1.
Area to be Covered
It was decided to conduct a pilot study covering Mysore city and its environs.
It was planned to cover a representative sample of secondary schools from this
area ad conduct the survey by collecting the data from selected sample of students
of classes IX and X belonging to these schools, their parents and the language
teachers. Students from secondary classes were selected for the following reasons
:
(i)
at this level, besides several other subjects, number of languages taught is more
than two preceding levels,
(ii) at this level, students are expected to be
in a better position to respond meaningfully to the problem under study.
The students of classes IX and X in Karnataka have to study three languages; science
comprising of physics, chemistry and biology; mathematics consisting of algebra,
geometry and arithmetic; and social studies containing history, geography and
civics. In all they have to study six textbooks in language subjects and about
nine in other subjects. Since Kannada is the regional language of Karnataka, it
is the medium of instruction in the majority of schools. However, there are schools
in Karnataka, where, English, Urdu, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi and Hindi are also
used as media of instruction. Students of classes IX and X (excepting Central
School) study the language under the following scheme:1
a)
First langue : It is either Tamil or Telugu or Urdu or Marathi or Hindi or the
regional language - Kannada, plus a classical language (Sanskrit or Arabic or
Persian). Alternatively it is either Tamil or Telugu or Urdu or Marathi or Hindi,
plus the regional language, Kannada.
The classical language or the regional language is studied for two periods in
a week. These two periods are provided out of the periods for the first language.
However, it is not compulsory.
b)
Second language : English is studied as a compulsory second language by those
students who have not offered English as their first language are required to
choose one of the following as a second language : (i) Kannada, (ii) Hindi, (iii)
Marathi, (iv) Urdu, (v) Telugu, (vi) Tamil, (vii) Sanskrit, (viii) Persian and
(ix) Latin.
c)
Third language : Hindi is studied as a compulsory second language by those students
who have not offered it as their first language. Those who have offered Hindi
as first or second language are to study any one of the following languages, provided
it has not been offered as first or second language. These languages are: (i)
Kannada, (ii) Marathi, (iii) Urdu, (iv) Telugu, (v) Tamil, (vi) Sanskrit, (vii)
Persian and (viii) Latin.
1. Chaturvedi, M.G. & Mohale BV. Position of
Languages in School Curriculum in India,
NCERT, 1976.
In the Central
School the following scheme is followed:
a)
From Class I to IV :
i)
First language : Kannada or Hindi or Urdu
ii) Second language : English
b)
In class V third language is introduced and the combinations are :
i)
First language: Kannada, Second language: English
Third language: Hindi, or
ii) First language: Hindi, Second language: English
Third language: Sanskrit,
or
iii) First language: Urdu, Second language: English
Third language:
Hindi
c)
Classes IX and X :
First Language : Hindi or Kannada, or Urdu
Second Language : English
The schools in Karnataka function for 220 days a year up to class VII and after
that they work for 210 days. For class IX and X, total time spent in instructional
hours is 1145 out of which time allotted to the three languages is as follows:
First Language : 143 (12.48%)
Second Language : 143 (12.48%)
Third Language
: 80 (6.98%)
2.
Sample
The present survey covered three sections of the population-students, their parents
and the language teachers-all expected to be affected by the learning/teaching
of one or more languages.
A.
Students : The selection of the students was done from the schools under the
study. The following considerations weighed in the selection of schools:
a)
Area and Location : The schools selected for study come from urban, semi-urban
and rural areas in and around Mysore city. The schools selected from each area
belonged to the following categories :
i)
Urban :
a) Central School
b) State Government - run schools
c) Private
schools
ii) Semi-urban and Rural :
a)
State Government - run schools
b) Private schools
The urban schools selected for this study covered 22.00 percent (2163 out of 9875)
of the total students' population for IX and X classes of Mysore city schools.
The sample drawn from this selected population of 2163 for IX and X classes was
400 which constitutes 18.5 percent (400 out of 2163). This is 4.00 percent of
the total population of students from IX and X classes of Mysore city.
