[MLE] Good practices in multilingual education strategies and policy in India

© United News of India

In the previous blog post I reported on the MultiLila Research Project which is going on in India. On July 12 and 13 the consortium behind this research project conducted a meeting “The languages of education in multilingual India: exploring effects on reading and mathematics” at which important aspects of multilingualism and education were discussed. Under the heading "Starting English early not the best way to learn English well" (A quote from Dhir Jhingran) the United News of India reported on some of the issues discussed.

The event was planned to share early research finding and continue the dialogue around the need for good practices in multilingual education strategies and policy in India. Some quotes from the article :

“ … the emergence of Hindi as a prime communicative language has been found to decrease in domains of mother tongue usage, complex diglossia faced by students who speak tribal languages as mother tongue. It is also learned that the language is a bridge between a child's consciousness and the phenomenal world.”

“The emergence of Hindi as a prime communicative language has been found to decrease in domains of mother tongue usage, complex diglossia faced by students who speak tribal languages as mother tongue. It is also learned that the language is a bridge between a child's consciousness and the phenomenal world.” (Dr Tsimpli)"

"Mother Tongue Based Multilingual Education issues are not just tribal language issues -- these are a pan Indian phenomenon."

“Multilingual heteroglossic education programmes must be developed to support multiple languages and literacies, allowing for their functional interrelationships and complementarities to thrive."

If any of you can get hold of any of the presentations that underpinned these great quotes, let us know!

Regards,

Karsten

[MLE] Positive Research Results East Timor

We are often asked for research evidence with regards to the impact of MLE. Even though the below write up is not on a project in India, it seems to have enough similarity to make it relevant to take note of. The Endline survey of the pilot is showing that MLE children do better in particularly reading.

In the article Building bridges through multilingual schooling: a mother-tongue pilot in East Timor is showing the way, Kerry Taylor-leech writes with enthusiasm about the classes she observed. “The children love it and I too am enjoying myself immensely.”. About the evaluation report she states:

the survey compared children’s performance in EMBLI schools, government schools and Portuguese-immersion schools. Not surprisingly, the results show the benefits of learning in a language a child understands best. EMBLI children showed marked gains compared to the other children, especially in reading

[MLE] Conference on Language and Education starting tomorrow

5th International Conference on Language and Education will start tomorrow

 

The 5th International Conference on Language and Education will  take stock of recent developments in MLE policies and practices in the Asia-Pacific region, with a special focus on multilingual education in early childhood and primary education.There will be several presentations relevant to India.
 
The conference will start tomorrow with opening speeches from UNESCO and the Thai government. The Keynote address will be on "Supporting MTB­MLE to achieve sustainable development for all: what have we learned about successful programs?" by Dr Susan Malone (SIL International). Some of the India related presentations are:

• Prarthana Kumari (Nirantar, India) and Anita Singh (Nirantar, India), Breaking language barriers in India
• Sivagami Sivasubbu (Aide et Action International, India), Experiences of Aide et Action imparting MLE through teacher training in India
• Dwiti Vikramaditya (Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS), India) and Kadey Soren (Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS), India), India transition curriculum: a smooth transition of indigenous children from preschool to primary school, an initiative by Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences, Odisha, India.
• Arpita Panda (English and Foreign Languages University, India), "Translanguaging": a pedagogical tool to improve reading comprehension of learners in a multilingual setting in Odisha, India
• Valerie Haugen (VoxPacis International Development) and Dhir Jhingran (Language and Learning Foundation, India), An analytical framework to inform strategic and programmatic decisions around language in education: cases from India, Lao PDR, and Papua New Guinea
• Binay Pattanayak (UNICEF India), Some steps towards MTB-MLE in Jharkhand, India
• Boneti Simhabaludu (World Vision, India), Collaborating: a key component to transform early childhood and primary education in India and a step towards achieving SDG-4
• Uma Maheshwari Chimirala (English and Foreign Languages University, India), Looking through the teachers' "other languages" use/preference: a study of the monolingual mindset in MLE classrooms in Andhra Pradesh, India

MLE: India related MLE research

Research paper: Language and language-in-education planning in multilingual India

It is fun to note when a good friend publishes on multilingual education in India. Dr Cynthia Groff has visited India many times and did her PhD research on the language and education situation among the Kumauni people in Uttarakhand.
 

