Further privileging of the privileged. The languages that are traditionally the languages of education in a given place are generally languages with prestige, and spoken by people with prestige. There is a danger that separating them from speakers of other languages will further increase division.

    5. Apartheid. In many societies it is felt desirable to promote social interaction between members of different ethnic groups. Where mother tongue education is promoted it is inevitable that there is further separation of ethnolinguistic groups.

    There is no evidence that children who grow up speaking one language and are educated in another are disadvantaged by this in itself — there are many societies where this is routine and their are many examples of children with a home/school linguistic imbalance achieving excellence. What does disadvantage children is poverty, lack of access to efficient education, and prejudice.

    I would like to see the effort spent on:

    1. Initiatives to deliver 6 years of adequate education minimum to all children, in whatever languages are felt appropriate or traditional in a given community.

    2. Initiatives to develop general linguistic awareness in teachers and children part of which would be trying to break down the notion of intrinsic prestige, and developing some knowledge of each other’s languages.

    Anthea Fraser Gupta
    University of Leeds

20. Philip Galloway says:
    February 17th, 2010 at 1:12 PM

    I work in Phuket, Thailand and one of the problems trying to teach English as a second language here is that the way in which they are taught by Thai teachers. There is no interaction and merely listen and repeat method is used. They don’t understand any context of the sentence, why they are saying it, who to and why?
    They are great students to teach but when you walk into the class their instant reaction is to retract somewhat and rather than say something,they live in fear of making a mistake and losing face. Questioning the heir-achy isn’t permitted so asking a question can be non existent. Teaching culture of other races may well help, due to them not knowing how we are doesn’t help their understanding. Consistency, patience and understanding their way of life has helped me to create empathy and slowly but surely you can get the message across. I believe in time that having belief in your students will prevail.

21. phil says:
    February 17th, 2010 at 1:47 PM

    From doing a PGCE in primary I can honestly say that trainees have too much to learn and unfortunately many subjects take a back seat. Second languages being one of them. The few who do train in them are few and far between. When I taught in schools as a teacher and ESL assistant, I realised we really needed language teachers to come in and teach a real language class. If the current teachers are confident to do French classes for instance, then fine but most are not. I once worked at a great school in south London where every child had to learn a second language and a musical instrument from 5. It was part of the ethos of the school and the results were fantastic.

    As a refugee teacher I also have some experience of the working 1 to 1 with kids to help them learn English. Personally, I think it does not help as they never fully integrate with their class. Differentiation of tasks always worked better in my classes, often with the assistant working with EAL students. Out-of-class English classes were also beneficial but only worked when supported by the family. I also saw great improvement in children who were part of weekend groups, normally organised by refugee society. These kids frequently have psychological problems from their transition or possibly their previous life. Socialising with them in an English speaking environment and ‘having fun’ helps break through their barriers which many have built.

22. Helen Pinnock says:
    February 17th, 2010 at 2:30 PM

    Anthea, I wanted to reply to your comment as I think it’s very interesting and we need to keep a really robust debate going on language if progress is to be made. I think the questions you raise are crucial, and for me there are two principles that are helpful in tackling such questions. The first is what is happening from the child’s point of view. The second is how policy and practice can respond to the diverse characteristics of children, and the different support needs children have to get to the skills and standards that we want all our children to achieve.

    For many of the children that we are concerned about, the key issue with language is that of familiarity. Poor children living in areas without good communications, who face several other barriers to education, are the key focus for us. There are a lot of these children, it goes without saying.

    For many of these children, being faced with a language with which they are not familiar is a big barrier to doing well at school: we are seeing that it can ‘tip the balance’ from ‘just about coping with a range of challenges to learning’ to ‘giving up/disengaged/utterly confused and frustrated at school’. So what we need is a policy and practice framework that supports teachers and school leadership to make the best choices for those children – not a blanket policy that restricts everybody into using one language, or simply working on assumptions that ‘submerging’ these children in a second language is going to work on its own.

    I think Alison’s comment above is extremely helpful – teachers need support, information, time and resources to make flexible choices to respond to the situations of the children they are working with.

