Coping with three languages in school

The Hindu, Tuesday 13, March 2001.

``MY GRANDSON? He speaks Assamese to his mother, Telugu with us, and has picked
up some English and Hindi at his playschool,'' said my cousin in response to my query
about the three-year-old.

Children left to themselves seem to pick up three or even four languages easily. Why then
do they struggle to cope with three languages at school? One reason is that in school,
languages are ``taught,'' rather than provided as an environment that the child can
immerse herself in. A second reason is that in school, different languages are kept apart.

They have different teachers and are taught at different times. Even in bilingual education
programmes, different languages are identified with different subjects. The result is that
the worlds of these languages rarely overlap; quite unlike situations of ``natural''
multilingualism.

But surely this is not inevitable; and it is certainly not desirable. Early justifications for
retaining English in education included the hope that knowledge encoded in English
would transfer to mother-tongue domains. If this promise has not been kept, it is because
education has failed to produce multilingually-literate children. Isolating the knowledge-
worlds of different languages also affects achievement levels of reading and writing in
English and in our own languages (for English- medium as well as Indian-language
medium students).

We believe that there is a simple way around the problem: children should be able to read
the same books in a variety of languages. The resources for such an activity are readily
available: the National Book Trust (NBT) regularly brings out multi-language editions of
the same book. If a child is given the opportunity to read the same (or even similar)
material in more than one language, then both the languages, we believe, might benefit.

One of us has tried this spontaneously as a parent, and the other is attempting it in her
class as a teacher. The parent did not know enough Telugu to help the child; so a couple
of Telugu story books were bought along with their English counterparts. These English
books served as the child's `teacher-parent' when she did not understand Telugu very
well. (This is the minimum requirement for language acquisition: understanding what is
read or said.)

The teacher knows through experience that even in a single language, the same ideas
encountered in different words give the child a better grasp of the ideas, as well as the
language forms that can express them. (This strategy is a natural counter to the problem
of rote-learning, where an idea gets frozen into particular words. Even advanced readers
may have experienced a complex idea becoming much clearer when it is told, and
carefully retold, by more than one person who understands it. After all, such retelling is
the essence of teaching!)
In an obvious extension of this idea, the teacher has started a project: a multilingual class
library. She is a history teacher at class VII and very happy that the Telugu teacher is
using ``Videsheeyula Bharata Darshanam (As They Saw India). This NBT book provides
the accounts of foreign travellers of the period which was the portion these children had
studied the previous year. Familiarity with the subject increased the children's feel for the
language and vice versa.

It can be argued that the student's own reading experience is an important part of the
reading process in multilingual contexts. ``Knowing the story'' or information allows
students to predict and make assumptions from prior knowledge of the text in the
language better known. Familiarity with the information encourages them to continue
rather than feel discouraged by the unfamiliar language symbols they confront.

Reading has been described as a process of ``creative interaction'' between the reader and
the text. So multilingual reading may be seen as a predictive strategy for reading. It is one
in which students can anticipate language. Multilingual libraries and teaching
programmes can provide books with the same story or information in different languages.

This enables students to know the story or information and it is important to assert that
children don't get bored with the same texts.

After reading, assessment of the quantum of learning achieved becomes unnecessary i.e.,
testing becomes redundant, even counter-productive as the content is known and
excitement of parallel texts all pervasive. It's the languages that vary.

It may even be important not to test but to make the library component one-class-a-week
when books are freely exchanged and discussed.

NBT's Nehru Pustakalaya Library provides over 200 lavishly illustrated multilingual
texts. The programme ranges from non-text picture stories for early primary through
fiction and non- fiction for upper primary and middle school levels.

Every known Indian author from Ruskin Bond to scientist Narlikar features on the list.

Every teacher is familiar with the Russian books now no longer available. NBT's are as
good. Even better.

R. AMRITAVALLI &
LAKSHMI RAMESHWAR RAO