MULTI-LINGUAL EDUCATION: A MEANINGFUL LEARNING APPROACH FOR
TRIBAL CHILDREN
The early age of schooling is the most critical period when the foundation is laid for the
whole life. Again research shows that the formation of later attitudes and values as well as
desire to learn is also influenced at this stage. Therefore learning at the early stage of
schooling needs to be centered on children’s interest and experiences.
The Issues and problems
Issues of tribal people regarding their education is a new dialogue in India after
independence.People started thinking about the mainstreaming of tribal people.Different
projects and schemes have been working in India. Still the problems of tribal people are a
matter of discussion. Let’s see some fact about education of the tribal children in India.

Low literacy rate
The Indian census in different times reveals that the tribal literacy is always remaining
low and in case of tribal girls it is more painful. Besides this, the researches tell some
more facts about the early education of the children of tribal community in India.

Low intake and high drop outs
In early school of education of tribal children, enrolment is low in comparison to
other group and before completion of elementary education, they leave the schools.

Low achievement level
Regarding the achievement level of tribal children, they lag behind the other
categories of learners. Again the level of achievement is much lower in case of tribal
girls.

Lack of knowledge and skills gained during schooling
Different surveys reveal that tribal children not only score less mark in subject areas
but also fail to gain life skill during schooling.

Experience failure, and low self esteem
When the tribal children enter the school education and taught through the alien
approach, their experiences are not used. So they start to reject many things. When it
happens again and again they lose their confidence. This gives rise to low self esteem.

More disadvantages for the girls
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Different researches and surveys say that tribal girls are more disadvantaged.
Evidences in villages show that the tribal girl children are the tiny mothers in their
home. They have to do all the house hold works as well as take care of their younger
brothers and sisters.

Difficulty in fitting back the young one in his own society
Another problem with the tribal children is that when they study through an alien
approach, they try to reject their own cultural values. So it becomes difficult to fit
them in their own culture and life.
Results of research about tribal children in India
 Children showed no comprehension of teacher’s language after about 6 months in
Grade I.
 Grade I children showed no recognition of alphabets, except when arranged in
sequence (showing rote memorisation).
 Teaching emphasised passive participation, and copying alphabets and numbers from
blackboards or text books.
 There was very little conversation or oral work in children’s MT.
 The situation was a little better when there was a tribal teacher speaking children’s
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language.
They read with a lot of effort, mostly word by word
Their oral skills in the second language are poor
They cannot frame sentences correctly and have a very limited vocabulary
They are more comfortable speaking in their mother tongue
While they can partially comprehend text (of grade 2/3 level), they are unable to
formulate an answer to simple questions in the standard language.
In most schools, the tribal language speaking children could not score a single mark in
the reading comprehension test.
Major Causes
1: Less/No use of Mother tongue (Home Language) as Medium of Instruction
Dominant Language
Community
Mother tongue
Mother tongue as a medium of instruction
plays a vital role to bridge the gap of
language learning. A child who has
mastery on mother tongue develops other
language easily.
Foreign language
Minority Language
Community
See the picture above and compare the two bridges. One is strong and another is
weak. This difference occurs due to no/less use of mother tongue in learning teaching
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process as well as in text book. Although we know, if early education of the children
based on their mother tongue, the foundation for learning will be strong.
2: Less/No use of local knowledge and socio-cultural context in learning-teaching
process.
Tribal communities are neither in the modern culture nor in the old. They are in
confusion. They are losing their roots and identity. When a minority language group and their
culture is valued by the dominant group, the identity of the minority group is not respected
and does not has a secure position in a multilingual society.
Experiences say that if children find their own festival, song and dance, picture, local
fair etc in their text book as well as in learning teaching process, they find pleasure to learn. It
creates a meaningful environment for children. But unfortunately tribal children do not get
such scope in our school system. They have to read the text book which may not have
content, concept , and example of their locality.
Why do we need a strong foundation in mother tongue for beginners……
Using mother tongue first builds a strong foundation in both language learning and
concept learning. Educational theorists say that:

Children learn best from a familiar starting point

Children learn best in a language they speak and understand well

Learning to read and write is easier in a familiar language

Academic concepts are best understood through mother tongue

Second language learning is more successful with a good foundation in mother tongue

Reading and writing skills as well as concepts can be transferred from one language to
another
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Indigenous knowledge is best learned through indigenous language

Children with a solid foundation in their mother tongue develop stronger literacy
abilities in the school languages.