    There are plenty of situations we find around the world where teachers are, for a range of reasons, teaching in foreign languages such as English at early grades of primary. However, the question of whether or not the language is foreign is less relevant than whether or not the child has built up a strong familiarity with the language before they start school, and has substantial access to that language in the context of their daily life. Ideally, each teacher should know the answer to that question, and should be supported to build the bulk of initial curriculum learning on the basis of a language which is strongly familiar to children, used in their daily lives, and that the teacher is able to use also. Just getting to that point is a big challenge in many settings, but it needs to be tackled.

    In most of these contexts teachers also need to expose children to ‘prestige’ languages from as early a point as possible, and much more work needs to be done on how best they can do that.

    I think it’s helpful to separate out two functions of basic education – 1) delivering the core curriculum in a way that’s as simple, familiar and relevant to children as possible, and 2) delivering the prestige language skills that children need effectively. The question of literacy cuts across both of course, and needs much more focus and attention in complex multilingual settings.

23. David Brown says:
    February 17th, 2010 at 3:50 PM

    In 2006 I published research on the intergenerational change in language across three generations in language options and competencies and schooling choice of 60 multilingual families in South Africa. The research concentrated on the Gauteng area and was published in the Indian Journal of Social Science Loyola published in India. The results support the new more complex and sophisticated approaches to the notion of ‘mother tongue’ than the ones we have sported to date and the functionalist and simplistic notions that became pervasive in the discourse in the 1950′s and became set in stone in UNESCo discourse. Promoting purist approaches to language and perfectionist and purist notions of euro style additive bilingualism might in fact be iconic and idealise and perpetuate partiarchy disguised as the myth of a false or unattainable ‘Mother tongue’ in many societies. Many of our societies are severely disrupted and many’children without “mothers”are being used in the pursuit perpetuating someobody else’s identity rather than making rational life choices and cultural options free of dogma and containment in identities. This is a very Welcome debate and I feel the contribution by Gupta above very valid. Glyn Lswis’s now aging book Multilingulism in the Soviet Union describes the teaching of Language in the aftermath of war,disease and disruption and tolerance is the most important issue he identifies. Language purism and cultural uniformities are often antithetical to tolerance. Concepts of failure at schooling have to be looked at carefully. Schooling in whose interests? All the time modern societies are facing migrancy and social change and sometimes devestation and epidemics such as HIV which have torn at the fabric of society we face the demands for socially pragmitic decisions beyond the narrow notions of stepped certification and rigid concepts of cultural identity. Whats in the best interests of a child? the politics of identity can disguise this forcefully and false ‘schooling’ rather than education and attainment seal their fate. Nationalism, ehtnocentricity and regionalism are Eurocentricisms most lasting legacy.Don’t let Unesco policy circa 1950′s in its simplicity and now identified very dubious oigins in the most conservative of European nationalist thought continue into the future the world is changing too fast to be left wearing this old European trenchcoat redyed for wearing on different continents. Many cannot answer the street corner taunt of “Whose your Mother?”

24. Emily Echessa says:
    February 17th, 2010 at 5:41 PM

    Language issues seems to have caught fire in Africa —I have just read an interesting article in our local print media….starts like this..

    Two weeks ago, the last speaker of Bo, an ancient language in India’s Andaman Islands, died and with her ended a 70,000 year-old heritage
    Read rest of text on attached link… http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/InsidePage.php?id=2000003495&cid=4&ttl=Why%20mother%20tongue%20is%20still%20supreme

25. Echessa E. says:
    February 17th, 2010 at 6:06 PM

    I agree 100%, the Language that children learn in is very critical for making meanings and building confidence in everything they do from childhood through adulthood. As a child, I recall reading an article from a columnist in the local media on his woes with teachers in school. He narrated how the teacher pointed out at a picture and shouted out CAT, then pointed at another picture and shouted DOG. No one responded! To the children clearly that was a KANYAU (meaning cat in local a language)and a NGUI (meaning dog) The children insisted, but the teacher wouldnt burge. I also recall that after sitting for the national secondary exams English paper, my uncle excitedly informed us that he was guranteed of an A*. The instructions in the quesion he had answered indicated that he should identify a wise saying or quote in his mother tongue and write a composition around it. He wrote the composition in mothertongue-Result F

    This demostrates that for decades on end Children have struggled with language issues. Children want to learn in a familiar language and will take any opportunity or what appears to be an opportunity to use the language most familiar and confortable to them-their mother tongue. We must transform education through revolutionising the language of instruction in schools…more later!

