Language and Language Teaching, Issue 2 - Azim Premji Foundation

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Multilingualism and Bilingualism forLanguage TeachersAsha IyerIntroductionA language teacher, if not all teachers, can worksuccessfully with two or even more languages.In many CBSE schools including the KendriyaVidyalayas, English is the medium of education,therefore, it seems only pedagogically desirableand psychologically advantageous for both thestudents and the teachers to work with Englishas well as the other languages being taught inthe school or represented among the children.Unless a teacher treats the languages of thechildren as a resource, she may not be able tounderstand their output, and may not bepedagogically very effective.Why should we do it?Children in class one have a good knowledge oftheir mother tongue. Also, in each classroomthere is an average of 4-6 language groups,depending upon the State. Let me explain—inUnless a teacher treats the languages ofthe children as a resource, she may not beable to understand their output, and maynot be pedagogically very effective.the States, we may find some children who speakthe regional language of that State as well assome other languages, such as Tamil and someother languages in Tamil Nadu; Bangla as wellas some other languages in West Bengal, andMarathi and some other languages inMaharashtra. The second group may belong tothe neighbouring States—a Marathi group inplaces adjoining Maharashtra such asNepanagar or Burhanpur of Madhya Pradesh,or an Oriya Group in Chhattisgarh, or a HindiGroup in Punjab along with Punjabi andHaryanavi.In such situations a language teacher can doreally well if he/she knows some basics of thelanguage concerned. It is always easy toapproach a child in his/her own language.Moreover, children, especially in primary classes,feel closer to the teacher when he/she tries tosay some words/simple expressions of theirmother tongue and the language becomes a veryimpressive tool.In primary classes, children have a difficult timeadjusting to an alien language such as English.Most of our children are not conversant withEnglish. If the teacher tries to speak in theirown language or even says a few words,children feel at home. One important thing tonote is, never joke about the mother tongue ofchildren, or tease them about it. If you laugh attheir language, they will hate you as well as thesubject you are trying to teach, forever.How does it help?Let us look at Maharashtra as the majority ofmy experiences come from the two KendriyaVidyalayas of Bhusawal and Nepanagar.Nepanagar is situated at the border of MadhyaPradesh and Maharashtra. While teaching inNepanagar, I found students using words fromMarathi while speaking to each other in Hindi.Their tone and expressions also resembled thoseLanguage and Language Teaching Volume 1 Number 2 July 2012 16
of Marathi. The remarkable thing was that formany of them, Marathi was not even theirmother tongue! But I could hear expressionssuch as the following quite often when they triedto speak in Hindi:1. ye meraich hai.This mine only is.This is mine only.In Hindi it would be, ‘Ye meraa hii hai’. Theuse of ‘meraich’ shows a Marathi influence.2. kaiko re!Why oh‘Why eh!‘kaiko’ is used in Marathi in informal speech.In writing, I found many ‘errors’ in the use ofmatras (symbols showing vowels and the lengthof time needed for their pronunciation),especially in the use of short and long ‘i’ and‘u’. To correct such errors, a language teachershould first know why these happen. I examinedthe work of many students and discovered thefollowing: They wrote the short sounds with asign of the longer matra and vice versa. I listenedcarefully to the elders as well, and found thatthey also pronounced these sounds in a similarmanner. One should understand that these areall ‘errors’ in the process of learning, and happendue to the language used around them, andchildren do eventually learn to write correctly.Thus, what we treat as mistakes and oftenpunish our children for, are actually expected,and are simply an evidence of what they arelearning from their environment.Then what did I do?I searched for a Marathi-speaking parent anddiscussed the problem with him. He said it wasall due to the use of the wrong wilanti, which inMarathi means maatraa. Therefore, the word‘hindu’, was pronounced hinduu in Hindi, andhiindu in Marathi (the short ‘i’ became longand long ‘uu’ short). The children also wrote itas hiindu when writing in Hindi; after all, inHindi we want them to write as they speak!So I thought it over and came up with a verysimple solution. It may seem silly, but it worked.I asked the students to exchange the matrasthey intended to write, therefore they wrote ‘i’in place of the longer ‘ii’, and the longer ‘ii’whenever they intended to write a small ‘i’.After a bit they caught up with it and came upwith a similar solution for correcting their small‘u’ and long ‘uu’.One important thing to note is, never jokeabout the mother tongue of children, ortease them about it. If you laugh at theirlanguage, they will hate you as well as thesubject you are trying to teach, forever.Aspirated Hindi consonantsNow let us look at a Tamil-speaking child whois in class one. She/he is either new to Hindi, orhas just learnt a few words in it. How would aHindi teacher make her/him say themahaapraan, i.e. aspirated sounds? Aspiratedsounds are produced with an extra puff of air.That is what makes kaanaa, meaning ‘oneeyed’different from khaanaa meaning ‘food’.Tamil does NOT have aspirated sounds. If ateacher understands that what is involved inproducing an aspirated sound is just an extrapuff of air, she would be able to help her studentsa lot. In this case, early intervention also helps,for once the tongue and other relevant parts ofthe mouth become habituated to speaking in acertain manner, it will be very difficult to correctthe pronunciation. Even our brain will refuse toaccommodate the new way of pronunciation.The first two classes of the Primary is the besttime to perform this task.Language and Language Teaching Volume 1 Number 2 July 2012 17
Page 3 and 4: Language and Language TeachingVolum
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Page 7 and 8: All classroom experiences are insta
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Page 11 and 12: However, we were not successful in
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Page 15: ensure that they get a solid founda
Page 19 and 20: Popularizing any language is a two-
Page 21 and 22: Cartoon Shows: A Tool to Facilitate
Page 23 and 24: Comprehension is a two-fold process
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