The full tittle of the paper is "Language and language-in-education planning in multilingual India: A linguistic minority perspective." and is based on Nancy Hornberger's language policy and planning seminar. The abstract states: "This article explores India's linguistic diversity from a language policy perspective, emphasizing policies relevant to linguistic minorities". Here are the details:

• Groff, C. (2016). Language and language-in-education planning in multilingual India: A linguistic minority perspective. Language Policy, in press. 
  Available through 'online first', open access:
  http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10993-015-9397-4

While talking about relevant papers, many of the presentations presented at the 2015 British Council Conference on Multilingualism are now uploaded on the website. Dr Pamela MacKenzie selected a few for this mailing list she wrote (Thanks Pam!):
"The Language and Development Conference run by the British Council and held recently in Delhi had a number of very interesting presentations.  While I could not attend the conference itself, many of the presentations are very helpfully on You Tube.  These can be found under Plenary and Featured speakers here
There were several presentations focusing on Africa, such as one by Birgit Brock-Utne on the political confusion in the use of language in education, and others focussing on Asian countries including Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, which may have some relevance to India, but here are a few highlights relating specifically to India:

• Rukmini Banerjee (Pratham) looking at how language affects learning and comes up with several strategies to help teachers become more productive teachers in multilingual classrooms starting with what children do and know.
• Giridhar Rao on the lack of learning that goes on in English Medium schools and that they offer a false promise.
• It is great to see D P Pattanayak on a panel with Minati Panda and Giridhar Roa, and with Ajit Mohanty chairing the session."

[MLE] Policy Brief - Reading Solutions for girls

Policy Brief - Reading Solutions for girls in a multilingual setting

 

The 2015 Echidna Global Scholars Policy Brief has this year been titled Reading solutions for girls; Combating social, pedagogical, and systemic issues for tribal girls' multilingual education in India.
 

The 28 page Policy Brief has been written by Suman Sachdeva, Technical Director Education, CARE India. Here are a few highlights taken from a summary on the brooking website:

• The current approach to delivering effective multilingual education (MLE) for tribal students where tribal populations are more than 30 percent of the local population and where there are more than three dialects is inadequate overall and ignores gender-specific educational challenges.
• Although evidence suggests there is a small gender gap in reading ability between tribal girls and boys, in general girls are more heavily impacted by inadequate language skills in the short and long term as they become more vulnerable to drop out and thus unable to complete a full course of education.
• To address the shortcomings of the current MLE approach, policymakers must look into the social, pedagogical, and systemic barriers tribal girls face when impeded from acquiring reading skills

The paper ends with six "Solutions for Girls' reading", which gives some good recommandations. Obviously a must-read for those of us involved in tribal education and gender!

[MLE] FRAME India research report or reading acquisition

Report on research on reading acquisition in AP and Karnataka FRAME-India - Final Report The Facilitating Reading Acquisition in Multilingual Environments in India (FRAME-India) report claims to be the first pre-intervention research for developing a theory of change that is relevant for multilingual learners in the developing world.   The FRAME final report announcement gives a general overview of the research which was conducted in Andra Pradesh and Karnataka and focussed on the interplay between English and the state languages in the class rooms. The report itself is 60 pages and has a nice 3 page Executive Summary in the beginning. Some quotes from the findings: Lit 1 decoding (i.e., Kannada or Telugu decoding scores) was one of the strongest independent predictors of Lit 2 English decoding, suggesting that for English decoding success, a child must have a certain degree of proficiency in their first literacy this is the first study that provides an empirical threshold point of approximately 60%, at which Lit 1 decoding ability substantively and significantly increases the likelihood of "transfer" of knowledge to Lit 2 decoding for effective biliteracy outcomes. Some quotes from the recommandations: It is important to sequence reading subskills in Lit 1 alphasyllabic and Lit 2 alphabetic languages in ways that are reflective of the scripts, and in a way that incorporates "transfer" of Lit 1 skills for reading gains in both languages. For improving reading skills in Lit 1 and English, it may be beneficial not to introduce English decoding instruction until the child has achieved the necessary threshold value of Lit 1 decoding skills.