26. Foufou Savitzky says:
    February 17th, 2010 at 6:06 PM

    In May 0 Juin 2001 LLU+ at London South Bank University was commissioned by Save the Children to run a training course in Mali for department of education staff, regional school inspectors and adisers and teaching staff from communal village schools. The aim of the training was to help teachers move from teaching children in the local dominant language, not always children’s mother tongues, to teaching in French. The problem was compplex, as it often is, because the level of teacher fluency in French was very varied. A copy of the detailed report including training outline, evaluations, recommendations etc is available from f.savitzky@lsbu.ac.uk

27. Foufou Savitzky says:
    February 17th, 2010 at 6:07 PM

    In May 0 Juin 2001 LLU+ at London South Bank University was commissioned by Save the Children to run a training course in Mali for department of education staff, regional school inspectors and advisers and teaching staff from communal village schools. The aim of the training was to help teachers move from teaching children in the local dominant language, not always children’s mother tongues, to teaching in French. The problem was compplex, as it often is, because the level of teacher fluency in French was very varied. A copy of the detailed report including training outline, evaluations, recommendations etc is available from f.savitzky@lsbu.ac.uk

28. Robin Rempel says:
    February 18th, 2010 at 10:26 AM

    In Uganda, we have a favorable MTE/MLE policy, but there is only minimal activation of it. Yes, having teachers who know and speak the primary children’s mother tongue (MT) is a challenge, but not a primary one. Lack of instructional materials (primers, readers) in MT is also a huge problem. Teacher’s Colleges and educators don’t know how to create culturally and linguistically relevant MT instructional materials (i.e. without translating materials from English or some other foreign language and culture). But the FOUNDATIONAL ROOT cause of these challenges is this: non-existent or inadequate orthographies in the various MT languages of the children. Orthography (writing systems) development is where any MLE program must start! Orthographies cannot be imposed from outside the language area. Orthographies must be developed, tested, accepted and owned by the people who speak the language. Especially in northern Uganda, we have a number of large language communities who may have some instructional materials and MT teachers, but because the orthographies being used were not adequately developed and are very under-represented (e.g. they don’t symbolize tone or vowel qualities which are extremely important features of these languages), the comprehension and success of the children in school remains pitifully low. I mean, when reading a text, if you are confused whether the word means a ‘goat’ or your ‘grandmother’, whether the word means a ‘snake’ or an ‘ant hill’, or whether the word means ‘I came’ or ‘We came’ or ‘She went”, well, that’s serious! But many of the north Ugandan orthographies are exactly this ambiguous because of incomplete development. (Maybe the goat doesn’t care, but I think if I were the grandmother, this writing system would matter….)

    There are about 20 languages in Uganda that still do not have an adequate orthography. We might have a great MLE policy, even trained teachers, a means for drafting and publishing MT materials, but if we don’t have satisfactory orthographies to begin with, all other efforts will be a waste. From our 10 years of observation here in Uganda, developing adequate orthographies is a foundational action that must be undertaken FIRST. After that, development of relevant MT instructional materials and teacher training can take place.

    A way forward for Uganda, would be the following proposal. Objectives: (1) Finish developing each of the 20+ orthographies left in Uganda. (2) Train the educated people of each language community to fluently read and write their orthography. (3) Develop and publish a beginning library of 30+ MT books and relevant instructional materials for P1 – P3 in each of the MTs. (4) Train teachers to use these materials. From experience, I believe that all of these objectives can be reached for each language within 3 years. And, with a specialized focus team, all the 20+ languages of Uganda that are currently having an inadequate orthography and therefore zero or poor MLE options, can have an excellent MLE option within 9 years or earlier. The 3 x 3 Special Focus Team will have three tiers (or three teams comprising the larger team): (1) a national administrative and support tier – a director, an accountant, an IT specialist; (2) a national-to-field link tier – four linguists / MT literacy experts-trainers; (3) a MT tier of up to six mother tongue speaker-writers for each language group. Every quarter, the link team will establish a new team of MT speaker-writers and utilize them in engaging the community for orthography development and testing, and proceeding with accomplishing the other objectives over the next three years. By starting four MT teams per year, within 9 years, the 20+ remaining language communities of Uganda could be well on their way to successfully educating their young people. Furthermore, a solid foundation will have been built for continuing on any other type of print endeavors. Within the training of MT teams will also be an invitation to engage the MoES, Teacher Training Colleges and university linguistic students in the applied processes of orthography development, MLE materials development and teacher training.

