The
multilingual, multiethnic and multi cultural character of India necessiates the
inclusion of several languages in the curriculum for school education. Thethree
language formula has, therefore, been evolved as a strategy to dela with the situation.
Educationists have long been debating over the question of heavy language load
in the curriculum. However, no systematic empirical research has been done to
ascertain the facts from the students, their parents and teachers, all directly
or indirectly concerned with the problem. The preent survey, which is a pilot
one, came in response to this need. Its purpose was to find out whether learning
of several languages was, i) felt as a load by the students, ii) conceived as
a load for their children by their parents, and iii) considered by the teachers
to be a load for them. Rather than directly asking from the group if they considered
the learning/teaching of languages to be a load on them, it was decided to study
the problem in totality in all its aspects.
The survey jwas conducted in and around the city of Mysore. A representative sample
of Secondary schools coming from the urban, semiurban and rural reas surrounding
the city of Mysore were selected. The selected schools belonged to three categories
- Central Schools, State Government run schools and private schols. In all, the
survey was conducted on 12 schools, 8 from the urban area and 4 from the rural
and semiurban areas. These schools represented the different dwelling areas of
Mysore city which included people from varying economic groups. The media of instruction
followed by these schools were either English, Kannada or Hindi. Some schools
had both English, and Kanada or Hindi. Some schools had both English and as media
of instruction.
The students were selected from Classes IX and X of the schools under study. They
were systematically drawn from each class to represent the sex and medium-wise
distribution patterns of the population under study. In all, the survey was conducted
on 579 students, 427 from theurban and 152 selected from the rural and semiurban
areas. Sex-wise breakup of the sample was 376 boys and 293 girls. The medium-wise
break-up was 262 from Kannada medium, 309 from English and only 8 from Hindi.
While the first and third languages were Kannada and Hindi respectively in most
of the cases, the second languages was invariably English. The total sample in
each category was distributed in the total proportion of the respective classes
of each selected school.
In order to select the parents from different socio-economic categories, the urban
parents were classified into three such groups. Thebasis of this classification
was the educational levels and occcupation of the parents. For rural and semiurban
areas, however, the occupation was the sole basis of classification. The three
occupational categories were agriculture, business and service. In all 154 parents
were selected, 87 from the urban and 67 from the rural and semi-urban areas.
The otal sample for the teachers was 62 which included the language teachers of
the selcted schools. These teachers belonged to five language subjects, viz.,
English, Kanada, Hindi, Sanskrit and Urdu.
Schedule was used as a tool for data collection in preference to self-administrated
questionnaires. Three separate schedules were used for students, their parents
and the teachers. Threee response dimensions, namely, number of languages preferred
to be learnt, advantages of learing several languages, serving as incentives to
motivate those concerned and difficulties faced by the students in the course
of learning languages were common to the three components of the survey-students,
their parents and the teachers. In addition, the students were asked about two
things more. First was the difficulty faced by them in learning the four language
skills - understanding, speaking, reading and writing - of the first, second and
third languages. The second was to make a comparative assessment of the difficulties
faced in learning the first second and third languages with those of other subejcts
of the curriculum. The teachers were also asked to state the difficutlies faced
by them in the task of teaching languages. There were a number of statements for
each variable discussed above, and the respondents expressed their agreement or
disagreement to each one of them.
The data were computed and analysed by drawing percentage distributions for each
item of each variable included in the schedule. This was done for each component
of the study. Besides analysing the overall responses of the students, their data
were analysed and interpreted also on the basis of area to which they belonged,
medium of instruction and sex. For the parents and teachers, however, besides
the overall analysis only area-wise classification was done.
The findings
of this study could be summarised, as follows:
A.
STUDENTS
a)
A very large percentage of students prefer to learn three or even more than three
languages in the school. Area, medium of instruction and sex-wise analysis of
the data reveal the same trend.
b)
The students are well conscious of the diferent advantages of learning several
languages, serving as incentives to motivate them in doing so. The motivatiojal
pattern for learning languages is well balanced, almost evenly shared by the instrumental
and academic incentives on the one hand, and the itegrative and non-academic on
the other. The area, medium and sexwise classifications of data further confirm
this trend. However, more of rural and semiurban students, in comparison to the
urban ones, findlearning of several langauges to be advantageous for them from
all the viewpoints, suggested in the statements asked. The highly urbanised central
school students show higher preference for academic and instrumental incentives
than for the integrative and non-academic ones.