[MLE] MLE promoted at the State Vision Conclave in Jharkhand

State Vision Conclave in Ranchi promotes MLE According to the ASER-2014 report only 1/3 of the grade V children in Jharkhand can comprehend a grade V text. The State Vision Conclave points at language as being a cause for this problem.   On 29 January 2015 the Jharkhand government in coopretion with UNICEF conducted a state Vision Conclave at Ranchi, Jharkhand. The new Chief Minister of Jharkhand also participated in the conclave other than several senior officials from govt., more than 25 NGOs, several corporates, language experts and other experts on child development.   Dhir Jhingran, in the Education Session, spoke about the need for Mother Tongue based MLE in Jharkhand.The Pioneer reported on his presentation by publishing the following article: 'Mother tongue based multilingual education needed in Jharkhand' A quote: According to experts, Santahli speaking children of Dumka and Pakur, Ho speaking children of West Singhbhum, Mundari speaking children of Khunti and Kudukh speaking children of Gumla could learn very fast if the medium of education is their mother tongue. Experts opine that the process can be started on a pilot basis if it cannot be implement at the same time.

[MLE] MLE related books and papers

An emerging research partnership for multilingual education View this email in your browser Multilingual Education Related Resources   Dear Multilingual Education Friends, Sometimes we come across beautiful resources awhile after they were published.  Here are a few: Common tongue: The impact of language on educational outcomes, a paper by Tarun Jain (2011) in which he explores the issue of language in relation to economic performance. He studies the impact that the reorganisation of Indian states has made on economic status on  the district level in relation to the language spoken. He concludes: “After reorganization, historically minority language districts experience greater growth in educational achievement compared to previously majority language districts, indicating that reassignment could reverse the impact of history.” Children’s Literature in Multilingual Classrooms: From multiliteracy to multimodality, a book by Jim Cummings (foreword), Christine Hélot, Raymonde Sneddon and Nicola Day. Even though it is not about India, it seems relevant, as the description states: “It looks specifically at how translation can support learning, at how dual language books enhance learning in both languages, and at making and reading books from a variety of cultural backgrounds and in a variety of languages.  It provides much evidence for improved learning outcomes as well as children's social and personal development.” Assessing early grade reading: The value and limits of ‘words per minute’,  a paper written by Barbara Graham and Agatha van Ginkel. This research paper is interesting for those of us involved in grading and research as in the study also two minority language speaking groups were included. The conclusion is that “WPM is not a reliable comparative measure of reading development since linguistic and orthographic features can differ considerably and are likely to influence the reading acquisition process.” As so many of us know Dhir Jhingran, let me also mention here about his recent article entitled: Writing on board: Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan must be phased out. Enough to read for today! Karsten http://www.mle-india.net/ Book: Multilingual Classrooms Copyright © *|CURRENT_YEAR|* *|LIST:COMPANY|*, All rights reserved. *|IFNOT:ARCHIVE_PAGE|* *|LIST:DESCRIPTION|* Our mailing address is: *|HTML:LIST_ADDRESS_HTML|* *|END:IF|* unsubscribe from this list    update subscription preferences *|IF:REWARDS|* *|HTML:REWARDS|* *|END:IF|*

MLE Research partnership for India

Panel Discussion

Dear Multilingual Education Friends,

Last month the English Partnerships team of the British Council of India convened a research round-table on multilingual education in India.