It was decided to cover, rural and semi-urban area schools around Mysore, for
comparison of response pattern of the students. However, the students from these
two areas were to be in proportion of the students in respective classes i.e.,
IX and X of the schools included for this survey. The total population of IX and
X classes for rural and semi-urban area schools included in this survey was to
be around 600 and the sample covered was to be 25.00 percent (150 out of 600)
of this population. These 150 students were drawn from the four schools of rural
and semi-urban areas in proportion of their strength in classes IX and X.
Thus the final target for this survey was 550. The final return of the Data for
students was 579. These are sub-divided as follows:
Central School : 76-13.1 percent
Seven Urban Schools : 351-60.6 percent
Semi-urban School : 72-12.5 percent
Rural schools : 80-13.8 percent
The total sample in each category i.e., urban, semi-urban and rural schools was
distributed in proportion to the total population of the respective classes of
each selected school. The students from each class were systematically drawn to
represent the sex and medium of instruction-wise distribution patterns of the
population under study. The sex-wise breakup of the sample was 376 for boys and
203 for girls. From Kannada, English and Hindi media of instruction respectively
262, 309 and 8 students were selected. In terms of location, urban schools represented
different dwelling areas of varying economic groups in order to facilitate, on
the one hand, the selection of parents from different socio-economic strata of
the city and, on the other, to have a fair amount of representation of the different
areas of Mysore city.
b)
Medium of Instruction : In terms of medium of instruction, the schools covered
had either English or Kannada or Hindi as instructional medium. Some of the schools
had both English and Kannada as media, while semi-urban schools offered both Kannada
as well as English as media of instruction.
B.
Parents : In order to select the parents belonging to different socio-economic
strata, the students were divided into three socioeconomic groups. The basis for
this division was occupational and education of their parents. A representative
sample of parents from all the three groups was then drawn for the present study.
Efforts were made to select parents from dwelling areas of the city and its environs.
For selecting parents from the rural and semi-urban areas, the three-fold classification
was having occupation as the sole basis. Education in rural and semi-urban areas,
neither being so prevalent nor having much variation, was not considered as a
basis for classification. The three-fold classification had people from agriculture,
business and service.
In urban areas, the different socio-economic categories were formed after considering
both education as well as occupation. This was because in urban areas education
as well as occupation had considerable variation. The categories based on these
two criteria were as follows:
U1
Education : Up to secondary level and occupation like factory labour, agricultural
labour, petty business people, etc.
U2
Education : Up to graduation and occupation like office workers, school teachers,
medium-scale business people, etc.
U3
Education : Graduation and above and occupation like senior executives, lawyers,
doctors, etc., university faculty, scientists, managerial staff, big business
people and estate owners.
From now onwards categories for rural and semi-urban areas are designated respectively
as R1, R2 and R3 and for urban areas as U1, U2 and U3.
For selecting parents of the students under study, it was decided to cover 25.00
percent of the total sample of students which as indicated above were to be drawn
from socioeconomic status groups. The target fixed was of 150 parents. The final
returns were 154 schedules for the parents. These constituted 26.6 percent of
the actual sample, i.e., 579 of students. The break-up of distribution of parents
in terms of areas is as follows:
1.
Rural and semi-urban :
R1 24 35.8 percent
R2 19 28.4 percent
R3 24 35.8 percent
Total 67 43.5 percent of the total sample of parents.
2.
Urban Areas
U1 34 39.1 percent
U2 17 19.5 percent
U3 36 41.4 percent
Total 87
56.5 percent of the total sample of parents.
Initially it was decided to cover
150 parents-50 from rural and semi-urban areas and 100 from urban areas. However,
because of non-availability only 87 parents from urban areas could be covered.
From semi-urban and rural areas it was possible to contact 6 parents, more than
the target.
C.
Teachers : For the third component of this study, all the language teachers
i.e., of English, Kannada, Hindi, Sanskrit and Urdu from the selected schools
were covered.
It was decided to include 60 teachers for this study. This was on an average of
five language teachers from each language, i.e., English, Kannada, Hindi, Sanskrit
and Urdu respectively from 12 schools covered I this survey. In all 62 teachers
responded to the enquiry. The break-up of these 62 teachers was as such - rural
and semi-urban area schools-16-25.8 percent and schools from urban areas-46-74.2
percent.
