THE CHILD’S PROCESS OF LANGUAGELEARNING SHRI.S.SELVARAJ DIRECTOR KVS ZIET MYSORE PRESENTATION FOR PRTs OF THE THREE DAY WORKSHOP IN HINDI ALL CHILDREN CAN LEARN • MULTILINGUALISM All children are capable of learning , not just learning one or two languages but many languages ,and become multi-linguals. • BILINGUAL COMPETENCE Even before entering the school, the child would have developed proficiency in two languages, if the language at home is different from the language of the community where the child lives. In a place like Mysore, English and Hindi become the third and fourth languages for him. • LEARNING ENVIRONMENT When the proper learning environment is created in the school, he succeeds in learning English and Hindi as well. All this is possible because every child is born with innate ability to learn languages. • IN PUT RICH ENVIRONMENT When placed in a language-rich environment, the acquisition of the language is facilitated. THE ROLE OF MOTHER TONGUE IN LEARNING • NCF 2005 is strongly in favour of Mother –tongue in Primary Education. • However, as per KVS policy, English and Hindi are the Medium of Instruction in Kendriya Vidyalayas right from class I. • Nevertheless ,this does not prevent the teacher from taking the help of the children’s mother-tongue to facilitate their learning, including other languages. • In fact , the text book writers themselves have recommended the use the language of the children’s home and community, while teaching English or Hindi. THE ROLE OF MOTHER TONGUE IN LEARNING LEARNING WITHOUT BURDEN • When we say that the classroom process should be closely related to the life outside, the multilinguistic nature of the community around the school cannot be ignored. • When the mother-tongue and the language of their social background are used in the class, the children feel at home and comfortable with the learning environment. • Similarly, English and Hindi can also be mutually helpful in learning the target- language. THE ROLE OF MOTHER TONGUE IN LearningRole Of the Teacher • This does not mean that the teacher should use other languages freely through and through or use the Translation Method. • Gradually the teacher should wean away the children from the other languages and focus more and more on the target-language. • Language is learnt more when it is used more. • Hence the teacher should provide more opportunities for the children to exercise all the four skills of the language, viz., Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing. LANGUAGE-LEARNING • Listening precedes other three skills. the • Even an infant listens to sounds and attempts to interpret the meaning, undergoes the ‘silent period’ , before it starts speaking. THE CONTEXT IS IMPORTANT FOR LEARNING A LANGUAGE • It is from the context that the child makes out the meaning of the sounds it hears. • Therefore, enabling context is to be provided through visuals, cartoons , illustrations ,etc. along with the listening in-put for facilitating the children’s comprehension. • More the listening, the more the language learning takes place, giving the child the confidence and competence to speak the language freely and fluently. PRINT RICH ENVIRONMENT • An environment rich with the written word or printed books will motivate the children to take up reading , which is also an additional avenue for language development. • The illustrated stories are helpful in reading with comprehension for the young learners. READING LEADS TO WRITING • FORMATIVE WRITING Reading leads to the skill of writing which begins with the sub-skill of writing the alphabet with proper shape and writing simple words. • ENCOURAGEMENT The children feel encouraged and motivated to write more , when their initial effort at writing is appreciated, however rudimentary and bad it may be. • By and by it gets improved when they learn to hold the writing instrument properly while writing. • FROM IDEAS TO EXPRESSION In fact, writing involves the process of transforming ideas into words and sentences. Therefore the children should be encouraged to form the ideas in their mind first, before writing it down, as in the case of any art. • ERRORS AS STEPPING STONES The students’ errors should be looked upon as developmental errors which will get rectified in INTEGRATION OF SKILLS • The integration of the four skills in classroom transaction is the natural and most effective way of learning a language, besides it removes the monotony in a language class and helps to hold the attention of the young learners. VOCABULARY DEVELOPMENT • Vocabulary enrichment should go hand in hand with skill development. • Of late, it is agreed that it is not necessary to have a minimum repertoire of vocabulary to listen with comprehension and to speak the language. • However effective communication is greatly facilitated with rich vocabulary and hordes of sentence patterns. • Hence at the initial stages, much attention needs to be given for vocabulary development and sentence structures. COMPETENCE AND PROFICIENCY –THE ULTIMATE GOAL • Developing the learner’s linguistic competence and proficiency being the primary objective of language-teaching, • content-teaching is not so important as the development of the four language skills, vocabulary enrichment and growth of sentence patterns and structural devices. LEARNER CENTRED CLASS ROOM TRANSACTION • Keeping in view the latest changes in curriculum, pedagogy and evaluation, the teaching-learning process in the classroom should be learner-centric, • activity-based and interactive— • teacher>student, • student<->student— • along with exercising their thinking and reasoning skills. A NOTE ON NCF 2005 BASED TEXTBOOKS • The language textbooks for the Primary classes are well designed to fully meet the language-teaching objectives. • It is for the teacher to plan well for each class so that all activities as envisaged by the textbook writers are duly conducted to achieve the Expected TEACHER’S KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS & ATTITUDES • The teacher belief that all children are capable of learning • The Teacher will be successful in promoting learning any language when proper learning environment is created and they are facilitated to learn.