Children’s knowledge and skills transfer across languages from mother tongue to the
school languages
What happens when children learn only in second language……..
The children are seemed totally disinterested in the teacher’s monologue. They stared
vacantly at the teacher and sometimes at the black board where some alphabets had been
written. Clearly aware that the children could not understand what he was saying, the teacher
proceeds to provide more detailed explanation in much louder voice.
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Later, tired of speaking and realizing that the young children are completely lost, he may
ask them to copy the text from the black board. So the children need to acquire competency
in second language before using as the language of instruction. Children should have time to
learn the new language before learning through that language.
In this case, UNESCO recommends that the second language should be introduced as a
subject of instruction until the children are sufficiently familiar with it.
Research suggests that it takes about 2 years to acquire basic communication skills but it
takes 5-7 years to acquire academic language proficiency.
Some quotes from parents to experts are as follows…
When our children go to school they go to an alien place. They sit in a classroom and
memorise some facts on which they do not have any experience. Later they reject their own
knowledge.
Parents, Khunta ,Orissa
The exclusion of mother tongues from early education has serious consequences for tribal
children in India.
Jhingran 2005
English language learners immersed in the English mainstream showed large decreases in
reading and mathe achievement by grade V when compared to students who received
bilingual services. The largest number of dropouts came from this group.
Thomas and Collier 2002
……such school system are characterized by low intake, high repetition and drop out and
low completion rates. The cost to the individual, who sacrifices productive agricultural and
family work time to go to school, only to experience failure and rejection.
Carol Benson, 2002
Learner centered pedagogy means giving primacy to children’s experiences, their
voices, and their active participation in the learning teaching process. Therefore the learning
teaching process must respond to physical, social, and cultural preferences of the children. As
we know learning is active and social in character, it must be based on children’s local
context and experiences which makes their learning meaningful.
Meaningful Learning
In a traditional school situation, the teachers are very serious about their teaching. They
search for the methods, materials and means to make teaching successful. They talk,
elaborate, explain….much inside the classroom even they dictate long notes to the students,
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give and take pages of home tasks etc. Truly they are happy with their teaching but rarely
think of the learning of the children. Too much is taught but too little is learnt. To understand
the fact, let’s study the two learning-teaching situations given below—
Situation 1
One Mr Raghu Mahanta, a teacher in a Primary School has to teach about “food” to the
students of class IV. He entered the class room and started teaching. He told about the need
of food for living, dictated different types of food, elaborated how different foods are
procured,…etc. In between he supervised the class notes of the students and also gave some
home tasks. As a whole he engaged the class with a lot of dictation, elaboration and
explanation.
Situation 2
One Mrs Anita Bindhani, another Primary School teacher has to teach the same topic
“food” to the same class. She entered the class, talked with the students informally
like…How do you feel today? What have you taken in your lunch? Who prepares lunch for
you?...... etc. Then she asked the students to make a list of food they take every day. When
the students told the names of food one by one, she wrote these on the blackboard. Then she
asked “Why do you take food? The students sat silently for a while and started talking…’We
take food to live.’ ‘We get energy from food’…..so many answers from the students. What
Mrs Bindhani did is that she inspired each child to participate. Then she wrote a question on
the blackboard…’What will happen if we do not take food?’ Everybody wrote his own
answer in his notebook .At that time; Mrs Bindhani supervised the students’ work, gave clues
for answer, and corrected the answer where needed. She also asked the students to tell their
answers and wrote the same on the blackboard.
Compare the above two situations and think which is a better learning situation? Why?
In the first situation Mr Mohanta focuses on teaching the concept. He tries to pour the
knowledge about the concept in the mind of the children. It is quite teacher centric. But in the
second situation, Mrs Bindhani tries to involve the students in the learning teaching process.
She tries to use children’s experience for learning.
When the learning is related to experience, when it is a product of learner’s thinking, when it
is self directed, when the learner does something with his learning experience, it becomes
meaningful.
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Learning happens ...........Where and How much?
1
2
Unknown Language
Unknown Language
Unknown Concept
Known Concept
3
4
Unknown concept
Known Language
Known Language
Known concept
Block – 1 reveals that when a child learns an unknown concept through an unknown
language meaningful learning can never happen. Block–2 represents that a bit of learning
may happens when some known concepts are taught through unknown language. And Block–
3 represents that a child learns better when unknown concepts are taught through known
language but Block–4 reveals a conducive learning situation for the children for language
learning as well as concept formation.
From above discussion we come to know that use of mother tongue(home language) as
medium of instruction in our learning-teaching process will facilitate learning better.
Local and socio-cultural context for meaningful learning.
“The child’s community and local environment form the primary context in which learning
takes place and in which knowledge acquires its significance. It is in interaction with the
environment that the child constructs knowledge and derives meaning”( P 30, NCF 2005)
As a teacher we must remember that children live in an active environment. They
gather varieties of experiences from their socio-cultural interaction with the environment.
They learn from the trees they climbed, from the animals and birds they have seen, friends
they have played with, families….. etc. That means their mind is not a clean state when they
even enter the school. What we shall do is that basing on those experiences; we have to
enhance their learning by linking their existing experiences with new knowledge given in the
