Dear GlobalEd Readers,
This is the first of a two two-part blog series about language instruction in India. The blog discusses the global pressures and the priorities regarding English as a medium of instruction. Drs. Maya Kalyanpur and Sarina Chugani Molina have written a fascinating new book on the politics of English language instruction and this blog series shares a few key ideas for using an asset-based language instruction approach.
Enjoy reading!
Maya Kalyanpur
Sarina Chugani Molina
Despite the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal to make quality education available to all children, almost 40 percent of students in low- and middle-income countries in the world are not being taught in the language they speak and understand best (Ahmad, 2024; UNESCO, 2024).
When you went to school, were you taught to read and write and study subjects like mathematics and geography in the same language you spoke at home? Did you (or your family) feel pressured to learn in a different language because this school language was considered more “valuable” to know?
There are advantages to being taught in our home language. Also referred to as the primary/first, heritage language or mother tongue, this is the language “one identifies with or is identified as a native speaker of by others; the language one knows best and the language one uses most” (UNESCO, 2024). Research tells us children taught in their primary language tend to perform better academically (Genesee, et al., 2006) and develop the literacy and cognitive skills needed to learn a second language (Trudell, 2016), while parents and communities can play a greater role in their development because of the common language, preserving the cultural identity of the community (Ahmad, 2024; Trudell, 2023). However, many children study where the medium of instruction (MOI) is the regionally or nationally dominant language because of government language education policies or as a way out of poverty (Kalyanpur, et al., 2023). This causes children to lose pride in their cultural identity and heritage language, interest in learning because they cannot relate to the information, and opportunities to develop cognitive skills like critical thinking, problem-solving, and creativity (Sundarajan, 2024). Low-income children who cannot afford good quality schooling lose their heritage language without gaining proficiency in the taught language, which could lead to “high repetition, failure, and dropout rates, and low learner self-esteem” (Milligan et al., 2020, p. 118) and “significant gaps in educational access and attainment between the rich and poor, elite and marginalized, and males and females” (Kosonen, 2005, p. 1). In this blog, we examine linguistic imperialism and raciolinguistics as colonial and postcolonial legacies contributing to these linguistic complexities, which affect educational systems, language education policies, and the quality of education for many students. Linguistic imperialism imposes a dominant language on people who speak a different language through colonial, economic, or cultural means, leading to the marginalization of local languages and cultures (Phillipson,1992). Raciolinguistics is an interdisciplinary field of inquiry rooted in anthropology, linguistics, and education that looks at the deeply intertwined relationship between race, language, and power, “expos(ing) how language is used as a means of social, political, and economic oppression…to further marginalize racialized and minoritized groups” (Alim et al., 2016, p. 27).
The devastating consequences of colonialism from slavery and extraction of tangible resources like cotton and minerals are better known than its effect on a less tangible but equally valuable resource: language. The colonial powers introduced their own language – English, Spanish, Portuguese, German and Italian, which we continue to refer to as World Languages – into their colonies to consolidate their empires and for ease of administration. These languages were soon perceived to be superior, resulting in the diminishment of local languages. The local elite learnt the colonizer’s language to better their own interests, furthering this linguistic imperialism.
After colonialism, many former colonies debated about which language to adopt as a national language, as most countries were newly configured, based upon national borders the colonizers drew for their convenience during colonization or at the time of independence. The colonial legacies of existing administrative and educational systems and the vested interests of the elite resulted in colonial languages persisting for communication and schooling. This resulted in linguicide, or endangerment, loss or death of up to 40% of heritage languages (Kalyanpur et al., 2023). Postcolonial countries such as Pakistan and Bangladesh have experienced tremendous tensions where language was considered a unifying force for nation-building at the expense of educational attainment for heritage language users particularly from underserved communities. In China, Beckett & Macpherson (2005) describe how Mandarin became the dominant language resulting in the loss of heritage languages such as Uygur, and advocate for both for the linguistic preservation and the cultural, ethnic, and religious survival of Indigenous communities.