The reason for the meeting was that the Centre for Literacy and Multilingualism at the University of Reading had proposed a collaborative research partnership with Indian universities and institutions to investigate the issues around multilingual literacy and education at the primary level in India. At the meetings, a framework was discussed for “setting up a longitudinal project into the role of mother tongues and regional languages in learning and teaching in India.”

During one of the evenings, there was a panel discussion on the “Benefits and challenges of multilingual education in India” with several people included who are well known to many of us: Dr Dhir Jhingran (UNICEF India), Prof. Ianthi Tsimpli, Dr Rukmini Banerji (Pratham – ASER Centre), Prof. Paul Gunashekar (EFL University, Hyderabad), Prof. Ajit Mohanty (National Multilingual Education Resource Centre) and Dr Mahendra Mishra (ICICI Foundation).

The outcome of the meeting has been the setting up of a “research consortium of interested parties who would like to be involved in the development of this project, with a view to submitting a joint application for funding.” We are looking forward to the outcome of that!

[MLE] NCERT study ; "States realize English is what people want"

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 know they are abandoning their heritage by putting their children early into English-medium private schools, they are sanguine about this, choosing to survive in the present milieu over being the reluctant custodians of local languages that have given them precious little in terms of livelihood in return for loyalty."

[MLE] Release of ASER Report - also: Implications for English teaching

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 India figure for schools with no library provision

dropped from 37.4% in 2010 to 22.9% in 2013.

Given the changing priorities in education policy and the shift in focus to learning outcomes, we hope that in the next few years there will be much better news to report on children’s learning.

While reflecting on the data, Rukmini Banerji, the director of ASER, wrote in the Hindustan Times an article on "When and how English should be taught in schools". Some quotes:

The figures indicate that about half of all rural children in Class 8 can read a set of simple sentences and of those who can read about three-fourths can explain the meaning of what they have read. - See more at: http://www.hindustantimes.com/comment/analysis/when-and-how-english-should-be-taught-in-schools/article1-1166370.aspx#sthash.lllnv1NR.dpuf

When and how English should be taught in schools

When and how English should be taught in schools

When and how English should be taught in schools

When and how English should be taught in schools

The figures indicate that about half of all rural children in Class 8 can read a set of simple sentences [in English] and of those who can read about three-fourths can explain the meaning of what they have read.

Time and again, the NCF 2006 focus group paper on the teaching of English dwells on the need to help children learn their first language well. Looking at our own realities, it is essential that we must develop our own ways of bridging between languages and creating our own processes for language development within and across languages

More often than not, the weakness in learning a new language has less to do with the new language and more to do with lack of capability, competence and confidence in the original language. Second, if children have print material around them — books, stories, posters, newspapers, slogans — the more they learn how to deal with print. This is true regardless of the language. (ASER 2012 figures indicate that apart from textbooks, less than 20% of rural households have any material to read.)

We have found that children respond well to texts that have both languages interspersed. This is different from bilingual texts where both languages are placed side by side.

We have found that children respond well to texts that have both languages interspersed. This is different from bilingual texts where both languages are placed side by side. - See more at: http://www.hindustantimes.com/comment/analysis/when-and-how-english-should-be-taught-in-schools/article1-1166370.aspx#sthash.lllnv1NR.dpuf

We must encourage children to have fun in using language differently and appropriately in different situations for different purposes. Serious investment in building strong foundations in language skills will reap rich dividends in all the languages that children use. Whether Hindi, English or any other language, our approach to children in our fertile language landscape must be connected to our realities and suited to our condition, capabilities, needs and uses.

