Multilingual Education and India

Always good to see classroom level research done in India, particularly when it focuses on the language issue. The focus of this research is on the influence of multilingualism on reading performance. It is a small study but good to note that it shows how  teaching in a familiar language has positive effects, and also that children who do not speak the majority language need extra support. TESOL Quarterly (Wiley online library) recently published a research  article titled the “Effects of Mother Tongue Education and Multilingualism on Reading Skills in the Regional Language and English in India.” The research  examined how mother tongue education and multilingualism  influences the reading skills and reading comprehension of 1272 Indian primary school children from low income homes. The study took place across three sites in India, namely Delhi, Hyderabad, and Patna. The main aim of the study was to assess if there was a relation between mother tongue education/multilingualism, and li

There is lots of information shared about the prevention of the spread of viruses these days. In terms of vulnerability we usually talk about medical vulnerability. But how about information vulnerability? There are several groups of people that fall into that category. How about those who do not understand the major languages through which the information of the governments and health organizations is distributed? How about kids who have difficulty to make sense out of the adult talks? Sniffles  is a cute kids' book published by Pratham with an appealing story about a girl with a cold who accidentally got her friends sniffing and sneezing. At the end it gives some simple explanation on how the spread of a virus happens and can be prevented. A relevant topic for today! The book has been put on  Storyweaver  and  Bloom , so that it can easily be translated in any other language.  It is already available in Sadri (Devanagri), Kolami, Bengali, Tamil, Marathi, Kannada, Englis

Reading is hard work, particularly in a language you hardly know!  (Photo Credit: Business Standard) This month there were plenty of articles in the newspaper talking about language and education because of the publication of the Draft National Education Policy (NEP) which stated: “Three-language formula will need to be implemented in its spirit throughout the country, promoting multilingual communicative abilities for a multilingual country.” Of course, there was the controversy around the promotion of Hindi, but there were also plenty of references to the value of multilingual education.

© United News of India In the previous blog post I reported on the MultiLila Research Project which is going on in India. On July 12 and 13 the consortium behind this research project conducted a meeting “The languages of education in multilingual India: exploring effects on reading and mathematics” at which important aspects of multilingualism and education were discussed. Under the heading " Starting English early not the best way to learn English well " (A quote from Dhir Jhingran) the United News of India reported on some of the issues discussed.

We are often asked for research evidence with regards to the impact of MLE. Even though the below write up is not on a project in India, it seems to have enough similarity to make it relevant to take note of. The Endline survey of the pilot is showing that MLE children do better in particularly reading. In the article Building bridges through multilingual schooling: a mother-tongue pilot in East Timor is showing the way , Kerry Taylor-leech writes with enthusiasm about the classes she observed. “The children love it and I too am enjoying myself immensely.”. About the evaluation report she states: the survey compared children’s performance in EMBLI schools, government schools and Portuguese-immersion schools. Not surprisingly, the results show the benefits of learning in a language a child understands best. EMBLI children showed marked gains compared to the other children, especially in reading

A Book in Every Hand Last month Pratham Books, a UNICEF founded NGO, released more than 800 books in 27 languages on the StoryWeaver India website. Anyone can add, translate or read books there.   The Indian Express reports in the article A book in every hand: Pratham Books wants to make reading fun and accessible for children that a week after releasing the website  https://storyweaver.org.in/ there were 800+ books and 20,000 reads. Currently the teller is on nearly 35000 reads and the site has over 900 stories in 27 languages. Till now the languages listed are mainly state or foreign languages, but it is likely possible to translate to or write in any langauge. Worth trying! There are some differences and similarities with the software BLOOM that recently won the Enabling Writers competition (see Blog Post from last June ). Bloom can be used off line and is focussed on creating books for paper publishing while Story Weaver is particularly good at web publication. They b

Report on research on reading acquisition in AP and Karnataka                         

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Learning in English and mother tongue are not mutually exclusive   Kieran Cooke from the Universal Learning Solutions , claims that if a synthetic phonics approach for literacy is taken governments do not need to choose between the mother tongue and e.g. English but can do both simultaniously. The article on the World Education Blog   describes a Synthetic phonetic approach to reading as : "This approach teaches pupils letter sounds (for example, mmm not em, sss not es) and how to blend those sounds together to read words (so d-o-g makes ʻdogʼ). At the same time they learn how to write words by segmenting a word into its sounds, and then forming letters for those sounds." It then gives some examples from Africa which proof that also for non Mothertingue English children this approach gives better results than conventional methods. There is also a reference to India: "One study using this approach with Kannada-speaking children in India shows

Dear multilingual Education friends, Every year the ASER report provides a great source of data with regards to realities of primary education in rural India. The ASER press release states: Every year, ASER finds out whether children in rural India go to school, whether they can read simple text and whether they can do basic arithmetic. Nationally, the proportion of all children in Std. V who can read a Std. II level text remains virtually the same since 2012, at 47%. This proportion decreased each year from 2009 to 2012, dropping  from 52.8% in 2009 to 46.9% in 2012. Among Std. V children enrolled in government schools, the percentage of children able to read Std. II level text decreased from 50.3% (2009) to 43.8% (2011) to 41.1% (2013). Over the last three years, there has been a steady increase in the provision of libraries in schools that have been visited. The All