Why is the use a second language (mother tongue) discouraged when teaching Ebglish? Should it not be made a part of the curicullum especially for 'Beginners' (assuming he/she is not a false beginner) or the Elementary.
For the rural communities in Asia (I do not know about other parts of the world), the mother tongue is the main stay. Most students, if not all, do their primary (some even till the 9th or 10th grade) education in their mother tongue. If this group of students could be given an early exposure to the English language it will make a big difference to them. Then when they come into the cities and go on to graduate and post graduate programmes they will not be so handicapped.
Comments
dada
Hi Ajit,
I think if you are teaching english from 6th or 7th grade then use of mother tongue is necessary.But if you start teaching from elementary then use of mother tongue should be avoided.As use of mother tongue means students will first think in their own language and then translate in english which will affect their fluency in english language and it wont be possible for them to think in english.
D-Veiga
In Brazil, most of private and public schools teach English as a second language but in a extra-curricular basis, it means they need to accomplish some activities in English, e.g. written tests every two or three months, but they are not expected to learn it efficiently to be able to speak or do anything else outside school. There is a growing market of billingual schools in the big centres of the country, with a complete different proposal and structure of learning to all subjects. But this is only accessible to a minority of the population, and it is not by far a concern with the students who will someday need it for academic purposes.