c)
The overall results show that for a large percentage of students, out of the three
possible areas of dificulty-pedagogic, environmental and curricular - faced by
them in the task of learning several languages, the first four items from these
areas are, i) confusion in learning different grammars, (pedagogic-50.5%), ii)
'no ccasion to use the language for practice' (environmental-45.2%), iii) 'no
extra coaching at home' (environmental-38.9%) and iv) 'many other subejcts to
learn' (curricular-29.9%). Area, medium and sex-wise distributions, however, show
charge in emphasis. For a large percentage of rural-semiurban, Kannada medium
and girl students, the order of difficulty is environmental followed by the pedagogic
and curricular. The boys, however, agree with the overall results. For the central
school students the order is pedagogic followed by the curricular and environmental
areas. Though the perception of different groups differ, yet the most important
sources of difficulty have been highlighted.
d)
Majority of students find the third language to be the most difficult in acquiring
its four skills-understanding, speaking, reading and writing. This is followed
in descending order by the second and third language. For all the three languages,
particularly for the third and second, the ascending order of difficulty in acquiring
the four skills are reading, writing, understanding and speaking.
The above trend is fully supported when the data are analyzed area, medium and
sex-wise. More rural and semiurban students, than those from theurban and central
schools, face difficulty in learning the language skills in the second and third
languages. The difficulty is particularly felt in the acquisition of understanding
and speaking skills. Quite a good number of urban students find difficulty with
the speaking skills of the first language. More of English medium students, in
comparison to the Kannada medium ones, find lesser difficlty in acquiring all
the language skills particularly for those of the second language. Except for
the skill of speaking in the first and second languages, more of girls, in comparison
to the boys, have lesser difficulty in acquiring the language skills.
e)
A large percentage of students find the first and second languages to be easier
to learn than the three subejcts - social studies, mathematics and science. However,
the third language has been considered to be more difficult. The analysis of the
percentage of students, who consider the three languages to be more difficult
than the three subjects, shows that in considering so, there is a progressive
rise in the percentage from social studies tomathematics and to science. Howsoever
small,there is a definite trend toward considering the science stream to be easier
than humanity stream.
Areawise
analysis shows that there is a progressive decline in percentage from the rural
to the central schools in considering the first language to be easier than the
other three subjects. However, just the reverse is found for the second language
for which there is a progressive rise from the rural to the central schools. The
general trend towards considering the science stream to be easier than the humanity
stream is supported by the area-wise analysis also. A sizable percentage of English
medium students consider the second language, which is English, to be easier than
the three subjects. Moreover, between the first and second languages, a lesser
percentage of such students find the former to be easier than the three subjects.
However, more of Kannada medium students state that the first and third languages
are easier than the three subjects. Theyeven find the second language to be more
difficult than the third. There is a marked tendency among the girls to consider
the languages as equal in difficulty to other subjects.
B.
PARENTS
i)
A very large percentage of parents are in favour of their children learning three
or even more than threee languages. Thesame trend is found when the parents are
classified area-wise.
ii) A very large percentage of aprents consider learning
oflanguages to be advantageous from all the suggested angles and their responses
are well balanced between instrumental and integrative incentives. The area-wise
analysis also supports this trend. Themotivational patterns of language learning
for the parents are very similar to those of the students.
iii) For a large
percentage of parents the first four items of dificulty, selected from the three
areas - pedagogic, environmental and curricular - are, i) 'no occasion to use
the language for practice' (environmental - 40.9%), ii) 'confusion in learning
different grammars' (pedagogic - 37.7%), iii) 'no extra coaching at home' (environmental
- 34.6% and 'many other subjects to learn (curricular-25.5%). For most of the
rural-semiurban parents, the order of difficulty is environmental followed by
pedagogic and curricular. The urban parents however, followed the voeralll pattern.
The percentage of non-response to a statement is higher in rural-semiurban area
than in the urban area. The phenomenon of non-response has been found only in
the case of parents but not in that of the teachers and the students.
C.
TEACHERS
a)
Unlike the students and the parents, themajority of teachers (53.2%) particularly
the rural - semiurban teachers (81.3%) are in favour of teaching only three languages
rather than exceeding its limit. However, very few teachers are in favour of teaching
less than three, i.e., two languages.
b)
Though the teachers also find learning of several languages to be advantageous
from all the suggested view-points, therange of variation in the percentages of
their preferences is much higher than that of the students and the parents. All
the teachers find teaching of languages to be interesting. A larger percentage
of rural-semiurban teachers, in comparison to the urban ones, find learning of
languages to be advantageous from different angles.
c)
Majority of teachers consider the environmental and curricular areas to be the
chief sources of difficulty faced by the students in the learning of several languages.