    The cost of this 3 x 3 Special Focus Team to accomplish foundational MLE in Uganda would be $3 million or less. Any interested funders? Any qualified personnel interested in being on the Special Focus Team? For details, write me at robin_rempel@sil.org and put “Uganda’s 3 x 3 Special Focus Team” in the message header.

29. Roula Tsokalidou says:
    February 18th, 2010 at 12:08 PM

    Dear friends,

    the questions you have all raised are of interest and concern to all of us. A number of us in Greece and Cyprus have formed “polydromo” a multilingual periodical and group that aims at how to deal with, promote and make the best out of issues of multiculturalism in education and society. We publicize children’s views as well. We saw that such initiatives gives motive to children from migrant or refugee backgrounds to participate more actively. Although schools in Greece are monolingual, through such initiatives, teachers can approach and understand their students and also involve their parents.www.polydromo.gr

30. Minati Panda says:
    February 18th, 2010 at 10:17 PM

    I am writing this on the basis of my experience in 8 experimental multilingual schools in tribal belt of Orissa, India. What convinces the parent of the benefit of education through mother tongue is their children’s actual experience of learning in school: when their children show eagerness to go to school, talk a lot in the school, talk to their teachers fearlessly, move around in the school premises freely and share a lot with their parents about their school, teachers, books and events. They no longer demand for education in Oriya and English (languages of power) in initial classes as they know that their children will learn these languages anyway and will learn better this way. Once we allow children’s language in the class, their cultural resources automatically make an inroad into the class. It is neither a difficult nor a costly project provided there is political support for this.

    It is definitely not an informidable task to develop the right kind of text materials and pedagogic principles for transactions in these classes once we cross the threshold point of deciding respecting children’s language(s) in the classrooms. Google “education in mother tongue’ or ‘multilingual education’, you will hit at least few relevant sites now who are ready to share their experiences in this field and will readily extend their help, if needed. It is therefore important to garner political motive to do so and also understand the consequences of denying the minority people and children of their very basic rights longer. I don’t want to count the consequences here as every country, by now, has seen many in their own land.

    I think those who work in this area, whether they are donors, researchers or activists, should watch the critically acclaimed documentary film, “500 YEARS LATER” by Owen Alik Shahadah which provides a saga of those children who learnt to dismiss their language, music and dance. Their God doesn’t look like them anymore and more importantly, they don’t want to look like themselves. We all know the consequences of these forced psychological projects of many countries. If we want to revert this trend and create a world where each one of us learns to respect oneself (a man can respect others only when he respects himself), we have to start with respecting children’s language and subjectivities.

31. Eleni Skourtou says:
    February 18th, 2010 at 10:54 PM

    As Roula Tsokalidou says the issues presented here are concerning us in Greece as well.
    In the last decade there have been large scale EU funded projects dealing with cultural and language diversity. These projects focused on immigrant students, students of Greek origin from several countries that come (back) to Greece with their families, minority Muslim students in N. Greece, Roma students. In this context new learning material has been developed (considerably in e-form).
    Apart from this, the question remains how the teacher deals with language diversity in the main stream school class.
    This makes teachers’ training to a major issue is , i.e.:
    teachers getting aware of the languages of their students,
    teachers getting to understand bilingualism and how it relates to teaching / learning language, content matter, and literacy in general,
    teachers learning how to investigate languages with their students,
    teachers learning how to use material, but also how to produce their own material, etc
    At this point the Greek Ministry of Education seems very willing to support these projects again.

32. Mike Trainum says:
    February 18th, 2010 at 11:50 PM

    Helen, your *Language and Education: The missing link* is excellent! I’m recommending it as a ‘must read’ to all of my colleagues. Here’s my contribution on the one issue where I have “experience, opinion, and advice” to offer:

    6) How can children’s literacy be supported when it’s difficult to find written forms of local languages?