text book. When link fails, learning becomes meaningless. When the link is established it
becomes meaningful. When it becomes meaningful it becomes functional which means there
is possibility of applying the knowledge gained.
Let us understand-How meaningful learning takes place. See the diagram and think….
Food
Agriculture Disease
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When a child learns about food, he links the concept “food” with his experiences on types of
food he eats every day, proceess of food preparation, he also links with agriculture, health,
diseases..etc. Here the brain stores these together. When one concept is recalled, the other
concepts are recalled simultaneously with his experiences. In other words, recalling the
concept of ‘food’ activates the children’s brain for other concepts to be linked. In this case
learning is meaningful because child gets a chance to use all his experiences.
Let us see the factors that facilitate meaningful learning.
 Use of child’s knowledge as the base for learning
Suppose you have to teach ‘sources of water’. The text book tells that dig wells, tube
wells, rivers are the different sources of water. In your area the pupils have not seen
any of these sources of water. They have seen pond, stream, jheel and, cannel etc. So
you have to start your lesson with these sources of water.
 Making classroom situation contextual
Whenever you are in the classroom and whatever you are teaching, take examples
from local environment, tells local contextual stories, take TLM from locality, gather
pupil’s knowledge and share with them. If you do this, your classroom activities will
be meaningful for the pupils.
 Use of materials available in the locality
While teaching, normally teachers use the pictures given in the text book. They forget
that these pictures are given as examples. So when you are facilitating learning collect
and prepare local specific materials.
 Ensuring pupils’ active participation
Pupils become active when they are involved in learning teaching process actively
that means when they get scope to ask questions, argue, discuss, share their ideas,
give examples of their own, explain and elaborate and also use TLM during learning.
So as a facilitator create scope for pupils’ participation without giving long lecture,
loud elaboration and much dictation.
 Citing examples by going beyond the text book
Suppose you have to teach ‘addition’ to class II students. See the examples given in
the text book and try to understand the purpose. While facilitating learning, do not cite
these examples. Give examples on how they add different things in their day to day
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life and link it with text book examples. Through this approach you can use children’s
experiences going beyond the text book.
 Encouraging pupils to ask question and argue
Giving scope to ask question means you are activating the pupils. If they ask
questions, they will think on and about the concept to be taught and will argue. When
they argue they get scope to understand what they are telling. If this happens in your
classroom, think that pupils are learning meaningfully.
 Focus on ‘learning as a process’ not on ‘learning outcomes’
While facilitating learning, do not focus much on ‘what they learn’ rather focus on
‘how they are learning’ As there is no absolute right or wrong knowledge in this
world, so do not give or dictate answer to the pupils
Whether formal or informal, use of children’s experiences brings out meaningful learning.
Unless children localise their day to day experiences while learning a concept,
knowledge is reduced to mere information. We know that learning from the text is futile
unless it is connected with the context. We have to focus on children’s active participation in
our learning teaching process so that they share their own experiences and sharpen their
concepts introduced through curriculum.
Local knowledge and Text Book knowledge
The knowledge, information, examples about different concepts given in the text book
is called text book knowledge. But children’s community and local environment forms the
primary context in which learning takes place. They interact with the environment, derive
meaning and construct knowledge which becomes the base for further learning. This is what
we call local knowledge for the children. This truth has not been taken care of in preparation
of text books and in learning –teaching process.
Another difficulty is there also i.e. when a textbook is prepared for the whole state; it
is difficult to bring the local knowledge of each area and community into the text book. It is
also not possible to take into account the varieties in our socio-cultural life. But children need
to find example of their own socio-cultural environment. Here the role of the teacher is
important. Let’s see how a teacher can contextualize the text book knowledge …
 Detailed reading of the Text Book.
Many a time teachers enter the class and start teaching. Hardly have they
referred text book beforehand. As a result they face problem to interpret the
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text book knowledge in the context of children’s learning. To contextualize the
text book knowledge for the pupils, the teachers have to read text book again
and again.
 Finding the learning indicators from the text book
If a teacher picks up the learning indicators from the text book, he will be able
to design meaningful activities for the children. The activities given in the text
book are as example. These activities can help the teacher to find the learning
indicators. When a teacher understands the purpose of these activities, he will
get the learning indicators.
 Gathering the students’ knowledge in different learning points.
When the teacher found the learning indicators, he has to gather related local
knowledge to fit in. He can get this knowledge from the students, other
teachers, community people etc.
 Linking children’s knowledge / experiences with text book knowledge.
When a teacher knows pupils’ experiences related to a concept, he has to
establish a link between pupil’s experiences and text book knowledge. For the
purpose the teacher has to make note of pupil’s experiences for each learning
indicators.
 Preparing own text if needed (alternative text).
Many a times a text may not be appropriate for the pupils. So to make it
meaningful for the pupils, teacher has to prepare alternative text taking pupils’
socio cultural context into account.
STRATEGIES FOR RESOLVING THE ISSUES
 Using mother tongue as medium of instruction
A child having 5-6 years of exposure in his mother tongue makes him able
to understand many things in his mother tongue. Suddenly if you teach him in a language
unknown to him, he may not understand what you say. For example: a Santali child in
class I can understand ‘alah’ but not ‘house’, ‘merom’ but not ‘goat’, ‘daka’ but not rice.
