Languages: Struggles at a school
Learning Languages Up at The Hindu Thanks to colleagues at the school and to The Hindu. “What exactly are we struggling with when it comes to teaching languages — is it spellings, pronunciation or sentence construction?” I opened a discussion with colleagues who teach languages at our school. “All of the above” — they were unanimous in their response. A response which was followed with silence. Aged between five and 15, the children at our school speak Bhojpuri at home, learn social science and science in Hindi and aspire to do well in English. The silence was followed with smiles that conveyed the reluctant acceptance of a sub-optimal situation. During the discussion that followed, we focused on ourselves, how we fared, and what else we could do, rather than ruminate on assessments and evaluations of the children’s performance. As we delved deeper, we wondered if as a school, we have a uniform approach to languages? In other words, are our practices and actions pulling the chil