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Bilingual education in Sri Lanka - Part III

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

‘English medium education is one cause of education failure. Children do not learn English simply by being taught through English. A hasty shift to English medium without appropriate teaching of the language causes educational failure. Sustained education in, and development of, the mother tongue (or L1) remains important’. (Graddol David, 2010, p.14-15, English Next India by the British Council).

Graddol’s views, in Indrajit Basu’s (2006) words, read the possible difficulties and disadvantages for native-speakers of English in future due to their linguistic capacities only in English.

‘Here is an alert for all monolingual speakers of native English. If you thought your ability to speak English would continue to give you a leg-up in the world, where this language has been the primary language for international communication for several decades, you are in trouble.

Primary education

‘Even as the English language continues its meteoric global rise, native speakers such as North Americans, British and Australians will soon become a rare breed because native speakers also face a bleak economic future as qualified multilingual speakers from other countries gain a competitive advantage in global companies and organizations leaving native speakers not only with increasing difficulty in employment, but also bewildered by many aspects of society and culture around them... So the balance of power is changing...’.

Another myth in Dhammika’s article is the emphasis on the need for using English as the only medium of instruction from primary education onwards: this indeed violates human rights and child rights. The UNESCO and the scholars like Dutcher (1994), who produced the report for the World Bank on the use of first and second languages as media of instruction in education mentions that the essential feature of a learner to becomes successful in linguistic and cognitive demands in an L2 is the strong competence in his/her L1. L1 competence is required upto a threshold level to gain success in CALPS in an L2 (Cummins, 1994). Thus in bilingual education, L1 possesses high educational value as an asset and a bridge to achieve cognitive demands in an L2 through the process called language transfer; thus L1 is a must in anyone’s education irrespective of its less political strength in the presence of a language like, English.

Socialization process

Robert Philipson, supporting the possible imbalance created through ‘only-English practice’ in education, says as follows:

‘If learning English combined with a neglect of local languages, the likely result is cultural rootlessness, blind acceptance of the dominant world disorder and an uncritical endorsement of more English, irrespective of the consequences for other languages’.

Importance of one’s L1 is obvious in any educational setting in its contribution to his/ her socialization process, and its relationship with learner’s tacit knowledge and tacit experience which are usually brought by him/ her to any formal education environment. This is mainly enriched in a learner’s L1 across his or her family, peers, kith and kin, neighbours and others in his/ her immediate environment. Ignorance of L1 through English medium education obstructs learners’ thinking process regarding subject input doubling overcomprehensibility in terms of language and making the learner deviate from his/ her environment.

This situation further paralyzes constructive, creative and critical thinking of learners. Sociolinguistically, English-only education generates linguistic trauma through confusions developed considering English as the pandemic on one hand and the same as the panacea on the other hand.

National identity

Linguistic capital of English aiming ‘the English’ as the language under globalization should be balanced in education with the idea behind internationalization which ensures ‘World Englishes’, through which any person can sustain his/ her national identity accordingly to the central value system of his or her society without becoming ‘blotting sheets of the west’.

Bilingual education, due to its capability of addressing both local linguistic capital and global linguistic capital unlike the English medium education does, marginalization of L1 does not occur in its developmental model by devalourizing local languages through using hegamonically projected influence of an L2 like English. Consequently this leads to minimize gaps between ‘Global Haves’ and ‘Never-to-Haves’.

In July 1906, F L Woodward, the then Principal of Mahinda College, Galle, being a foreign educationist argued against the education totally available in English in Sri Lanka: He had, through his far seen capabilities, told that the need for national integrity through national languages is further enriched by religion and culture:

Cultural treasure

‘.... If you cannot read the very language in which your nationality is enshrined or speak the tongue which reflects its understanding life, at once you become a pariah. You will not be acknowledged as belonging to your adopted nationality.

You will be out of touch with your own people and then miserably fall between two stools. You will be deprived of the advantages which may be derived from one side or the other’. (Education Centenary Volume - ii, p.575)

Language and culture are intimately related because the former is a vector or carrier of the latter. Diamond (1993) says that ‘a language is the culmination of thousands of years of a people’s experience and wisdom’. One major responsibility of education in its essence is transmitting culture including language and transforming wealth of its knowledge including the linguistic wealth from generation to generation.

Dhammika’s article is totally blind in this regard.

According to research, ‘language is the means by which people who belong to a common cultural community, express their belonging to that community.

The loss of language (through using an L2 as the medium of instruction from Grade 1 onwards and teaching all subjects in the curriculum in an L2) leads to loss of cultural treasure’. (Beban Sammy Chumbow, 2009)

Hegemonic influence of English in the world through English medium education from the beginning (‘early start fallacy’ in Robert Philipson’s words) creates two conflicting circumstances, cultural assimilation and cultural pluralism, arisen with respect to linguistic diversity and language maintenance through education.

In this ideological perspective, the former is used to counter linguistic diversity and multilingualism while the latter complements linguistic diversity and multilingualism. Nevertheless universal justification in this regard is proved through research by the need for pluri-lingualism, multilingualism and multi-culuralism in the place of the instrumentality of ideological cultural assimilation and linguicide or linguistic genocide.

The opposite of this is evident when study curricula in which English medium education is used in Sri Lanka placing Sinhala and Tamil as a ‘link language’.

Thus alienation of the ‘Sri Lankanness’ occurs on the Sri Lankan soil itself for Sri Lankan children violating their rights and harassing their education.

Commencing English medium education from Grade 1 onwards would, therefore, be a suicide of the Sri Lankan identity in Sri Lanka itself.

Foreign languages

When discussing language planning in education, developing positive attitudes with relevant and correct understanding about the use of languages in a given society at local and international level and how education should support this situation with necessary modifications are important by addressing attitudes of stakeholders that society because the ‘most formidable obstacle in language planning in education is negative attitude/s of citizens in a country towards their own local languages or other languages used as second or foreign languages.

To be continued

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