    My wife and I confronted the issue of ‘written forms of the local language’ while doing literacy work among the Qoqwaiyeqwase people of Papua New Guinea during 1984-92. We also encountered firsthand the truth of Robin Rempel’s statement, “Orthographies cannot be imposed from outside the language area. Orthographies must be developed, tested, accepted and owned by the people who speak the language.” (in post #28 above). The same is certainly true of the most effective local language material development.

    Our approach to creating materials for literacy, education, health, and development topics in general was to prepare ‘concept shells’ for localization within Qoqwaiyeqwase communities. These “shell books” started out as sequences of images with no text. Using only an image sequence as a “factual framework” to guide discussion, a particular concept would be discussed for hours on end by old and young, literate and (mostly) non-literate alike. Once a general consensus was reached on the proper way to express the concept from the Qoqwaiyeqwase’s perspective, we would adjust or replace the pictures as required, add the Qoqwaiyeqwase text, and the group/village involved would screen-print enough copies for their own use. This turned out to be very ‘integrative’ inter-generationally within communities, since even non-literate village elders could ‘read’ and discuss the illustrated books they had helped younger people to write. Here’s a link to a short World Vision documentary about the Shellbook localization process in the Nepalese community of Ichangu in 2007: http://www.screencast.com/t/7htVy7rC4yo

    I say “factual framework” above because, for instance, HIV causes AIDS no matter what your language or cultural perspective. This HIV/AIDS fact is *not* negotiable, and its meaning, once localized, must not stray beyond the “factual framework” to mean something else.

    Nevertheless, for a Qoqwaiyeqwase community to take full advantage of such information about HIV/AIDS, their understanding *must* be “negotiated” (not simply “translated”) in a very participatory manner, which can only take place in terms of the community’s own language and cultural perspective. The obvious value-added of such a process is that important– even life-crucial– information from ‘outside’ the community becomes less foreign, and is more likely to be adopted as the community’s own. Following the lead of Micael Olsson (Global Education Advisor at World Vision International), we now describe this whole process simply as ‘knowledge-sharing’.

    In the early 1990′s, the idea of shell books was picked up by the PNG Department of Education, and 80-some shell book titles were developed and used as the basis for the DOE’s Elementary Reform (K-2) curriculum student books beginning in 1993. A report by the PNG National Research Institute indicated that by 2003 some or all of these titles had been produced in communities speaking 435 PNG languages.

    In 1993, I was asked by the government to join the committee that wrote the PNG National Information & Communication Policy. In the midst of the committee’s deliberations– and my own research afterwards, especially with Misty Baloiloi, Vice Chancellor of the PNG University of Technology– my eyes were opened to the specialized technical infrastructure that would be required to support massive content localization at the community level in hundreds of PNG languages, not to mention thousands of other languages worldwide. After a number of ill-fated attempts to develop the required technology, in 2002 I gathered a group of ‘social entrepreneur’ investors and started Shellbook Publishing Systems to create a full-orbed localization management system at a cost of several $million.

    In 2009, my wife and I acquired all of the rights to the Shellbook technology and other intellectual property and established the Life Access Technology Trust. The Trust is currently working with World Vision, SIL International, and a few other agencies to develop a major localization proof-of-concept prototype, the ‘Open Library for Local Learning Communities’ (OL3C).

    Our vision for the future is that:
    “OL3C will become an international partnership of agencies and individuals who are creating a worldwide virtual library to share teaching and learning materials in the Shellbook resource format for localization by any community of practice or social network in terms of its own language, culture, ethnicity, gender, and/or age group, for the purpose of integral human development.

    and that…
    “OL3C will also provide a collaborative environment for the research and development of localization resource standards and best practices, as well as research into the relationship of localization to language development and integral human development.

    and finally that…
    “OL3C will further provide maintenance and support of the Shellbook application software and other technologies useful for language development as they pertain to the sharing and localization of life-crucial information worldwide.

    My very best wishes to you, Save the Children, and all who share your commitment to MTB-MLE! I hope that OL3C will be of assistance in the very near future!

