Reshaping language policy in our schools; based more on science and less on politics.
It is that time of the year when politicians, depending on which constituency you represent, would argue on the primacy of a certain language over others. The Hindi heartland feels it is best positioned be the ‘One language’ for a utterly diverse nation like India. Other regional languages like Tamil feel that any overtures from the north of Vindiyas would be existential threat to its classical status or even political identity. While there are political, historic and economic reasons to argue for or against a certain language, there are unequivocal scientific truths on how languages shapes our brains and its cognitive capacity. We owe to our Children to base our language policy on scientific evidence rather than socio-political compulsions of the politicians or wannabe politicians.
Proficiency in English is often correlated with higher educational and social standing. Given’s the parent’s preference for English, many private schools (including low socio economic status schools) aggressively focus on building English speaking skills among children right from nursery grades. Many of these schools adopt a ‘total English pedagogy’ where all of formal and informal school interaction is in English right from nursery grades. Many schools also discourage the use of native language by totally banning any conversation in native language — even among peers and friends. Many urban schools encourage parents to converse in English even at homes. An unintended consequence of this practice is that children have a negative attribute towards their native languages. On the other hand, government run public schools focus purely on native languages. English is introduced as a second language from grade 5 and thus presenting a clear competitive disadvantage to students of public schools. Hindi, a Indian lingua franca is not introduced to many public schools in states like Tamil Nadu. Thus, a child in a public school in Tamil Nadu would only know one language and at best two languages.
The current practices at the private or public schools are largely driven by economic compulsions, market demands or political compulsions but not based on scientific research. This policy of focus of only one language or two languages may not be in the best interest of the child, especially in light of recent research on cognitive neuroscience.
How We Learn Languages
Speech is natural to humans. We are born with an innate capacity to learn any language and many languages. Children are born with an ability to perceive the phonology of any language. Before 6 months of age, they start to recognize the vowels and consonants (in this order) of their mother tongue or the language(s) they are exposed to. At this stage they slowly start to loose the ability to identify the prosody or phonology of other languages which they are not exposed to. By 9 months, they start to babble which is specific to the languages they are exposed to. By their 1st birthday, they start to say words or sentences. Although they are grammatically incorrect, they however speak like a native speaker.
Neuroscience research does indicate that there is a ‘sensitive period’ in our brains to learn language(s). Although we are prepared to learn any language, in time we tend to specialize towards languages we are exposed to and we start loosing our ability to recognize some aspects of other languages, as we grow older. Research has indicated that our ability to learn accents, grammar, and phonology is much higher if children learn the language before 5–7 years of age. These aspects of language get difficult (not impossible) to learn as children enter adolescents and adulthood. Thus, a child trying to learn a language after grade 5 is not a cognitively efficient policy.
Behavioural studies have also indicated that if children are exposed to two or more languages by age 7, then they gain proficiency in both the languages. And if they are exposed to two or more languages by age 5, then they use overlapping innate brain areas for language processing lateralized in the left hemisphere. But any learning of language after 5–7 years of age often results in recruiting other ‘cognitive’ neural networks of the brain that is more bilateral and distributed across the two hemispheres of our brains. More effortful neural processing is required when exposure to another language happens after 5–7 years of age. As later bilinguals exposure results in different patterns of neural organization for language processing. The most efficient use of neural resources occurs when language learning happens early. Simply put, language is ‘naturally acquired’ if exposed before schooling years. And language is ‘consciously learnt’ if exposed during or after schooling years. Thus learning a second or third language is most easy when done pre nursery or primary schooling years.
But Why Should we Learn More Than One Language?