Though he can elaborate 5-10 sentences about his house (alah) in his mother tongue but
may not understand one sentence about house in a language foreign to him. So, use of
mother tongue (home language) as a medium of instruction not only makes him
understand the concept but also brings self confidence in him.
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 Integrating local knowledge in learning teaching process No text book can be
affluent with local knowledge of different areas of a state or a country. Here a teacher
has to start with local knowledge to teach each concept and link them with text book
knowledge. For example: If a teacher has to teach ‘unit of measurement’ in
mathematics he has to start with the units they use in their day to day life such as sero,
mana, pana, kahana etc. .After that he can teach the standard units of measurement
like Kg, KM, Liter etc.
 Understanding the socio-cultural components
If a teacher knows children’s mother tongue and socio-cultural life style, there is no
problem for him to facilitate learning in early period of schooling. That means if the
teacher is from the local community (mother tongue teacher) it will be easy for him to
teach through learner centered approach bringing children’s local and socio-cultural
elements into the classroom. But when a teacher neither knows children’s mother tongue
nor their socio cultural components…What will happen? There will be a communication
gap between the learners and the teachers. The teacher will not be able to understand his
learners and learners will not
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be able to follow their teacher. It may be a situation of no learning at all. First of all the
Food
Habits
Agriculture
Industry
Economics
life &
Profession
Dress &
Ornaments
Sociocultural
components
Religious
belief and
practices
Life-cycles
(Birth,
Marriage &
Death
SocioPolitical
organisation
Values and
Socio
norms
Health and
Hygiene
teacher has to understand the socio-cultural process and identify culturally available
resources for contextualizing the learning teaching process. For this the teacher has to be a
part of the community life because the teacher having a broad knowledge about their sociocultural life style may not face any problem for teaching beginners in tribal area.
Let’s take an example – If, a teacher has to discuss the ‘type of food’ from the text book,
he can start with their food type and food habits. Because the types of food explained in Text
Book may not match the food they take every day. So to link their experience on types of
food, the teacher has to go beyond the text book. In other words, he must use children’s
experience on types of food, food and health etc. as the base for given text book knowledge.
 Using socio-cultural components in learning-teaching process
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A community is run by their own life style; own social values, socio-political
organization and religious believe. They have their own food habits, dress and ornaments
agriculture and industry. In Toto, they have knowledge on every aspect of life. While
facilitating learning, their base knowledge should be taken in to account. Basing on their
cultural elements, further knowledge can be enhanced.
 Using folk materials in classroom learning
Every community has their cultural stories, songs, riddles, drawing and painting, puzzles
etc. While facilitating learning, these materials may be used in its full potential because
these materials not only brings learning outcomes but also enhances learning.
Cultural
Stories
Songs &
Rhymes
puzzles
Folk
Materials
Village
cultural
mathe
Riddles
Painting
and
Design
 Adapting textbook with socio-cultural knowledge
Adapting the text book means, bringing the socio-cultural elements it the text of the text
books and preparing alternative text wherever necessary for children’s experiential learning.
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 Learning children’s mother tongue
If a teacher knows children’s mother tongue, his job will be easier though it is difficult to
learn language of each child. But when a teacher has commitment, he can learn many
languages. Let’s talk with the children and community in their language.
 Learning cultural knowledge from the community
The teacher has to learn the knowledge of pupil’s community first. This can be possible
when the teacher have interest to learn. He has to talk with the community people, discuss
with them on different socio-cultural milieus.
 Involving communities in school activities
A good teacher uses the community resources always. Their involvement from school
management to class room management brings a positive change in school performan
Multi-Lingual Education (MLE)-A Classroom Approach for Tribal Children
Multi-lingual (MLE) classroom is a common phenomenon in tribal dominated area.
Here children of different mother tongue and different socio-cultural background (different
ethnic group) learn together. Multilingual Education is a programme of language learning and
cognitive development providing…..
 a strong educational foundation in the first language
 successful bridging to one or more additional languages
 enabling the use of both/alllanguages for life long process
Here the curriculum is based on the culture of the local community,using
local
knowledge and customs through which a child can develop common concepts of all areas of
learning.Thus MLE maintains local language and culture with state and national language to
promote the learners’ integration with national society without forcing them to sacrifice their
linguistic and cultural heritage.
So the purpose of a multilingual education programme is to develop appropriate cognitive
and reasoning skills enabling children to operate equally in their native, state, and national
language. It should be started with mother tongue (home language) with transition to second
language and other languages.
A Multi-lingual classroom situation reveals that children of different mother tongue learn
together such as in a class room there are Santali children, Ho children, Munda children etc.
That means we will find children of 3/4/5 mother tongue in a class room. Although they are
living in the same locality, their life style , food habit , religious belief, dress and ornaments
are different. In other words their socio-cultural back ground is different. This is a peculiar
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class room situation where a teacher has to play an innovative role to facilitate learning of
each child.
Managing a multi-lingual classroom is a real challenge for the teachers.This type of
classroom management …..
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Requires the teacher be a speaker of the child’s language and a member of the child’s
community.
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Emphasizes the values of the child’s culture.