33. Minati Panda says:
    February 19th, 2010 at 12:12 AM

    If you want to know about our work, please visit our website,
    http://www.nmrc-jnu.org

34. Eva Schultze-Berndt says:
    February 19th, 2010 at 1:01 PM

    Thank you for such an interesting discussion.

    I have no practical experience in teaching or involvement in language policy, but would like to make a couple of points from a linguist’s (with fieldwork experience in non-literate communities) point of view:

    Echoing a number of earlier posts – there is no one size fits all solution, and indeed education and literacy in a minority language cannot be imposed from outside just because it is seen to be a Good Thing. But if adopted and implemented by a community the practical obstacles (teaching materials, teacher training) can be overcome. In Australia indigenous people are currently fighting to keep the few bilingual education programs that are currently in place.

    The biggest obstacle to finding a solution in individual cases is the misguided but very frequent monolingual bias among educators, laypeople and also parents – i.e. the assumption that learning or education in one language will somehow interfere with learning another. As many posts have pointed out, multilingualism is the norm in many if not most societies so this should be reflected in education too.

35. Emily E. says:
    February 19th, 2010 at 4:21 PM

    Here is an interesting link to an agency that links language, literacy and religion….
    http://www.btlkenya.org/WhoWeAre.dsp

36. Mike Trainum says:
    February 19th, 2010 at 4:50 PM

    “Educating Ama” is a short fictionalized case-study. Nevertheless, it is a composite picture drawn from the lives of real people, situations, and events over the past 20 years. It describes an ideal– yet increasingly possible– outcome for millions of the most marginalized children, worldwide, especially girls.

    http://shellbook-training.s3.amazonaws.com/Educating Ama.pdf

37. Mike Trainum says:
    February 19th, 2010 at 4:54 PM

    http://shellbook-training.s3.amazonaws.com/Educating-Ama.pdf

38. Jess says:
    February 19th, 2010 at 6:02 PM

    Hi everyone. Although this doesn’t specifically answer the questions above, with regard to deaf children in particular, I think it is worth noting that the lack of education deliverd in a suitable langauge and using appropriate methods of communication is a significant barrier to achieving key education goals. For some deaf children sign language is often the most appropriate language for teaching, but education delivered in this way is rarely available.

    In addition to this, recent work on one of our projects has found that deaf children who do not have basic language skills (often because they are born in to hearing families who do not use, and have not had the opportunity to learn to sign with their child) are at an added disadvantage. This is beacuse without having acquired a first language, it is highly unlikely that they will be able to keep up in the language in which education is delivered to them.

39. Thomas Jones says:
    February 20th, 2010 at 11:54 AM

    Remaining illiterate in one’s mother tongue and becoming literate in another language does seem to be a large cause for children to lose their mother tongue and with it some of their cultural identity.

    I have experience teaching child monks in a Tibetan monastery in India. The vast majority of the new intake are from Nepal, speaking Nepali, Sherpa or Tamang as their 1st language. They are immediately plunged into an education in Tibetan, with a healthy dose of English on top of that.

    Having been in this situation, it’s clear to see that it does indeed impede the development of children’s 1st language skills. Although I’m a strong advocate of starting 2nd language acquisition as early as possible, it must be in conjunction with an equal amount of 1st language education.

    I’ll never forget one tiny Tamang monk, suddenly living several days’ journey from home, who would literally cling to anyone else who could speak his language. He wasn’t scared (his tribe are descended from warriors) but he really needed to belong!

40. Tamara says:
    February 21st, 2010 at 8:50 PM

    Hi, I would like just pointed out, That many Deaf children (not only in countys of the Global South) have no acess for learning in their mother language – sign language. Deaf children needs to grow up in language environment where language is FULLY accesible to children senses (which is problematic for deaf child and spoken languages)only with this condition child is able to ACQUIRE full language durrig critical period. In case that (any) child have no acces to language for aquisition, than child miss tool (language) for thinking. Problem is that many countrys not support sign language environment (parents education, teachers FLUENT in sign languages, mainstreming – Deaf childeren in hearing clasroom, …) for Deaf childeren. For more deatails see f.e. Harlan Lane. The mask of benevolence.