Simultaneously, US ascendance and the spread of American culture through mass media like films, economic globalization, mass migratory movements, and increased internet use made English the most valued among the World Languages, entrenching it as the international language for commerce and communication. Though the field of English language education has attempted to consider English a neutral language, problematic languaging has privileged and elevated white, middle class, English speakers, positioning ‘other’ speakers as deficit (Flores & Rosa, 2015): e.g., terms like “non-native English-speakers”, “vernacular” vs Standard English, and perceptions of some accents being more desirable than others. For instance, independent India hoped to ease out English as a postcolonial legacy and, since no one language unified this new country, to bring in Hindi as the national language, spoken only by 44 percent. State boundaries were set based on the majority language spoken in that region, becoming the primary language for many children, with heritage languages spoken by minorities beginning to be lost. Central government administration and higher education institutions were all English-based, excluding students who had not studied in English-medium schools. Thus, since the 1990s, low-fee-paying private English-medium schools have attracted low-income families who perceive English acquisition as the passport to socioeconomic mobility. Studying these schools in Mumbai, Kalyanpur (2022) found students who had no access to English in their home communities struggling to both learn English and learn in English, and their teachers, not having been trained to teach English as a second language, mistaking their language difference for cognitive deficits.
In Part 2 of this blog, we share translingual, multimodal, and asset-based pedagogies as a form of decolonial resistance that centers the diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds and practices of multilingual students.
Dr. Maya Kalyanpur is a Professor in the Department of Learning and Teaching at the University of San Diego. She explores the intersections of culture in education with a specific focus on international special education and comparative education.
Dr. Sarina Chugani Molina is an Associate Dean and Professor in the School of Leadership and Education Sciences at the University of San Diego with disciplinary expertise in critical language teacher education from a postcolonial lens.
References
Ahmad, I. (21 February 2024) Learning in the mother tongue is the best start to education. UNICEF India https://www.unicef.org/india/stories/learning-mother-tongue-best-start-education
Alim, H. S., Rickford, J. R., & Ball, A. F. (Eds.). (2016). Raciolinguistics: how language shapes our ideas about race. Oxford University Press.
Beckett, G., & Macpherson, S. (2005). Researching the impact of English on minority and Indigenous languages in non-Western context. TESOL Quarterly, 39(2), 299–307. doi:10.2307/3588312
Flores, N., & Rosa, J. (2015). Undoing appropriateness: Raciolinguistic ideologies and language diversity in education. Harvard Educational Review, 85(2), 149–171. https://doi.org/10.17763/0017-8055.85.2.149
Genesee, F., Lindholm-Leary, K., Saunders, W., & Christian, D. (2006). Educating English language learners: a synthesis of research evidence. Cambridge University Press.
Kalyanpur, M., Boruah, P. B., Molina, S. C. & Shenoy, S. (2023). The politics of English language education and social inequality: Global pressures, national priorities and schooling in India. Routledge
Kalyanpur, M. (2022). Development, learning disability, and education in India. Palgrave Macmillan.
Kosonen, K. (2005). Education in local languages: Policy and practice in Southeast Asia. First languages first: Community-based literacy programmes for minority language contexts in Asia. Bangkok: UNESCO, Bangkok.
Milligan, L. O., Desai, Z., & Benson, C. (2020). A Critical Exploration of How Language-of-Instruction Choices Affect Educational Equity. In A. Wulff (Ed.), Grading Goal Four (pp. 116–134). BRILL. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004430365_005
Phillipson, R. (1992). Linguistic imperialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sundararajan, G. (20 February 2024). Why Mother Tongue Education holds the key to unlocking every child’s potential: The transformative role of learning in children’s native language. UNICEF India. https://www.unicef.org/india/stories/why-mother-tongue-education-holds-key-unlocking-every-childs-potential
Trudell, B. (2016). Language choice and education quality in Eastern and Southern Africa: a review. Comparative Education, 52(3), 281–293. https://doi.org/10.1080/03050068.2016.1185252
Trudell, B. (2023) Early-exit language transitioning programming: The rationale, the benefits and the limitations. Paper commissioned for International Mother Language Day 2023. UNESCO.
UNESCO (21 February, 2024) International Mother Language Day. Author. https://www.unesco.org/en/days/mother-language#:~:text=The%20theme%20of%20International%20Mother,not%20master%20basic%20literacy%20skills.