I like to drop in at the children’s sabbath school at church from time to time and engage the kids in a story. Kids love stories. And if they were to be accompanied by sound effects and theatrics, as I usually render my stories, they love it even more. “Today, I am going to tell you a story”, I would say, “I want you to listen very carefully. And I want you to listen carefully since I would be asking a lot of questions after I am done with the story.” And they would listen to my story carefully and answer all the questions correctly after I am done.
I think it was Tamil. I remember using Malayalam to communicate with my grandmother from Kerala, for she knew no other language, but other than that it was mostly Tamil at home, school and church. Of course, the school used English as a medium of education, as advertised. But like most other schools in this country, English was used as a language to test rather than to think and articulate.
In most primary schools across this country, teachers impart knowledge in English to students whose only exposure to the language would be at school. Everyday, the child crosses over in to an alien world where the language that he uses for thinking would not be the language used for education. Teachers are expected to mark the completion of each lesson or topic in the syllabus by handing out questions and answers.
And unlike at the church, where the kids immediately articulated their received their knowledge and answered my questions using their own words and framing sentences in whichever language they thought was best, children at school are expected to learn the answers by rote and produce them verbatim during the examinations. This system seems to have evolved from a need to help students whose first language is not the medium of instruction. As these children move into middle and high school, understanding, thinking and articulating becomes a tedious two step process. For example, in an examination, a question would be translated in to the native tongue, an answer would be formulated in the same tongue and then translated back into the medium of instruction.
Worse, in some schools the practice of handing out questions and answers continues well into high school and for some students, education turns out into a simple mix of pattern recognition and efficient rote learning algorithms. Some students are lucky to escape, either due to circumstances or by enlightened parents. But for the vast majority, this continues to be the sorry state.
In the middle of my third term of my second standard, my family moved to Bangalore. Bangalore was a whole new ball game. It was a cosmopolitan culture at school and in my neighbourhood, where I had no choice but to communicate in English. Sensing the need to improve my English, my mother brought in some changes in the way we (my brother and I) communicated at home. We decide to communicate with my mother in English while it is was decided that we would stick to Tamil for communication with my Dad. Communication between my brother and me was done in English.
This proved to be a turning point for me. Tamil took a back seat while English started to rule the roost in my life. Slowly, English became the medium of my thought and articulation. Today, I think in English and I write and speak better in English than any other language that I know – Tamil, Hindi or Malayalam. The fate was further sealed when I moved to Kerala for my high school and higher secondary where I was again in an environment where I could use nothing but English for communication. In addition, I started loving the language, thanks to the English curriculum of ICSE and ISC.
Coming back to the present, I visited my nephew last Saturday. He is my favourite nephew and he is very smart. He had turned four recently and his parents, my cousin and my brother in law, decided to put him in school. Being good parents and wanting the best for their kid, they sent him to a good “English medium” school. That should have made me happy. But sadly, I was not!
My nephew is now growing up in an environment where there is little chance of exposure to English other than at school. Both his parents speak Tamil at home and were educated in the Tamil medium. They have very little or no knowledge of the English language. The people around him are culturally homogeneous, which means that child would also communicate in Tamil with others around him. My brother in law is deeply religious and attends a church, a Tamil one. So, my nephew would learn to think and articulate in his native tongue, while being forced to learn in an alien language at school.
Being in such a circumstance, definitely hinders a child’s learning, imagination and exploring capacity. The child would be hindered by his inability to answer a question naturally using his own words but would have to rely on the answers provided by the teachers. This would encourage rote learning and prove a strong barrier to creative and original thinking and reasoning.
India’s economy seems to be powered by English. The ads on television and the print media offer a thousand ways for people to master the English language. A person who failed it to make it to college earns twice or thrice of the pure science or mathematics graduate purely on the basis that he is able to manage to call up someone in Atlanta and offer them a phone package using a fake accent. With the boom of the IT and ITES industries, and the glitter of cars and houses, people in this country have strongly come to believe that English is the miracle that this country was waiting for and the pill for all troubles.
And we sometimes take pride in the fact that our love affair with the English language would somehow help us in our race with our northern neighbours. Sometimes our comparisons even dare to bring in advanced economies where English is not the primary language. But, we forget to ask the most important question: What is the kind of prosperity has English brought us? Would we be continue to be the cheap back office for the world while we destroy creativity and imagination in our children? How long can this be sustained? Can the future bear the rape of an entire generation?
My friends in the scientific research community would now make a mention that most research in this world is produced and shared in English. That is absolutely right. But, what about the Germans, the Japanese and the Russians? These folks continue to maintain their scientific and technology lead in spite of their primary and middle school education being in their native tongue. And I feel that it is highly important that a child thinks and articulates in the language that he or she is most comfortable in. Maybe English can continue to serve as a second language until the child is ready to master any language.
This blog is not a rant against English. The laptop on which I type this blog shares its space on the table with four great tragedies of Shakespeare. I am one of the moderators of the “Towards Better English” community at my work place. I continually strive to improve my use of my first language, as English has now become, and I love this language. While I would like to see the language being used by many people, I would also to see it not thrust upon hapless kids.This post is about choices.
How are parents going to deal with this issue? Are parents going to change and bring in a significant level of English at homes and social circles or are they going to change the schools of their children if the former is not possible? And what would be the solution to provide a knowledge of the English language at a latter stage in life, if the latter is done?