The three components i.e., students, their parents and language teachers of the
schools put together were in all 795.
The data collected from these 795 respondents by administering on them respective
'schedules' meant for each component of this study. Details regarding the tool
for data collection and the actual data collection are now being discussed in
the following sections.
3.
Tool for data collection
In order to investigate as to whether language learning is a load or not and if
it is a load, what factors contribute to make learning of language a load, opinion
was sought from the students, teachers and parents. Since the nature of enquiry
demanded involvement of students of IX and X classes of urban, semi-urban and
rural areas, parents having varying socio-economic statuses, i.e., from most highly
educated and highly placed people to illiterates, agricultural labourers or otherwise
and teachers belonging to different kinds of school with varying background, it
was decided to use schedule as a tool of data collection. It was thought that
the use of 'schedule' as a tool for data collection was necessary because in the
case of students and in the case of many parents and teachers, the self-administered
tool like questionnaire would not have been effective as a tool of data collection.
Also, time schedule being tight interview guide or manual could not be used. Three
different sets of schedule which were first pre-tested for time-estimation and
comprehension and then finalized, were used for the three components of this study-students,
parents and teachers.
The
schedules (Appendices A, B and C) finalized had the following components:
Students
: i) Bio-data, ii) Number of languages preferred to learn iii) Motivating
factors in terms of advantages of language learning iv) Difficulties faced in
language learning v) Difficulties faced in learning language skills and vi) Language
learning as compared to the learning of other subjects.
Parents
: i) Bio-data ii) Preferred number of languages to be taught iii) Advantages
of language learning for the students iv) Difficulties faced by the students in
learning languages.
Teachers
: i) Bio-data ii) Preferred number of languages to be taught iii) Advantages
of language learning for the students iv) Difficulties of language teaching v)
Difficulties faced by the students in learning languages as perceived by the language
teachers.
4.
Data Collection
Total period of data collection was of three months, i.e., from November to January
1978. The data collection was done at the following places :
Rural
: Following rural areas were covered for collecting data from students, parents
and teachers:
i)
Bilikeri, ii) Hanagud and Kyathanahalli
Semi-urban:
Hunsur Township.
The schools covered in respective villages and semi-urban area were one each.
The school covered in Kyathanahalli was a private one, while the other schools
were all government-run schools.
Urban
: In urban areas following schools were covered for data collection:
1) Central School : Demonstration School - English Medium
2) State Government-run school : Maharani's Girls' High School-English and Kannada
Medium.
3) Private schools:
i)
Mahajana's High school - English and Kannada Medium
ii) St. Philomena's High
School - English and Kannada Medium
iii) Christ the Kind Convent - English
and Kannada Medium
iv) Farooquia Boys' High School - English Medium
v)
Sadvidya Pathasala - Kannada Medium
vi) J.S.S. Hindi High School - Hindi Medium
For collecting data from the parents of rural and semi-urban areas, no locality-wise
distribution of the dwelling areas, no locality-wise distribution of the dwelling
areas was followed. This was because each of the rural and semi-urban had only
one school and the areas to be covered being small the dispersion of population
was not much. However, in the urban area the same being well spread all over the
city, the following dwelling areas were the points of data collection for parents:
Jayalaxmipuram, Vontikoppal, Yadavagiri, Saraswathipuram, Krishnamurthypuram,
Chamarajapuram, Vidyaranyapuram, Devaraja Mohalla, Naranimharaja Mohalla, Jalapuri,
Mandi Mohalla, Lashkar Mohalla, Bandikeri.
Language teachers from the selected schools of rural, semi-urban, and urban areas
were administered the teachers' schedule. They were teachers of English, Kannada,
Hindi, Urdu and Sanskrit.
5.
Analysis
The data collected from the 795 persons for this survey were computed and analysed
by drawing percentage distribution for each question asked in the schedule for
each component of the study. Besides this at different levels, uni-variate and
bi-variate computations and analysis were done. In the case of students bi-variate
analysis was done. In the case of students bi-variate analysis was done for area,
sex and medium of instruction. For parents the bi-variate analysis was done for
area and in one case socio-economic categories i.e., occupation and education,
and area. For teachers the analysis was done in terms of area.