Untitled

saxelmwifo enis swavlebis sakiTxebi:
problemebi da gamowvevebi
Issues of State Language Teaching;
Problems and Challenges
opment of the child's personality, talents and mental and physical abilities to their fullest potential." and 29
1.e) “Take measures to encourage regular attendance at schools and the reduction of drop-out rates” can not be
fulfilled.
At the same time the mother tongue does not develop properly in this educational setting. The children do
not learn how to read and write in their mother tongue and they will not be able to express more complex academic
meaning in it. Even if children continue to use their mother tongue at home or with friends, they will
not learn to formulate more complex academic meaning in it. The linguistic development stops on an everyday
level. The diagram shows that the development of the mother tongue not only stops, but can go back at the
age of about 14-15. This phenomenon is explained by the fact, that at this age the pupils start to subconsciously
understand, that their mother tongue is the reason for their difficulties at school. Seeing that the children
who speak the State language at home are doing much better, pupils can draw the conclusion, that everything
they received from home (including the language), impedes them in life. This can go as far as a total
rejection of the mother tongue and the culture connected to it. At the same time a hostile attitude towards the
majority language and culture can occur. This psychological tension is called "bicultural ambivalence":
"shame towards the native culture and hostility towards the other". 6 In some settings, and if the teachers know
the mother tongue of the children, teachers often start to translate. If the teaching process goes about with constant
translation, children never hear any coherent texts in the target language, because the teacher constantly
switches between languages. As a result the pupils might not be able to clearly differentiate the two languages
and start to mix them. In this case their competence in the State language does not reach a normal level either.
Therefore persons who undergo education in such a setting very often become semi-lingual (or subtractive
bilinguals): they will have a good command neither of the mother tongue nor of the second language.
Language
development SEMILINGUALISM
6-7 years age
(school)
The potentials of multilingual education models
In order to tackle these challenges, various models of multilingual education can be helpful. Multilingual
education refers to the use of two or more languages as mediums of instruction, as defined by UNESCO. 7 Dif-
6 Crawford (1989, 107)
7 UNESCO (2003)
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