Inculcation of Local Languages in the Curriculum

“Language is a political institution; those who are wise in its ways, capable of using it to shape and serve important personal and social goals, will be the ones who are ‘empowered’; able, that is, not merely to participate effectively in the world, but able also to act it, in the sense that they can strive for significant social change. Looked at in these terms, provision of appropriate language education programs is a profoundly important matter, both in ensuring equality of educational opportunity and in helping to develop those who are able and willing to take an effective role in democratic processes of all kinds.” (Clare Painter)

There is no denying fact that languages of the world are in danger of extinction with a swift irrepressible pace, and situation of languages in Pakistan is an accurate mirror to this reality. According to a recent UNESCO report, around 37 languages are in danger zone. There are many causative factors behind this situation. Dr. N Omkar Koul identifies factors responsible for driving a large number of minor and minority languages toward endangerment in a multilingual context. Some such factors are the language preferences in education, lack of language resources; instructional materials and training are equally responsible for it.

As per the survey of preference in education in Pakistan, the governments of KP and GB are apt to prefer a number of minor and minority languages in education. This being the case, the language is seen as available to a child for learning other things once he or she gets to school.

In a sense, educational interest in language is not new. Studies of rhetoric and of grammar go back as far as the Greeks; in many countries of the world, studies of the classical languages, have had a well-established place in educational practices. If we observe the growth of language abilities from their very beginning, then we have the best chance of understanding how and why the fully fledged adult language works as it does. And without a clear understanding of this, we will be in no position to judge the merits and demerits of various educational proposals, either for the development of children’s language itself, or for using language more generally in an institutional setting.

What we need to consider are the limitations and possibilities of this kind of linguistic system. Perhaps the first step to carry out is to research a sound system and on the basis of it, language educational materials are prepared, and then, entail it in an institutional setting.

Having a multilingual status of Gilgit Baltistan, five languages alongside Domaki (an endangered language of Hunza District) and Gojri are spoken. Shina is one of the major languages of Gilgit Baltistan which the census of 1998, the latest one in the country, lumps together as ‘other languages’. The number of Shina speakers, according to informed estimates, totals up to 871,260 in the Shina-speaking areas and 252,614 migrants in the rest of the country (Kohistani 1998:11; Schmidt 1984; Gordon 2005).

The effort toward inculcating mother tongue education in the curriculum would plainly worth it, if principally the added sense of control and direction of a MTB-MLE (Mother Tongue based Multi-Lingual Education) program facilitated it. It would be able to intervene much more effectively in directing and guiding those whom it would teach; that because they would have a better sense of the relationship of language and content than they had before, they would better guide their students into control of the content of the subjects for which they are responsible. Finally, that because they would have an improved sense of how to direct language learning, they would be able to institute new assessment policies, negotiating, defining and clarifying realistic goals for their students. By any standards, these are considerable achievements.

as i draw this article to a conclusion, i should perhaps note for the department of education’s benefit to read the mother tongue-based multilingual education: implications for education policy by Susan Malone, sil international.

The most important reason for doing this is to come to an understanding of the essential nature of training itself. If we wish to trace the development in a child’s life from being a postliguistic child to a competent language user, then the obvious place to start the program is to own a MTB-MLE training program.

Let’s come to know the MOTHER TONGUE-BASED MULTILINGUAL EDUCATION program’s implications for education policy. The educational problem faced by many children from ethno-linguistic communities is twofold. In the first place, some have no access to education at all. Those who do have access to school but do not speak the official language when they enter the education system find that their knowledge, experience and language—rather than serving as a foundation for learning—are treated as a disadvantage. Their language skills do not serve them because their language has no place in the classroom. Instead, textbooks and teaching are in a language they neither speak nor understand. Their learning and problem-solving experiences and their knowledge of “how things work” in their own culture and social setting do not serve them because the culture of the classroom, the teachers, and the textbooks is that of the dominant society. The consequences for many students are predictable and have been described in numerous studies, as noted in the factors that follow.

• Loss of confidence in themselves as learners
• Inability to learn the official school language well
• High repetition and drop-out rates
• Alienation from heritage language and culture,
• Further disempowerment of girls
• Lack of access to social, political, economic and physical development processes
• Underutilization of human resources
• Loss of languages, cultures and of knowledge systems.
• Ineffective and inefficient use of human resources

These factors indicate the concerns that are being raised in Asia and Africa, about the negative consequences of exclusionary language and education policies.

Using students’ mother tongue as the foundation for life-long learning, MT-Based MLE programs enable students from non-dominant language communities to build a strong educational foundation in the language they know best—their MT or first language (L1)—and a good bridge to the official language—the school L2—and other languages of learning (L3, L4, etc.) and then encourage them to use both / all their languages for life-long learning.

The best language learning methods are those that supply “comprehensible input” in low nervousness situations, containing messages that students really want to hear. These messages do not force early production in the L2 but allow students to produce when they are ‘ready’, recognizing that improvement comes from supplying communicative and comprehensible input, and not from forcing and correcting production. (Krashen, 1981, in Wilson, 2001)

Regarding the focus on building a strong educational foundation in the L1, the most powerful factor in predicting educational success for minority learners is the amount of formal schooling their received in their L1… Only those language minority students who had 5-6 years of strong cognitive and academic development in their L1—as well as through [L2] did well in Grade 11 assessments (Thomas and Collier, 2001). Knowledge gained in one language transfers to other languages that we learn (Cummins: http://esl.fis.edu/teachers/support/cummins.htm)

When children continue to develop their abilities in two or more languages throughout their primary school years, they gain a deeper understanding of language and how to use it effectively. They have more practice in processing language, especialy when they develop literacy in both, and they are able to compare and contrast the ways in which their two languages organize reality (Jim Cummins, citing Baker and Skutnabb-Kangas.

http://www.iteachilearn.com/cummins/

A study of language and/or language-and-education policies in Asia reveals a continuum of policies, from those that support and affirm linguistic and cultural diversity as a national resource to those that promote assimilation and “national unity” based on the language and culture of the most dominant group(s).

Planning, implementing and sustaining MT-Based MLE programs in multiple language communities is certainly challenging, especially in multi-lingual countries lacking extensive financial resources. I believe that work done by SIL and UNESCO currently is making a major contribution to the development of a vigorous language education, not all of it of course in systemic framework.