Multilingual Education and India

Having many languages in one classroom can be enriching but also challenging, especially because every classroom situation is different. A teaching typology can help bring clarity by identifying common language situations and linking them to suitable teaching strategies. This work is meant to start a conversation, and feedback from teachers, teacher trainers, and policymakers is warmly welcomed on how it can be improved. In the Linkedin article “An MLE Typology that Fits the New Narrative,”   we state that today’s classrooms can no longer be understood through a simple “one home language → one school language” model; instead, we must recognise that there are many contexts where students speak multiple different languages and where no single shared language exists between teacher and learners. A classroom typology can help to identify the relevant difference in classroom situations: © 2026 Karsten van Riezen This framework helps make sense of what we see in India’s recent Teaching ...

Language technology is getting a lot of attention these days but usually the focus is on the dominant languages.   I was pleasantly surprised that in a recent workshop organised by IIIT-Hyderabad, also the underserved languages were in focus. This is of course of interest for the multilingual education efforts in India as there is a significant shortage of support to create materials and tools for children that speak minority languages. IIIT-Hyderabad recently hosted a multi-day workshop focused on low-resource Indian languages, as noted by Prof. Sandeep K. Shukla . The institute organised Bahu Bhasa 2025 (6–8 Nov 2025), a major event that brought together technologists, linguists, community leaders and policy stakeholders to reimagine the future of Indian languages in the digital age ( Deccan Chronicle ). This mix of research and public dialogue connects language-technology efforts (Natural Language Processing – NLP, speech, language resources) to India’s broader educational goal...