Mother Tongue or the Other Tongue? That is the Question! (original) (raw)

Prospects of Mother Tongue as Medium of Education in Pakistan

2017

Almost seven thousand distinct languages are used in 196 countries on the earth and almost half of these languages exist with writing systems. In this situation, debate on introducing education in mother tongue or proposing mother tongue in education has become one of the critical issues among the scholars of Social Sciences such as Phillipson (1992), Pattanayak (2003), Woldemariam (2008) and Moyo, (2008) and Coleman (2010). This disputation has also become critical in the religious, ethnic and linguistically diverse terrains of Pakistan whose linguistic fabric consists of more than sixty languages (Shehzad et al. 2013). Declaration of Urdu as the national language and English the official language not only evoked the speakers of other languages spoken in the country but also resulted into language movements including the movements of Sindhi, Pashto, Balochi, Punjabi and Saraiki languages. Although these were ad hoc movements, they gave rise to the notion of adopting mother tongue f...

Issue Of Language As The Medium Of Instruction In Pakistan: An Analytical Study

2017

This research paper focuses on the medium of instruction that has been the burning issue not only in Pakistan but all around the world. This issue has remained unresolved in Pakistan due to overwhelming practice of other local and native languages in different provinces. The use of English as a medium of instruction in schools has given opportunity to a long debate whether English is better verified than any of the native languages especially to build up the learner‟s comprehension level at secondary school level. The n = 68 public higher/secondary schools of Hyderabad District were taken as the sample. The two groups of the Class VIII students comprised 100 out of which 50 were from mother tongue and 50 were from non-mother tongue schools respectively. Simultaneously, 15 teachers from mother tongue and 15 from non-mother tongue schools were respectively selected for interview. Appropriate interview protocols were made to inspect the effect of the medium of instruction on cognition ...

Myths and Realities about Language of Instruction in Pakistan: Parental Perspective

—Language of learning and language of state requires proper awareness in multilingual countries. It demands much clarity if the role of a language in learning is to be acknowledged on the academic achievement grounds. Language of instruction is a controversial issue in Pakistan. Language policies and practices play vital role in shaping the perceptions of individual for the choice of any language. These perceptions may be based on reality or merely myths. Parents are major beneficiary or sufferer of the outcome of the education of their children. This article aims to explore perceptions of parents for the choice of language for the education of their children. By drawing upon Woolard & Schieffelin's Language Ideology Model (1994), this paper analyses how parents perceive the importance of language of instruction for the education of their children. The researchers conducted 20 semi structured interviews from parents of Hyderabad Town by using Maximum Variation Sampling. Constant Comparative Method (Lincoln & Guba, 1985) of analysis is used as an analytic technique to discover perceptions of parents regarding language of instruction for the education their children. This research implies that perceptions of parents are fraught with myths and misunderstandings of past practices and unclear language policies in Pakistan. This study recommends that parents' voice must effectively be included in the making of language policy and they must be made aware of the researches in learning mother tongue or second language as the language of instruction for the education of their children. Index Terms—medium of instruction, language policies in Pakistan, language ideology, bilingualism

Role of Mother Tongue in Primary Schooling of Young Learners in Punjab

This paper focuses on one of the most fundamental issues in Education i.e. the choice of medium of instruction at primary level. In Pakistan, there is a multilingual system of education, besides mother tongue or regional language, Urdu is national language where as English is taught as compulsory subject up to graduate level. The medium of instruction in most of the early schooling is in regional language according to the demand of young learners. Now, Government of Punjab has made it compulsory that primary education should be given in English. In this paper it has been provided research based data to the policy makers and involved parties to make informed decisions. It has been hypothesized that all the stakeholders including the learners, teachers and parents are not satisfied with this decision and this 'unsatisfied' state has some pedagogical grounds. These pedagogical grounds needed to be explored and highlighted. In this context, the researcher has studied various theories related to the medium of instruction as well as the researches on this topic. It is basically a qualitative research; the researcher has applied methods of survey research to achieve the objectives of the research. The researcher has collected data from the young learners, their teachers and parents of the selected schools in under privileged areas like that of district Bukkar and Kasur to check their level of comfort with mother tongue, national language and foreign language (English) as the medium of instruction. The study has also checked their level of comprehension of different subjects in these media of instructions i-e mother tongue, National language and English. Finally, it has been concluded on the basis of analyzed data that the young learners are dissatisfied with foreign language (English) as a medium of instruction in their classes. They have to exert much while decoding the contents of foreign language, therefore, they prefer to

Issues of Language in Education in Pakistan

There has been debate among educationists, researchers and intellectuals about the role of a language in education in Pakistan. Educational policy makers in Pakistan couldn't determine proper role of any language in education. This resulted often in tossing of English and Urdu medium of instruction policies in Pakistan. Present study is the outcome of two inspirations. First inspiration came from one of the government policies in 2003 regarding medium of instruction, whereby it was decided that medium of instruction in government schools be changed to English from class six onwards in science subjects. The second inspiration was the theory of Jim Cummins, which purported that a Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP) in a particular language is possible if a learner is, immersed in that language for 5 to 7 years. The researcher became interested to measure the conceptual and cognitive understanding of those students in first Year College whose medium was changed from Urdu to English at sixth class by comparing them with their fellows in English medium whose medium never changed from English. Experimental methodology was adopted for teaching the selected content from science subjects followed by a test made in the guidelines of Bloom's taxonomy of cognitive learning. The obtained data revealed that on average there was no difference in the conceptual and cognitive understanding of the students of both groups. The data collected on the basis of teachers' interviews corroborated the results of the tests.

