Multilingual Education and India

Conference on Multilingualism and Development   As part of the series of conferences on  Language and Development the Britisch Council is this year organising a conference in Delhi on Multilingualism and Development   The Website of the Britisch Council states: "The Language and Development series is a conference held every two years that explores the role of language in development. It addresses the issues of world, national, second and minority languages and the role they play in economic, social and cultural development; language policy, conflict transformation, language rights and identity; communication, education and development and language pedagogy. The Subthemes

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Dear Multilingual education friends, Some of the tribal groups in need for education in their mother tongue do not yet have a proper orthography. A new books has come out that topic:   Developing Orthographies for Unwritten Languages Linguistics and Orthography   ·          Michael Cahill & Keren Rice (Editors). 2014. Developing Orthographies for Unwritten Languages . SIL International. 276 pgs ·           It is available in India via flipkart and Amazon . The table of content is given below.

Congrats, Multilingual Education Friends, today is International Mother Language day! A nice description on West-Info-eu is given as follows: Today 21 st February , the International Mother Language Day is celebrated. Proclaimed the first time in 1999 by UNESCO , it is an important initiative to promote linguistic and cultural diversity and multiculturalism. The date represents the day in 1952 when students demonstrating for recognition of their language, Bangla , as one of the two national languages of the then Pakistan , were shot and killed by police in Dhaka , the capital of what is now Bangladesh. However, due to globalization processes, languages are increasingly under threat  to the point that more than 50% of the 7,000

Dear Multilingual Education friends, Below is some good news from the conveners of the recent Asia MLE WG MLE Conference: the presentation videos from Jim Cummins have been uploaded. Enjoy! Regards, Karsten -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Prof. Jim Cummin's videos are available! Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2014 14:12:38 +0700 From: Asia MLE WG MLE Conference <mleconf2013@gmail.com> Dear  MLE Participants, Hope this e-mail finds you well. I’m pleased to announce that  Prof. Jim Cummins’s  special presentation videos for 4 th  International Conference on Language and Education, which was held last November, are now available under conference website. Plea

Dear Multilingual Education friends, As a follow up on the NCERT study National Study on Ten Year School Curriculum Implementation the Times of India published this week an article titled States realize English is what people want . A few quotes It's not just parents across India who are confused about the time and importance to be given to education in English and the vernacular; the latest data from NCERT reveals our education establishment is just as perplexed, with very little uniformity in the way regional languages are treated. Almost 30% states devote [only] six to seven periods a week in Class V for teaching the local language, the study says. English seems to be scoring. Introduced towards the middle of elementary school, it is now offered at the Class I level in 26 states, making it clear that most states have realized that that is what people want. "While they (parents) may kno

Dear multilingual Education friends, Every year the ASER report provides a great source of data with regards to realities of primary education in rural India. The ASER press release states: Every year, ASER finds out whether children in rural India go to school, whether they can read simple text and whether they can do basic arithmetic. Nationally, the proportion of all children in Std. V who can read a Std. II level text remains virtually the same since 2012, at 47%. This proportion decreased each year from 2009 to 2012, dropping  from 52.8% in 2009 to 46.9% in 2012. Among Std. V children enrolled in government schools, the percentage of children able to read Std. II level text decreased from 50.3% (2009) to 43.8% (2011) to 41.1% (2013). Over the last three years, there has been a steady increase in the provision of libraries in schools that have been visited. The All

Dear multilingual education friends, In March 2013 LEAD Asia held workshop on the topic of ' Identity-Based Community Development ', bringing together 60 community development practitioners from 12 different countries. One of the outputs of this event was the production of a practitioners guide titled Signposts to Identity-Based Community Development . The guide provides a useful resource for anyone involved in community development work, particularly among linguistic minorities. It is adding to the growing literature around the importance of communities identity, language and culture in the development process. A brief introduction to the guide is included below.

Dear multilingual education friends, The United Nations is encouraging college and university students to write an essay in one of its six official languages on the role of multilingualism in a globalized world. To qualify, the student’s native language has to be different from the one in which he or she writes, and different from the principal one at the school. The contest is called " Many languages, one world ’.

Dear multilingual education friends, Several of us have had input in the drafting of the Early Childhood Care and Education policy (ECCE) on request by the Women and Child Development Ministry.   It clearly states at several places that the use of the mother tongue of the children is the preferred medium. E.g.: The mother tongue or home language of the child will be the primary language of interaction in the ECCE programmes. However, given the young child‟s ability at this age to learn many languages, exposure to the national/regional language and English in oral form as required, will also be explored. This weekend the policy hit the press with the language issue in focus. Yesterday on the front page of the Delhi version of the  Indian Express was an article titled: " Govt wants Playschools to mind Language, go Vernacular " and today a similar article was published:

Dear Multilingual Education friends, It is once again that Odisha is in the news with regards to the need to use the mother tongue of the children in the school. This time the initiative to raise a voice was taken by Save the Children (Good to see you name among the speakers, Sanjeev!) and Sikshasandhan. In the context of RTE  a state level consultation on Language, Tribal Education and Right to Education was held in Bhubaneswar last month. A few quotes from the Odishadiary website: A serious attempt should be initiated to explore the existing gaps to address the problems faced by the linguistic minority children, concerted advocacy efforts should be made by civil society groups, education activists and the government for the necessity of having a state level multilingual education policy (Dr Sanjeev Rai) Government has taken some initiatives in this regard meanwhile, but it needs to be expedited

Dear multilingual education friends, Yesterday I read in the Indian Express India speaks...780 ways about the completion of the People's Linguistic Survey of India (PLSI). They found 780 languages spoken in India. A quote: After what can easily be called the largest-ever survey of languages in the world, spread over four years, involving around 85 institutions, roping in as many linguists, sociologists, anthropologists and cultural activists, and tapping over 3,000 volunteers, the centre has compiled its findings. In the year 2013, shows the 'People's Linguistic Survey of India (PLSI)', there are 780 languages spoken across the length and breadth of the country. In contrast, the 2001 Census listed just 122 languages

Dear multilingual education friends, The British Council is pleased to share the link of the videos from the 3 rd International English Language Teacher Educator Conference (TEC) held in Hyderabad from 16 - 18 March 2013. The videos have been uploaded on YouTube and you can view them at this link . There are some interesting presentations such as “ Evaluation Study of MLE of Odisha ” by Lata Pandey from NCERT, “Grounding ELT in an MLE Framework” by Ajit Mohanty from JNU “Importance of Mother Tongue Education for Quality Education” by Pamela Mackenzie from INfD Enjoy watching them and others. From some of the speakers there are presentation available also .