[MLE] Outlook article on PLSI points out the value of MLE

Dear Multilingual Education friends,

This week there are lots of articles in the media about the language situation in India because of the release of the People’s Linguistic Survey of India (PLSI) results. The Outlook Article: Speaking of us links the issue of language loss and language celebration to the need for multilingual education. It starts with touching story about a tribal girl getting a second chance in a multilingual school in Gujarat after she failed in the regular system:

“Why did you not learn anything at school?” Chaudhary Rekha, the teacher, asks. ... “Because our teacher, whenever he came, always taught in Gujarati,” she says softly in Dungra Bhili. A year at the Tejgadh-based Adi­vasi Academy’s Vasant Bahubhashi Shala has changed that. She can now read and write with much greater fluency. And all thanks to classes in a language she can finally understand.

Some other quotes:

Those who have worked for the PLSI agree that offering multilingual education, something few states practise with either dedication or efficiency, is undoubtedly one of the best ways to protect our lesser-known languages in the long run. One of the many formal suggestions the PLSI intends to make to the government includes a pitch to facilitate optional education in a child’s mother tongue at the primary level. “We have somehow remained stuck with the notion that schools can teach only in one language, whereas we need multilingual schools that use many languages as the medium of instruction,” says Devy.

This multilingual model is something the Adivasi Academy in Baroda district has adopted in over 60 special training centres. Here, students are taught Gujarati in their mother tongue (mostly Dungra Bhili and Rathawi) before they head out to their schools later in the day so that they do not fall behind in their  classes.

[MLE] India speaks...780 ways

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

[MLE] Videos from the 3rd International English Language Teacher Educator Conference

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.

UNICEF survey in Jharkhand reveals that 95% of school kids do not speak Hindi

Dear Multilingual Education friends,

At least five newspapers reported on the findings of a recent UNICEF sociolinguistic survey in Jharkhand. The study revealed quite interesting findings with regards to the gap between home language and school language. A few quotes:

The research was carried out in 72 blocks across the 24 districts of the state, covering 216 villages. During the survey, researchers interacted with schoolchildren, their parents, teachers and village leaders. Over 3,000 kids were profiled during the survey.

It was found that mother tongue of over 96 per cent of rural population, including school kids, was tribal or regional languages. While 33 per cent of the children interviewed spoke Santhali at home, 17.5 per cent spoke Khortha, 9.5 per cent Kurukh, 8.2 per cent Nagpuri, 7.6 per cent used Mundari, 6.7 per cent Sadri and 5.6 per cent used Ho. Only four per cent rural families spoke Hindi at home.

92 per cent of the teachers use Hindi to interact with students in schools. Over 90 per cent of the teachers indicated that they can speak tribal or regional language of that area. But since instruction in mother tongue is not mandatory they chose to instruct in Hindi.

Over 78% of the teachers felt that children faced problems in learning because of the language gap of home and school.

The study recommends that the medium of instruction in anganwadi pre-school centres and primary classes in schools should be in the mother-tongue of children, which is tribal or regional language.  The study suggests that material in tribal and regional language should be developed and used in classrooms to bridge gap between the home language and school language. Besides, teachers should be oriented to understand and respect local resources and culture, as well as to communicate with children in local language.

[MLE] UNICEF Jharkhand - MT Base Active Language Learning

Dear Multilingual Education friends,

M TALL (Mother Tongue Base Active Language Learning), an inter-university forum in Jharkhand, is doing very interesting activities such as

• socio-linguistic survey (findings being released within a couple of weeks),
  

• children’s bilingual picture dictionaries on 60 child-friendly themes printed in 9 tribal and regional languages,
  

• Bhasha Puliya (school language readiness package for pre-school centres)- to be piloted in 10% Anganwadis,
  

• School readiness package developed for primary level
  

M TALL involves all major language group experts, related NGOs, media, 5 government departments, teachers and children. Recently a team of DIET from Chhattisgarh appreciate these model and expressed to replicate this in their state as well. Binay Pattanayak, an UNICEF education specialist is behind all these activities.