DOI: 10.4312/ala.5.1.111-124 LANGUAGE POLICY AND MEDIUM OF INSTRUCTION ISSUE IN PAKISTAN

2016

The issue of language in Pakistan is not just related to linguistics. It has far more implications for cultural, economic, political, and social dimensions of Pakistani society. The current paper studies the latest language policy of Pakistan and its implications for local languages. It then relates to the formation and implementation of a (certain steps) feasible language policy to root out the conflicts and ethnic clashes from time to time in the country, and discusses ways to survive the language shock of majority of students in Pakistan, who are taught English as compulsory subject up to 14 years of education despite the puzzling phenomenon of cultural aversive attitudes towards English language by the masses. The employed teaching methods and curriculum in the institutions of Pakistan, for decades, have only been successful in maintaining the gap between the privileged English speaking people and the hardcore anti-English sentiments. In this battle for linguistic-identity crisi...

Education, school and mother tongue

Quality education is a recognised human right that aims at the child’s sound development by supporting his/her personality, infusing him/her with values enshrined in human rights treaties, respecting and promoting the child’s cultural heritage and preparing him/her for a responsible life within society. School, as the dominant educational model plays a significant role, whether it meets or not the goals of an education for all. In our multicultural and multilingual world there are children that do not have the same opportunity to be educated simply because the language of instruction in classroom is unfamiliar to them. Yet, mother tongue-based bilingual education can breach their barriers.

The Role of language in Education: An Analytical Review of Pakistan’s Education Policy 2009

Journal of Education and Practice, 2014

The focus of this discussion is the latest language policy in Pakistan, suggested in 2009. The theme of "divide and rule" has been an essential part of language policy in Pakistan through the colonialist role of English during the colonial period as well as the post-independence period. We have analyzed the role of proposed language in NEP (National Education Policy), 2009 in terms of educational divide. The conclusion of this discussion is that teaching in mother tongue for primary education can be successfully implemented. It will help minimize dropout level and help children in their educational careers at the same time. A strategy for the development of English language teaching in Pakistan has also been suggested in this paper. This strategy has been outlined, keeping in view the objectives of the NEP and the available resources.

EDUCATION IN MOTHER TONGUE: NEED OF THE TIME: A CASE STUDY OF A PUBLIC SECTOR COLLEGE AT JAMSHORO

This research paper looks into a long-timed debated topic of medium of instruction in education in Pakistan. Voluminous research has been undertaken in favor of mother tongue based education due to its effectiveness in imparting knowledge and enhancing learning. In the similar vein, the teachers of the research site found it ironical to teach mother tongue only as a subject, while all science subjects were taught in English. Likewise, the students did not encourage the abrupt shift of medium of instructions from local language to English even at the higher secondary education. It posed a challenge for both the teachers and students in accomplishment of their respective objectives. Moreover, in such scenario, it was less likely to get considerable result in understanding of scientific concepts and improved learning. The teachers did not deny the importance of English in the current time,s yet suggested mother tongue to be the medium of instructions. They also pointed out dearth of books and scant teaching trainings in local language .Also, English as an imposed medium of instructions were some of the factors that discouraged to teach in mother tongue. Moreover, students believed that if the medium of instruction was the mother tongue, there were lesser chances of cheating in examination. The research site was a college, situated in a rural setting. The tool for research were the semi-structured interviews of teachers and students. This article may raise the voice of all the stakeholders of teaching-learning process, so that the education policy makers may consider their opinion for the betterment of the education system in future.

Issues of Language (s) Choice and Use: A Pakistani Perspective

Pakistan Journal of Social Sciences (PJSS), 2010

English is the most widely used language in the world of academia, and it is true for the reason that the past few years have witnessed an increase in teaching through English at all levels in Pakistan. Besides, the influence of the local languages can be traced-out in the interaction between teachers and students in bilingual classrooms, as Pakistan is a multilingual country and educational institutions are essentially bilingual. Moreover, both trainers and trainees are bilinguals and they code-switch from English to Urdu in the natural flow of classroom discourse. Therefore, this paper has tried to investigate the role of code-switching and L1 in the bilingual classroom discourse with special reference to Pakistani teachers/experts' perceptions. Also, the main purpose of this study was to examine the issues related to language choice and use. For this purpose, investigative methodology was adopted to study the opinions of the educational experts and data were collected through interviews of the experts. Analysis of the recorded interviews shows that the teachers' purpose-oriented codeswitching is acceptable by the experts in most of the cases. It is also found that there is a need to devise clear language policy about the issues of language(s) choice and use at different levels (i.e. grade) of education.