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Showing posts with the label Multilingual Education

What have the two years of NEP meant for Multilingual Education in India?

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The National Education Policy (NEP) completed two years last month. This is a good reason to ask what the NEP 2020 has meant for multilingual education in India. There has been significant talk about introducing or strengthening  Multilingual Education in various state-level primary schools, but has there been action? The NEP 2020  has brought multilingual education higher on the agenda in India.  As an indicator, I did a quick research in Google and compared the Google hits in the  two years after NEP(2020-22) and two years prior(2018-20). I got 6500 hits since June 2020 when I searched for "Multilingual education" in India, while the two years before that had less than half of that.  The extra attention has caused a wider group of people to be thinking of the issues related to multilingual education. The home minister, for example, recently stated that, when we do not use Indian languages to teach, we are not able to utilise the full potential of the country. He also stress

MLE+: Schools Embracing Local Culture and Language (BBC)

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  Creating a school environment that helps the children to love their local languages and cultures seems rather idealistic. The BBC recently published a video clip of a school in Africa that does just that: celebrating the children’s culture in the school . As also in Africa, teaching is based on a post-colonial curriculum, that is rather unique. This is worth taking note of! To begin with, the Freedom School in Kenya promotes love and acceptance of their own culture by encouraging children to speak their mother tongue. The BBC documentary Afrocentrism: The school teaching kids to love their African culture  shows a school culture and curriculum that is Africa centred through which the children are growing to love who they are. The children are provided with mentorship and with plenty of encouragement to embrace their own heritage. This has also resulted in an increasing use of mother tongue names. 

New Books on Multilingualism, Education and Inequality

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  In nearly every conversation I have had over the years with Prof Rama Kant Agnihotri, somehow we would talk about the concept of the fluidity of languages. No wonder that he is the co-author of a book on multilingualism. He also recently co-published a book on education and inequality with a solid section on the issue of language. Two books worth noting!

Collaboration between two resources: Storyweaver and Bloom Library

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At the recent International Mother Tongue Language Day, the use of technology was emphasised. Bloom Library and Storyweaver are two pieces of simple software which come to the rescue of educators, parents, and students who want to create books in their own language. It is good to note that, rather than competing with each other, they complement each other and host each other's books and resources on their websites. As many of you are already aware, there are two very useful online book-creation tools that are making enjoyable reading material available for children in many different languages. They are Storyweaver  from Pratham Books and Bloom Library   by SIL International. Both of these online libraries not only offer books in many languages but also allow one to create one’s own books and download them for future use. They also have a variety of  image libraries which can be used by someone creating a resource. 

Happy International Mother Language Day! -Studies in Assam & Webinar

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Happy International Mother Language Day! -Studies in Assam & Webinar Today, as I was running some errands, I noticed a lot of action on the roadside. As someone was talking passionately through a microphone I assumed it was a political rally. But then I heard one phrase coming back again and again: "Matri Bhasha". Of course, I thought, today is International Mother Language Day! That gives me a  good excuse to highlight a new initiative in Assam. It is also a good reason to recommend a webinar multilingual education later today. February 21 is the International Mother Language Day. The day is to promote linguistic and cultural diversity and multilingualism around the world. The theme of the year 2022 is “Using technology for multilingual learning: Challenges and opportunities”.

NCERT Video lesson for teachers on multilingual education in primary grades

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  The NCERT/LLF  video lesson is making the concepts very clear for teachers There is quite a bit of material on the Internet about multilingual education aimed at an academic audience. This week I watched the newly published video lesson  hosted by NCERT aimed at primary school teachers. Dhir Jingran, together with other LLF staff are the resource persons and are making multilingual education very practical. I love the participatory way the lesson is designed: there are interactions, video fragments, brief explanations, helpful graphics and ways for the audience to ask questions: worth watching!

Odisha to teach tribal children in their own languages: Project ‘Samhati’

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The Hindu reported Nov 19, 2021 on Project ‘Samhati’   Odisha has been for years the most active Indian state with regards to Mother Tongue Based Multilingual Education (MTB – MLE). In the context of the new National Education Policy it has recently initiated Project ‘Samhati’ to ensure that tribal children are indeed taught in their own languages.

