Multilingual Education and India

The Language  and Learning Foundation has conducted India's first-ever language mapping of schools survey in Chhattisgarh: Language Mapping of Schools in Chhattisgarh .  The survey was carried out under the NIPUN Bharat initiative  in collaboration with the Government of Chhattisgarh and UNICEF India. The report  maps the different language situations that are present in each school with the aim to design an effective education strategy and policy. Through this research almost 30,000 schools were surveyed. The focus was on the first grade and the information gathered was mainly through the teachers. The following conclusion was stated in the summary of the report: The survey shows that in about 75% of the schools students are likely to face moderate to severe learning disadvantage due to the difference between their home language and the school language used as the medium of instruction. It also shows that about 95% of students at the time of entry to the primary sc...

New book on multilingual education in India with a special focus on teaching English.   Dr Mahendra Mishra is a well known figure in the area of multilingual education in India. He  was State Coordinator for Multilingual Education (1996-2010) in Odisha and spearheaded the mother tongue-based multilingual education in the primary schools in ten tribal languages there. So, when he (co-)writes a book, we better take notice! MLE proponents usually have a love-hate relationship with English as the English is often suppressing the building of a good foundation in the mother tongue. It is therefore quite courageous to write a book on " Multilingual Education in India: The Case for English ". The description makes you want to read more:  "Some perceive English language education as a hindrance to the growth of lndian languages and allege that it causes a social divide. The arguments of this book convincingly correct this uninformed notion and prove that English has...

Outlook reports on language issues in Maoist areas                          ...

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Dear MultiLingual Education Friends, The report on the  National Seminar on Language Education  has come out . The seminar was  organized  jointly by the SCERT and IFIG  at 21-23  February,  2014  at Raipur  Chhattisgarh with Dr Mahendra Mishra as convenor. The three main issues addressed at this seminar are stated as follows:        How multilinguality is a reality and how our schools are unable to ensure the linguistic rights of the children. How language of the text book is teacher-centric and unable to represent the meaning of the texts in a language that is not understood by the children. How education can  be imparted  –  as far as practicable to those children who are linguistic minority,  and  eq...

Dear multilingual education friends, Madia children in Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh now have the opportunity to learn different subjects in their mother tongue. This used to be impossible in the past due to the double burden of learning various subjects in unfamiliar languages such as Marathi in Maharashtra or Hindi in Chhattisgarh and learning either language in each state. So the following statement makes sense to them now. “Language (Madia) becomes a major issue in early years of education as it is not just a medium of communication but a link to the entire culture and values of a race.” For the entire article for Madia medium MLE school in early stage in Lok Biradari Ashram School, click the below link. Nurturing one's own language

Dear Multilingual Education friends, M TALL ( Mother Tongue B ase Active Language Learning ), an inter-university forum in Jharkhand, is doing very interesting activities such as socio-linguistic survey (findings being re leased within a couple of weeks), children’s bilingual picture dictionaries on 60 child-friendly themes printed in 9 tribal and regional languages, Bhasha Puliya (school language readiness package for pre-school centres)- to be piloted in 10% Anganwadis, School readiness package developed for primary level M TALL involves all major language group experts, related NGOs, media, 5 governme...