Relevance of bilingual education

English medium education in Sri Lanka - Part I:

G H Asoka

Dhammika Perera's attempt in expressing his ideas in his article on the 'Pragmatism in English medium education' published in the Daily News (March 9, 2011) on its page number 11 under 'Opinion' needs appreciation because of highlighting a few important aspects with regard to language-education within the Sri Lankan national education system integrating its general education with higher education, especially the University education. He has mentioned the need for catering to the importance of English language as a way of exposing to 'the treasure of knowledge' through 'a policy of education' on promoting it.

It is a valuable remark that he has identified the difference of the English, needed for academic purposes from day-to-day conversational English and the academic failure of the students who are exposed to education totally in an L2 like English after their learning in monolingual stream in L1 (in Sri Lankan context, Sinhala and Tamil) for about 13 or 11years.

University education

Yet it is necessary to highlight and discuss some of the facts in his article considering total personality development of a Sri Lankan child through education to fit to different local, global and international socio-economic, political and cultural contexts as a Sri Lankan, first through compulsory, general education and then through tertiary level continuous education.

Education cannot be discussed in terms of the need for University education alone and the majority of the students in the Sri Lankan Government school system are not blessed with University education.

Further, the importance of English cannot be limited to University education alone. At the same time, 'English-only education' or 'English medium education' from the primary level upto University level does not facilitate the Sri Lankan learner with required competencies in its optimum or maximum. On the other hand, addressing only knowledge of other disciplines in English parallel to knowledge of English cannot produce human resources who can globally think and locally act addressing pragmatic realities of using cognitive and metacognitive demands in education parallel to the use of language and metalanguage demands.

National policy

Nevertheless, the need for a national policy with regard to several language related macro-level aspects such as national language policy in education, national strategy of language planning in education and national policy of using languages as media of instruction when several languages are used simultaneously at intra curriculum level or one after the other at inter-curricular level is well-reflected in Dhammika's article.

These aspects need immediate attention of the education policy development authorities and all the relevant stakeholders of education including especially the Higher Education and General Education Ministers S B Dissanayake and Bandhula Gunawardena respectively, and the secretaries of these two ministries to develop Common National Framework of Reference for Language Development through Education in Sri Lanka with a National Language Portfolio in education because this attempt would eradicate the fear coupled with ignorance in neo-colonial spirit to think of English medium education and English as a/or the panacea.

Long-term perspectives

Language policy in a country in relation to its education is expected to first address national language policy in that particular country addressing status planning of languages. Placement of languages in the curriculum under various titles with the intention of promoting learners' linguistic competencies should politically be well-addressed in a suitable manner considering the use of the languages prevailing in a country and educationally sound in terms of imparting desirable competencies. Thus language planning is an intended intervention for influencing the languages or their language-use in a given society.

As Cooper (1989) says it is 'a deliberate effort to influence the behaviour of others with respect to acquisition, structure or functional allocation of their language codes' and according to Bloommaert (1996), language planning covers' all cases in which authorities attempt, by whatever means, to shape a socio-linguistic profile for their society.

Language planning should also reflect language competencies which are crucial for successful learning across the curriculum with the aim of promoting a coherent approach to development of learners' plurilingual repertoires.

Primary level

Language planning is the factual realization of language policy in a country, aiming its objectives towards socio-politico-economic and cultural realities of that country. As education is an important variable in the majority of language-planning areas, it needs thorough and deep understanding to think about its impact in long-term perspectives.

When prescribing languages as subjects, media of instruction or in terms of literature, language integration with other achievements of cognitive demands through subject-content is essential through an approach such as Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL). Thus language development should not be paid attention only for the sake of developing languages alone.

It is accepted in common that mathematics is comparatively more difficult than other subjects for our students and it is annually a discouraging news to hear that quite a large percentage of our GCE (O-L) candidates become failures in their mathematics even in their L1. Inability of using language properly for academic purposes is a solid reason among many other reasons which clarify causes and background for this condition.

It is evident that some of the students who are unable to accurately respond to a certain simple mathematical problem appearing in written form, can orally respond to the same mathematical problem very well with accuracy. This indicates the need for developing Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency Skills (CALPS) even in L1 addressing meta-linguistic competencies.

National history

Pragmatic importance of English cannot be fulfilled through the English medium education. Use of the term, 'English medium education' in Dhammika's article is not academically and educationally acceptable with his suggestion of introducing several subjects such as L1, its literature, national history and religions to be taught in L1 parallel to use of L2 as the medium of instruction for facilitating learners' education in other subjects.

This misleading term, 'English medium education' has already misled a lot to consider the attempt of implementing bilingual education as another 'English medium education.'

The concept of teaching all the subjects in English from primary level onwards indicates Dhammika's firm intention and preference for English-only education which is educationally not far-sighted, efficient and effective. His wish for teaching a few subjects in L1 parallel to use of L2 as the medium of instruction indicates the need for bilingual education. Yet he is not clear in his explanations regarding outcomes.

Social cohesion

Mono-lingualism gained through education in any powerful language is inadequate today and is also liable to be rejected in educational spheres due to its poor strength in the presence of the global market and international requirements. Today plurilingualism and multilingualism are norms and mono-lingualism is an exception. The latter even in an internationally and globally powerful language like English may be a lesser qualification or a disqualification for a person in local, global and international development enterprise: thus English medium education is totally a misnomer to development.

The need here is maintenance of plurilingalism and multilingualism, with English in its harmonious balance with proficiency in other languages. This, in return and vice versa, contributes to democratic citizenship, maintenance of linguistic diversity, social cohesion and mutual understanding. This is ensured through bilingual education with its outcomes as balanced bilingualism and biliteracy. The bilingual education programs commenced in the Sri Lankan general education system in the year, 2001 in its fourth era of the Sri Lankan bilingual education history is now approximately ten years in its maturity. Its use as a comprehensive educational approach is visible, prior to that, in three eras: pre-colonial era, colonial era and within the post colonialism.

The pre-colonial practices found under bilingual education in Sri Lanka were common in the Buddhism based education since the third BC under the model called two-way bilingual education through which additive aspects of bilingualism called balanced bilingualism and biliteracy were achieved.

Development of languages was carried on through language contact without subtractive aspects with the use of ample supplementary material.

'The scriptures of the Pitakas, which were regarded as the actual words of the Master, were taught to successive generations of pupils in their original language, Pali (or Magadhi as it was called in the island). But explanations of these writings were given in the language of the country. Thus came into existence of a number of anecdotal commentaries that went under the name of Attakathas (commentaries) and Tikas (commentaries on Attakathas)'. (Education Centenary Volume - Part: i.p:xxxi)

Prominent figures

In the 1920s, in the post-World War-1, bilingual education had been implemented by colonial rulers, even in Sri Lanka, by establishing bilingual schools: Dr Killpatrick (a professor of education from Colombia University) and several prominent figures such as A G Frazer, the then Principal of Trinity College, Kandy F LWoodward, the then Principal of Mahinda College, Galle in July 1906, H W Green, A Director of Public Instruction, P Arunaclalam, the Superintendent of Census in 1884, J J R Bridge, the H M Inspector of Secondary schools in the early years of the twentieth century, M C Hartley, the then Principal of Royal College, Dr G Stanley Hall and A Kanagarathnam had supported this venture by highlighting mostly the educational impact-related negative aspects of English medium education.

To be continued