Article: Policy, Advocacy & Programs for Multilingual Education

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The book that contains the article Dhir Jingran knows what he is talking about when he writes about Policy, Advocacy, and Programs for Multilingual Education. In his previous job in the government of India, he made policy; as a director of an NGO, he does advocacy; and, as a researcher and trainer of teachers, he knows all about programs. No wonder that this article is definitely worth reading!

Multilingual Education explained within an hour

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  With the New National Education Policy requiring the first grades to be taught in the mother tongue, we see an increased interest in the issue of language in the classroom. However, many teachers and policymakers have a hard time understanding what multilingual education is all about. I found this excellent lecture by Dhir Jingran online. From my perspective, its strength is that it deals with both the theory as well as the practice. As a former government policymaker, grass-roots level researcher, and NGO founder, Dhir knows very well how complicated the realities on the ground are and yet he provides a clear way forward.

Tribal Boarding Schools - help or threat? - languages & cultures

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KISS website screen capture A couple of weeks ago I was asking a few colleagues about the famous Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS) Boarding school in Orissa. A sponsored Internet article stated that they were involved in mother-tongue-based multilingual education. But this week I came across research which is questioning previously published reports about the tribal boarding schools and KISS in particular.

Book: Language in Education for Migrants and Refugees

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The full book is available on the UNESCO website The issues related to migrants and refugees are more acute than ever. The free e-book Approaches to Language in Education for Migrants and Refugees in the Asia-Pacific Region looks into the issue of language in education for these people on the move. The book is published by UNESCO Bangkok and Kathleen Heugh was the first author, but many others also contributed to this 40 page book.

[MLE] MLE Certificate Course in India

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Quality Training for teachers and policy makers on the topic of Multilingual Education has always been a challenge. It is therefore good to note that a Certificate Course is under development in collaboration with Guwahati University.

[MLE] Conference on MLE, Mobility and Inclusion

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Dr Michel Kenmogne gives a welcome speech at the reception on the first day of the conference. Last week I attended  the “Inclusion, Mobility and Multilingual Education Conference” in Bangkok. This time the MLE conference was done together with the British Council’s recurring conference on Language and Education which resulted in a larger and richer conference with about 450 participants from a broad range of disciplines participating. The topic of “inclusion and mobility” provided a good opportunity to link MLE to the increasing number of issues around migration and identity. At least 30 participants were from India, several of who gave a presentation. For now, we will give a few impressions with links to abstracts. At a later stage, the full presentations will become available.

[MLE] UNICEF report on Early Literacy and Multilingual Education in South Asia

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Final Report “Early Literacy and Multilingual Education in South Asia”  A few months ago UNICEF published the final report on their research on Early Literacy and Multilingual Education in South Asia. The study is based on literature review on early literacy and multilingual education, surveys of students’ literacy achievements in primary grades, analysis of sociolinguistic situations, and policy and programme documents. That 100 page report is worth noting!

[MLE] Draft National Education Policy

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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.

[MLE] Multiple MLE Resources - Susan Malone

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Copyright  SIL-LEAD.org  Many of you might have met Dr. Susan Malone at one of her lectures during visits to India. As she has been training and mentoring teachers, supervisors, trainers and planners all across the globe she generated lots of articles, training modules and other resources that now have been made available for all of us.

[MLE] Resources from Indian Soil - Book and Video

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The Multilingual Reality: Living with Languages Prof Ajit Mohanty recently published a book on multilingual realities and Dr Dhir Jingran was interviewed for a video on multilingual teaching. Both worth taking note of.

[MLE] Advantages of learning different languages

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Studies suggest that multilingualism has its benefits. (Getty Images) Rather than dichotomizing the teaching of English against in any local language, professor Neeta Inamdar argues that research shows that a simultaneous approach of multiple languages works better.

[MLE] 6th Multilingual Education Conference - Bangkok September 2019

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MLE5 Partners  Copyright © 2018   SIL International Every two years the International MLE conference in Bangkok is a highlight for MLE practitioners and scholars. This year the 6th Multilingual Education Conference will be combined with the 13th Language and Development Conference (LDC) and address the important issues of language, human mobility, multilingual education and development. Proposals for individual presentations and panels must be received by 28 February 2019. Below are some of the details.

[MLE] Good Answers to Tough Questions

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Copyright © 2018  SIL International Often the writings about MLE are quite theoretical. Recently I came across a great resource that addresses several of the key practical questions. The main one being an issue we have been wrestling with in India for years: How to deal with multiple languages in one classroom? Some key people have written practical responses based on their experience and research.