    It is necessary – 1)provide to parents of Deaf childeren information not only about cochlear implantation (medical point of view on deafness) but provide information about cultural poin of view on deafness), taht means all of doctors, psychologist, pediatric involved and educated about necessity od sign languages,
    2) parent need to have an access for sign language classes
    3) teachers of the deaf must be FLUENT in (national) Sign language
    4)Universities needs to have special programs how to train this teachers (trained Deaf teachers of the Deaf are ones from the most important!).

41. Mahendra K Mishra says:
    February 27th, 2010 at 4:26 PM

    Imagine!
    what happen to your child when she is not allowed to speak in her mother tongue in school ? Have you ever been offended for speaking your own mother tongue in school? Yes, it happen in many Indian English medium schools when an Indian child try to speak in her mother tongue to answer the question put by her MISS. Thousands of children are language disadvantaged through out the world, and our formal schooling system blocks their learning by excluding them from their language of thought and language of speech.Lets think of the children’s linguistic right .
    Who has stolen their dreams? Who has stolen their freedom of speech ? Who created their language ? How their knowledge is maintained ?
    You cage the tiger and elephant in the zoo and say that the animals are better off with human care. But is it so ? You draw the children from the family and put them in a place in the name of education which is not attractive to them. Will they be free in mind ?Can not we provide an atmosphere of their home in school ?
    Why children do fear the teachers ? Why from the first day of the schooling children cry with a helplessness. Has the child cried when she went to the market or a fair? Then why she is afraid of the school. Read Ivan Illich( Aha, it is available in Oriya also !). I have also translated Freire on education. What kind of social consciousness we imbibe when we are insensitive to our neighbourhood and promote competition? Social exclusion of tribal in Orissa is a major issue which should be resolved. Dalit Education is an another issue which has not been initiated in Indian school system. Musilms are in tremendous crisis in educational domain. Gender disparity is visible in our language and behaviour. With all these elements of disparities how can we solve them with a school system which is not ready to understand the social issues? A democratic government must need a democratic school and we have to work how our schools will be more democratic involving the curriculum of disadvantaged and also to transform the directors society, according to Freire , to understand the culture of silence. This is the National goal that the thinkers of India have thought of.Dream of my India written by Gandhi is still relevant in terms of the last deprived person of the country , may be in some remote tribal areas, or in most urban metropolitan city with out having minimum care.

42. Habibullah Pathan says:
    March 9th, 2010 at 7:32 PM

    Child’s thought development is hampered If she gets instruction in language which is not her own. I think we the policy makers are trying to be too stringent on economic affairs evading the cultural and foundation issues which are directly or indirectly associated with language. Pakistani schooling system is no exception. There has been an ongoing debate of medium of instruction at school and we find divered opinion with regard to that. I would certainly take side of first language as medium of instruction! I know it is ambitious in terms of countries like Pakistan where more than 60 languages are spoken. I am of opinion that receiving early school education in MT is democratic/ basic right of a child! lets help protect this right!

43. Boracay Condos says:
    March 26th, 2010 at 8:34 PM

    Great Post! This might be a little off topic but has anyone ever been to an island Boracay? Its like that movie The Beach with Leonardo Dicaprio!

44. hindi song lyrics says:
    April 4th, 2010 at 5:04 PM

    Hindi Songs: Mesmerizing Your SoulAcross the global population, Indian music seeks no introduction in any manner. It has captivated millions of souls beyond the boundaries. The enthusiasm and the charisma executed by the Indian Music is now a global phenomenon and needless to say ….

45. Luigi Fulk says:
    May 31st, 2010 at 8:47 AM

    interesting article ! thank very much.

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    May 31st, 2010 at 8:38 PM

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49. Johnetta Droze says:
    June 7th, 2010 at 2:56 AM

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50. Chris Frankland says:
    June 23rd, 2010 at 10:02 AM

    Hi Helen

    Just to let you know that I am involved in a key Govt education lab tomorrow, here in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, “Internationalisation of the Malaysian Curriculum by introducing a Bilingual Curriculum”

    I have read your report, and found it most useful in this context, and will be referring to it hopefully, if they give me time and space.

    I’ll get back in a day or two to let you know what was said.

    Chris Frankland Senior Manager CfBT Malaysia

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