Multilingual practices in Indian classrooms

Multilingual practices in Indian classrooms:  Exploring and supporting teacher awareness and classroom strategies

Amy Lightfoot, Rama Mathew, Lina Mukhopadhyay, and Ianthi M. Tsimpli

in Book Multilingual Education in South Asia, 1st Edition (2022), Routledge ISBN9781003158660

Abstract

The majority of Indian classrooms are highly multilingual, particularly in urban areas where increasing internal migration is leading to further language diversity.  Recent evidence collected under the MultiLila project documented teachers and students using multiple languages to facilitate comprehension in the classroom.  However, while this and evidence from other literature concur that these multilingual practices are prevalent in both English and regional medium schools, teachers are not always aware of the why and how of using these strategies for pedagogical gain.

The authors undertook to further explore how teachers could use multilingual practices in primary school education in a principled and planned manner and examine the impact of teacher training on the use of multilingual strategies and attitudes of a group of primary school teachers in Hyderabad.  The project involved four main components.  First, a workshop was conducted with 22 teachers from Hyderabad to discuss their beliefs and attitudes in using different languages in class, followed by practising a range of multilingual activities to support teacher–pupil interaction.  Subsequently, phone calls and classroom observations documented and analysed the extent to which the teachers were able to implement their learning.  Finally, three teachers were filmed to create a resource depicting different ways of promoting multilingual culture in class.  The authors conclude with some recommendations for how teachers in similar contexts can be enabled to make more informed choices on purposefully using multiple languages to support learning in multilingual classrooms.