Linguistic diversity is a world-wide phenomenon. At the societal level, education is one strategy that countries use to deal with linguistic diversities. This piece of writing attempts to give a glimpse into the ways education is used to deal with linguistic diversity. Specifically, it looks at what the strategy is, the goal of the strategy, whose needs does the strategy serve and the underlying perspective it holds about linguistic diversity.

While this paper originally discusses five strategies, for the purposes of this blog piece, we are presenting three strategies that we felt were most relevant to the Indian context.

The use of multiple languages in education

The three language formula is a policy level example of addressing multiple languages. The policy advocates the use of mother tongue as the educational medium along with the study of English as a subject (second language) and another language (E.g. Hindi, Sanskrit etc.,) depending on the geographical region within the country.

This policy serves the needs of speakers of the major languages (including Urdu in the Indian context). It treats all varieties of a language as homogeneous and assumes that the issues related to varieties will be taken care of at the curricular level. However, there is a continuous attempt to include many other mother tongues (that have hitherto not been used) in the domain of education and also to strengthen the use of mother tongues that are already in use. For instance, more and more mother tongues are being used as the medium of instruction at primary and secondary levels of education (Koul and Devaki 2001).  The entire thrust of such a strategy is that of maintaining linguistic diversity.

The goal of the language policy on the one hand is, to foster a sense of nationalism and unity and on the other, to ensure access to social and economic opportunities associated with learning of English. There is a constant tension between the two goals with the balance tilting in favor of English many times.

The use of mother tongue as a bridge to a dominant language

There is a shared understanding that when children are taught through a dominant language (which is generally, but not always English) optimal learning does not take place because children do not understand the dominant language. This situation is more prevalent in the context of multiple languages. One way of addressing this problem is to initiate initial literacy through the mother tongue and gradually shifting towards the use of the dominant language as the sole medium of instruction (second language is used for 100% of time). Such a strategy is called the transitional bilingual education.

There are two versions of this program, the early and the late exit programs. In the early exit model, the transition to the dominant language is completed by the end of grade 3 whereas in the late exit model, children have access to their mother tongue for a period of 5 to 7 years.

The transitional bilingual education programs are aimed at indigenous language speakers. Its purpose is to use mother tongue as a bridge to facilitate better learning of the dominant language. The goal of the program is to help children transition to the mainstream. This strategy holds an instrumental value of mother tongue because mother tongue is seen as a bridge to reach the second language. There is almost no attempt to ensure that the many mother tongues are maintained. There is a danger that the continued use of this strategy, will eventually minimize the linguistic diversity.

Mother tongue based multilingual education

The strategy of mother tongue based multilingual education is supported by SIL International, a non-profit organization, whose main purpose is to study, develop and document lesser known languages. It emphasizes on beginning literacy through the mother tongue, on the use of two languages as medium of education and also uses another language as a subject.

In India this program is followed in Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, and Assam. In Orissa, the program was piloted in 2007 in some blocks and implemented in 10 tribal languages, namely, Sura, Juang, Munda, Santhali, Bonda, Koya, Kissan, Oram, Kuvi and Kui. Since 2012, the program has been extended to preschool education in the Anganwadis serving tribal children. This strategy is aimed at tribal languages. Detailed documentation of the program is available in addition to the evaluation report of the program by NCERT (2011).

The mother tongue education program is noted for five features.

1.The use of two languages as medium of education

Multiple languages are taught in the program. The tribal language and Odia are used as medium of education and English is taught as a subject. The mother tongue education follows the plan of teaching as below:

2.The curriculum

The curriculum plays a significant role in mother tongue education. Two features of the curriculum – the content and the way it is developed provide important insights into the nature of mother tongue education. The content is contextualized in the local – so that children are able to connect to it and find education relevant. The curriculum is based on a thematic approach. A theme web was designed for each tribal community to ensure that the curriculum was culture based and contextual. The second language is not developed in isolation, but is integrated with the mother tongue.

3.The pedagogy

A lot of emphasis is placed on making the classroom a dialogic space with both teachers and students contributing to the pedagogy.

4.The recruitment of teachers

Teachers play a critical role in implementing the curriculum. Tribal language teachers along with locally employed tribal youth known as Bhasha Shikshaks teach children in their own language. A package of training program was developed and implemented to develop the capacity of the mother tongue teachers.

5.Involvement of the Community

The tribal community is closely involved in taking decisions on the program and its implementation. The community participation is by way of involvement of Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRI).  The members of the community were also involved in preparing culturally and contextually relevant theme based curriculum. The community was also involved in the functioning of schools through programs like “Srujan” a community based child centric, teacher supportive, culturally appropriate program for retention and achievement of the tribal child.

The program is aimed at non-dominant or indigenous languages. Unlike the transfer approach, the mother tongue program aims at developing mother tongues. It is used with the second language and not abandoned as soon as the second language is acquired.

Even though the transitional or transfer model is called bilingual model, many scholars do not consider it to be bilingual because of its goal. At the minimum, it is considered to be a weak form of bilingual education. This strategy, on the contrary, refers to a strong form of multilingual education because of its continued use of two languages as medium of education. This larger aim of this strategy is to promote linguistic diversity among non-dominant language speakers.

 Conclusion

This discussion has touched only on the major strategies that have been used to deal with linguistic diversities. The differences in strategies provide insightful learning. A critical question for us to reflect on is our view on linguistic diversity – do we see it as something of a burden, or as a fact that we have to live with or a valuable asset. The answer will help us think through the strategies. Another important learning is that linguistic diversity is not just about diversities in language and so it cannot be dealt in isolation. The educational, the cultural and the socio-political contexts in which diversity is embedded forms a part of diversity and needs consideration when we think of dealing with linguistic diversities.

Note: You can access the original piece here- Dealing with linguistic diversities through education