The first four items of difficulty, listedby them, in order of percentage are,
i) 'no extra coaching at home' (environmental - 74.2%), ii) 'no occasion to use
the language for practice' (environmental - 59.7%), iii) 'many other subjects
to learn' (curricular - 43.6%), and iv) 'lessons not interesting' (41.9%). By
a sizable percentage of teachers, particularly the urban ones, pedagogic area
is not considered to be as important a source of difficulty as the curricular
and environmental areas. This is different from the responses of the parents and
students, both of whom perceive the pedagogic area to be a bigger source of difficulty
than the curricular one. Moreover, the teachers pereive the students to be facing
much more difficlty than what the students themselves perceive or their parents
do for them. A larger percentage of rural-semiurban teachers, in comparison to
their urban counterparts, find the students facing all the suggested difficulties.
Most of such teachers stress the environmental area followed by the pedagogic
and curricular. The two groups of leaders, therefore, differ in their assessment
of pedagogic difficulty.
d)
A large percentage of teachers consider the teaching of languages to be difficult
for them from all the suggested angles. This trend is much higher in the case
of rural-semiurban teachers. The first three-sources of difficulty according to
a large percentage of overall teachers are i) lake of modern teaching aids (77.4%),
ii) lack of training in modern techniques of language teaching (66.1%), iii) language
teaching requires more preparation (56.1%), and iv) work load of language teachers
is more (62.9%). The first two sources of difficulty have been far more stressed
by the rural-semiurban teachers (87.5% and 81.3% respectively) than the urban
teachers (73.9% and 60.9% respectively). However, more of urban teachers (66.9%),
than the rural semiurban ones (43.8%), find the language teaching to be difficult
because of the presence of mixed mother tongue groups in the same class.
CONCLUSION
In a nutshell the conclusion is that for all the three parties - students, their
parents and teachers - inclusion of several languages in the school curriculum
is not considered to be a load. There is a welcome acceptance of the three language
formula by all those who are concerned. In fact the students and their parents
are well inclined to increase the limit even to four or more, though the teachers,
particularly the rural-semiurban ones, would not like to exceed the minimum of
three. The three parties are fully conscious of the multifold advantages accruing
out of the learing of several languages.
However, in the fulfillment of their objectives the students come across several
difficulties belonging to pedagogic, curricular and environmental areas. The most
important ones, among them in order of descending difficulty, are, 'confusing
to learn grammars of different languages' (pedagogic) 'no occasion to use the
language for practice' (environmental), 'no extra coaching at home' (environmental),
and 'many other subject to learn' (curricular). When data have been analysed area,
medium and sex-wise, variations have been found in the emphasis given to the respective
areas; for example, rural area, semiurban, Kannada medium and girl students find
environmental difficulties to be the most important one.
The teachers and the parents are fully appreciative of the problems faced by the
students in the task of learning several languages. However, a gap is found between
the students' assessment of their own problems and the assessment of the same
by others on their behalf. Therefore, except for thepedagogic difficulty, 'confusing
to learn grammars of different languages', there is tendency for the teachers
to project thedifficulties more than what the students are themselves experiencing
in the process. Moreover, the teachers emphasize most the environment and the
curricular difficulties, and the least the problems related to pedagogy of language
teaching, which the students consider to be the most important. The curricular
difficulties are least emphasized by them. The parents are in agreement with their
children about the curricular handicaps, but not to the same extent about the
pedagogic difficulty, 'confusing to learn different grammars' and the environmental
one, 'no extra coaching at home'.
The students also face difficulties in acquiring the four skills of lanfuge namely,
understanding, speaking, reading and writing. This difficlty is most acutely felt
for the third language and the least for the first language. The second language
which is English, comes in between. The ascending order of difficlty in acquiring
the four skills in all the three languages, particularly in those of the second
and the third, is reading writing understanding and speaking. These difficulties
are felt more by the Kannada medium students than by the English medium students.
As a result of difference in mother tongue and the first language, some urban
students do have difficulty in developing the speaking skills of the first language.
In comparison to other subjects of the curriculum like social studies, mathematics
and science, the students find the first jand second langauges to be easier. The
third langauge, however, is considered to be more difficult. For the English medium
students, the second language is easier than the three subejcts. Though small
in degree, there is a definite trend towards the students finding science stream
to be easier than the humanity stream.
Theteachers particularly the rural semiurban ones, also face several difficulties
in their task of language teaching. The most important ones among them are lack
of modern teaching aids and training in the modern techniques of language teaching.
The urban teachers particularl, have to face the problem of the presence of the
mixed mother-tongue groups in the language class. All theteachers are interested
in language teaching.
In spite of these difficulties, the studetns sustain themselves since they are
highly motivated to learn several languages and are encouraged in this task both
by their parents and teachers, who are equally willing and motivated, we would
like to conclude in the words of David Copperfield, when he writes to peggotty
that 'Barkis is willing'. Therefore, it is for paggotty now to make up her mind.
Similarly the educationists and the leaders of our society have to create conditions
conducive to the learnin/teaching of several languages in the curriculum education.
Dickens,
Charles-David Copperfield, Collins London and Glasgow