Multilingual Education and India

Dear MLE friends, Below is the announcement of an excellent conference on MLE which is here in the region. Last time (2003?) there was quite a group from India participating and giving good papers. I trust that will work out this time again.

Dear MLE friends, I think it is for the first time that the AFA monitoring report has a section on MLE. Also India is mentioned in it. The relevant section is attached. See below.

Dear MLE, It has been a while since there was something worth forwarding on MLE. The below is interesting because it confirms the statement that MLE is not really about “language” but about “learner centred teaching”.

Dear MLE friends, The below mentioned publication provides an important context for the MLE efforts. Worth taking note of.

Dear MLE friends, An interesting article on achievements. Regards, Karsten Karsten van Riezen Education Consultant, SIL Int. SIL, South Asia Group. www.sil.org See attachment for the rest of the article.

Dear MLE friends, Save the Children UK wrote a thorough Policy Paper on MLE. Since this organisation is active in India too, with Shireen Miller as an active advocate for MLE, it will be good to take note of this comprehensive paper.

Dear MLE friends, At our northern neighbour Nepal a daily newspaper has decided to go multilingual. Would that have potential in some areas in India too?

Dear MLE friends, In recent visits several people mentioned to me that the recommendations of the "National Knowledge Commission" are not in line with the National Curriculum Framework (NCF 2005). That made me looks up the recommendations of this commission on the internet. I found that “t he National Knowledge Commission is a high-level advisory body to the Prime Minister of India, with the objective of transforming India into a knowledge society”. A few abstracts from their recommendations on language: The National Knowledge Commission recommends that the teaching of English as a language should be introduced, along with the first language (either the mother-tongue or the  regional  language)  of  the  child,  starting  from  Class  I  in  school.  This phase of language learning should focus on using both languages to create meaningful learning experiences for the child without disproportionate emphasis on grammar and rules.   Language  learning 

Dear MLE friends The attached paper Benefits of linguistic diversity and multilingualism has an European focus but it has some Indian flavour to it as Prof Rajesh Sachdeva of CIIL was a co-author. An interesting element is that the economic factor in MLE planning is getting far more attention than I have ever seen in other MLE related papers.

Dear MLE interest group, There is progress from the United Nations General Assembly in stating the fundamental right for Indigenous People groups to have education in their mother tongue.

Dear MLE friends, Soon you will hear about an MLE conference in India in February, but below is one in Thailand some of you might be interested in.

Dear MLE friends. The Foundation for Endangered Languages (FEL) in collaboration with CIIL brought out an interesting publication titled: "Vital Voices: Endangered Languages and Multilingualism". Below you can read more about the content. The distributor for India is CIIL. You can contact CIIL through S.B. Biswas at < biswas@ciil.stply.soft.net >.]

Dear MLE friends. The Foundation for Endangered Languages (FEL) in collaboration with CIIL brought out an interesting publication titled: "Vital Voices: Endangered Languages and Multilingualism". Below you can read more about the content. The distributor for India is CIIL. You can contact CIIL through S.B. Biswas at < biswas@ciil.stply.soft.net >.]