Provides a safe and developmentally sensible bridge to other cultures and other
languages that the child will encounter.
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Learning begins with known and moves to unknown.
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Uses cultural concepts to teach basic academic concept. For example: the unit of
measurement, counting, length, weight, position words used in their locality and
culture can be used in mathematics followed by proper bridging to academic
concepts.
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Builds on the vocabulary that the child possesses and adds the second language
vocabulary for what the child has learnt.
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Requires involvement of local community in the development of curriculum, learning
materials and learning teaching process.

Utilises thematic approach to integrate child’s cultural knowledge with academic
learning.
To conclude here are the tips for the teachers……
Understand their cultural and social aspects of life.
Collect and use folk materials in learning teaching process.
Understand children’s experiences and using it in learning teaching process.
Adapt the Text book and curriculum with local knowledge
Link local knowledge with text book knowledge
Ensure participation of each child in learning teaching process.
Utilise community resources
Arrange the class room with local materials
Learn community knowledge from village people
Organising ‘village knowledge festival’ beyond school activities
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REFERENCES FOR FURTHER READING
1. Multilingual Education for social justice:2010
MOHANTY, PANDA, PHILLIPSON AND KANGAS SKUTNABB
2. Tribal Life in India:2007
NIRMAL KUMAR BOSE
3.
Indigenous Education at Crossroads
LAUREN ALCORN
4. Swara
NMRC News Letters
5.
Primitive Trives of Orissa
NITYANANDA PATTNAYAK
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