TEACHING OF SCRIPT TO ADULT LEARNERS
In India, emphasis has always been put on the well-formedness of writing. There is no doubt that a good handwriting is an important in writing as a good pronunciation in speech. But, in India, script has assumed a mystico-religious significance. As a result well-formed writing is almost religiously pursued as a goal. Moreover, the diverse media used for writing favoured a clear, well-formed writing; rather than a cursive writing for easy execution and comprehension. Perhaps because of this overriding consideration for well-formedness and the inter-related mystico-religious significance attached to script systems, the traditional method of teaching writing at an early age is uncritically used for second language teaching even today. It is not realised that, in case of the mother tongue learner, the child has already mastered the minimum mechanics of the language before he starts to learn writing. It is little appreciated that writing in a second language context cannot just be taught at a certain age grade without relevance to the preparation of the child as is usually done today. When there is so much ignorance about the stage, age and manner in which the child is to be taught reading and writing to an adult.
In the teaching of Indian scripts to adults. Very little attention was given to pattern-perception based on the similarity in the shape of the letters. As in the case of the children, the adults are taught the alphabet in its traditional arrangement. They are taught to learn to write the letters with meticulous care. Even now, script is never taught as a language-related topic. It is seldom realized that script is a secondary representation of language (i.e., speech) and need be taught as the co-relation of sounds with symbols. On the other hand it is often assumed that the audio-lingual facility will somehow automatically follow the facility to manipulate these symbols.
In 1953, Miss Lambert made an attempt to study the Davanagari script from the point of its use by five of the Indian languages. The book, Introduction to the Davanagari for Students of Sanskrit, Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati and Bengali, is biased towards the extension of Sir William Jones attempt of presenting 'The Orthography of Asiatic Words in Roman Letters'. While Miss Lambert makes use of her linguistic insight in her analysis "in order to give a fuller understanding of special nature of the scripts and adjustments which are made in Sanskrit system in order to use it for writing the modern languages of northern India", she has also hoped that this will be an aid to students for learning to write the script concerned. She has, under calligraphy of the Sanskrit section, exemplified the order of writing the strokes in characters. But no indication is given about the direction of the hand movement. This is a relatively sophisticated work to be used more by teachers and advanced students, rather than by the beginning students.
It was in 1965 that the American Institute of Indian Studies made an effort to exploit the similarity of shape of Devanagari characters in teaching the Hindi script. About the same time, Dr P. B. Pandit had utilized the similarity of shape of letters in teaching Devanagari script to adults. In a textbook entitled 'Naya Savera' published by the Literacy House, Lucknow, arrangements, but arranged on a basis of unstructured similarity. There was a basic difference among linguists and psychologists working in this field in India. While in the American Institute of Indian Studies, we presented groups of letters similar in shape in pairs and in a set, the other group objected to it on the ground that this may create more confusion in the mind of the learner. Their contention was that symbols which are similar in shape should be sufficiently spaced so as to avoid confusion. This stand only paid lip service to the pattern-perception hypothesis, while, in practice, it in no way, improved upon the traditional arrangement of the alphabet, which did not consciously take into account the similarity of shape of the letters.
The Central Hindi Institute in Agra instituted a programme about April, 1967 to explore the easiest way to teach the Devanagari script. It suffered from severe handicaps from the very beginning, as the goals were not properly defined. For instance, it was not clearly stated whether the resultant book would be a graphemic analysis of the Devanagari script, a teacher's handbook, a reading and writing manual for children, or a similar manual for the adults. An attempt was made to dissolve all the Devanagari characters into five or so ultimate components, the various combinations and permutations of which would produce different characters. A further attempt was made to classify the letters from the point of view of their similarity of shape. The direction of hand-movement was indicated by arrows after the place of the component in a letter was shown by the help of lines and dots. Some of the results of this study may conveniently be used for devising a preliminary hand-writing book in which pattern practices may be given to the children. This may also contribute towards a more rigorous classification of the letters in terms of their shape. But unfortunately no attempt has been made to classify the Devanagari script according to their structure in terms of the ultimate components. In short, while it may act as a teacher's handbook in some ways, as a teaching manual, it will have little use either for the children or the adults.
The American Institute of Indian Studies's effort in teaching script using pattern perception and contrastive presentation was carried on two levels. A Programmed Introduction to the Reading and Writing of Oriya script was prepared for the self instruction of students, while the Devanagari script continued to be taught in the class-room during the past three years. The teaching of script followed the teaching of sounds and it was pointed out that the script was a mere symbol representing one or more sounds as IÉ YÉ etc. Sets of letters similar in shape written on the blackboard to emphasize the similarity in their shape and the differences which kept them apart. Words, which were used to teach sounds, which in turn were selected from the conversation being taught simultaneously, were used as far as possible to illustrate these letters in writing. This provided additional reinforcement for learning and by reducing the burden of unfamiliarity facilitated the recognition of the letters. It is important to emphasize one of the underlying assumptions of this presentation. It was intended to emphasize on the recognition of script and increase the speed in the reading before it was attempted to orient the students to writing. Once the students knew to recognize all the letters and their eyes were sufficiently conditioned to the direction of movement, the arrangement followed in the dictionary was given to them. Each letter was written with arrow indication to point out the direction of hand-movement, so that they could practice writing at leisure. It was found out that following this procedures, it was possible to teach the reading of the Devanagari script within six to ten hours, while the writing needed a little more time.
So far, most pattern perception study is attempted on the basis of unstructured similarity. Very few structured scheme based on internal grammar of script has been attempted. While active interest "in the area of graphic data based conversation program" has led to the preparation of sophisticated picture-processing models abroad, in India. Professor Narasimhan of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Bombay, has worked in the area of syntax-directed interpretation of classes of pictures. Mainly designed for computer consumption, it is difficult to seen at the moment to what extent this would be of immediate pedagogical relevance in the Indian class-rooms. It may, for instance, provide confirmation to the classifications based on subjective visual evaluation. In any case, anyone interested in the teaching of script has to deep his eyes open to any research bearing relevance to the entire field.