There is scientific evidence beyond economic or socio-political reasons to support learning of more than one language. Bilingual or multilingual has tremendous cognitive benefits across life spans. Several longitudinal studies have indicated that multilingual children have better cognitive benefits over monolingual children especially on non-verbal tasks, conflict resolution, cognitive flexibility and other cognitive control tasks. Interestingly, the cognitive and attention advantage of multilingual over monolinguals actually increases with age. Older multilinguals have superior cognitive control than older monolinguals. Multilingual brains tend to show higher white matter integrity (meaning there is less data loss between neurons), better structural and functional connectivity across the brain and a better “brain reserve” than monolingual brains. There is also a substantial delay of the onset of Alzheimer or dementia for bilinguals as compared to monolinguals.
There is a linguistic cost bilinguals pay for their mastery of more than one language. Multilinguals across life spans tend to divide their linguistic competence across two languages and hence have a marginally compromised lexical strength and lexical recall. But it is important to know that there is no variation among mono and multilingual speakers on the school vocabulary (vocabulary used for academic purposes). The variation is only for the home vocabulary. Since vocabulary size is a strong predictor of academic success, bilinguals do not have an academic or literacy disadvantage. Multilingual also would have more “tip of the tongue” episodes than monolinguals. There are some preliminary findings that indicate that multilingual have an advantage for working memory but a disadvantage for semantic memory. There is also anecdotal evidence that the onset of speech for multilingual children is marginally later than for monolingual children, although this time lag is inconsequential, as multilinguals tend to catch up quickly.
Thus, despite some linguistic costs paid by multilinguals, they have far greater cognitive advantage over monolinguals. Thus, multilinguals should be encouraged in early childhood policy not just for economic reasons or political compulsions but for cognitive benefits — so that children have an competitive advantage to fully realize their potential in this competitive and a globalized world.
Gifting The Language Advantage To Our Children. What Schools And Parents Could Do?
Howard Gardner from Harvard University says that just like a GPS works with the coordination of three satellites, children should know at least 3 languages. Thanks to our cultural and historic compulsions, most urban Indian parents are primed for learning two if not three languages. Since language learning is effective when begun early, schools should encourage ‘everyday’ use of at least two languages right from kinder garden. A third language would be an added benefit and Child’s brain is ready to absorb three languages like a sponge. Corridor language need not be strictly Victorian English but an amalgamation of multiple languages the child is comfortable in. Tone, intent, pace and voice are more important at this age than speaking immaculate English. Thus, for a Child in south India, introduction to English, native language and Hindi would immensely benefit the child’s development. And for a Child in North India, exposure to English, Hindi and one other regional language (or native language of parents if they are migrants into North India) would be an ideal and a pragmatic option. Given the extraordinary focus on English in the private schooling system, Parents would do well to develop mother tongues and English at home. Children’s brain immensely benefit well into their puberty years from hearing adults speaking in multiple languages. By the time students reach middle years, school can have students converse more in formally in English in corridors and classrooms.
Schools should strike a balance between phonology and ‘whole language’ immersion. Schools should keep in mind language (everyday speaking) is more critical to a Child’s brain than literacy (reading & writing). Thus, the third language focus in the primary years should be around speaking rather than reading and writing. I know of many students in Tamil Nadu who struggle academically, merely because of the inordinate cognitive bandwidth the learning reading and writing of Hindi takes. The pragmatic solution would be to focus on reading and writing for two languages and focus only on speaking skills for the third language.
Lastly, Parents should take ownership of ensuring that their Child learns at least three languages. Schools, will always be victims of political pragmatism and politician’s hypocrisy. Politicians will preach what they wouldn’t adopt for their own Children. Thus, Parents should work towards creating an multi language eco system at home through deliberate multilingual conversations, exposure to multi-lingual movies, travel to other states, and more importantly — take what the government says with a pinch of salt.
The writer is the CEO of Xperiential Learning Systems and Director of The Heritage Group of Schools — a group of K-12 experiential learning schools.
Originally published in The Hindu BusinessLine: https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/opinion/reshaping-language-policy-in-our-schools/article25579758.ece#
Author’s Note: Views expressed here are my personal views and does not reflect my organisation’s veiws. Click the clap button or share this post if you find it interesting. Would like to hear your feedback and comments. Follow me @imvishnukarthik
