Measuring the multilingual reality: lessons from classrooms in Delhi and Hyderabad

Abstract

India's linguistic diversity is reflected in classrooms across the country, where multiple languages are used by teachers and learners to negotiate meaning and instructiona multilingual, multicultural student body is the norm, whether in urban or rural contexts. This study documents teaching practices in English language and maths lessons in Delhi and Hyderabad, with a specific focus on language use. The findings from 104 classroom observations allow us to profile multilingual practices used in schools with different official mediums of instruction. Results reveal a predominant use of 'language mixing' in the classroom, in both English-and regional language-medium of instruction contextsespecially in English subject lessons. Maths lessons in regional-medium schools did not involve as much language mixing by the teachers but this was still a strong feature for learners. The data also shows differences between language use particularly when comparing English-medium schools in each city. Specifically, lessons in Delhi were characterised by absolutely no occurrences of English used on its own by the teachers (as recorded during five-minute intervals), compared to significantly greater use of English alone in Hyderabad English-medium and Telugu-medium schools. Delhi teachers appear to use a greater amount of language mixing during each lesson.

Teachers' multilingual beliefs and practices in English classrooms: A scoping review

“…Teachers rarely drew on any languages beyond English or Norwegian (L2 and L1), concurring with Burner and Carlsen (2017, 2022), Flognfeldt et al (2020) and Iversen (2017). Based on recordings from observations, Lightfoot et al (2021) analysed instances of language mixing. They conclude that language mixing is a key feature of the observed classes, which they underline reflects reality outside of school, thus questioning the imposition of a monolingual medium of instruction.…”

How Cognitive Abilities May Support Children’s Bilingual Literacy Development in a Multilingual Society

“…Very generally speaking, code-mixing describes the practice of mixing multiple languages within a sentence or within a conversation or classroom. Within the context of the project that the data described in this article were taken from, we have found that language use of both children and teachers in Delhi classrooms was largely mixed, not just between Hindi and English but also Urdu (Lightfoot et al 2021). Such language mixing or translanguaging practices (see, e.g., García and Wei 2014) have not been sufficiently mapped out, and their influence on language learning and literacy development in a second, mixed, language is as yet largely unknown.…”

“…In Delhi, Hindi is the regionally dominant language and a language that is used in both the classroom and everyday life. The official language of instruction in the schools was either Hindi (for 64 children) or English (for 272 children), but in practice, the language used in the classroom was mixed (Lightfoot et al 2021). None of the children reported having exposure to English in their home environment.…”

Breaking Language Barriers: The Transformative Impact of Translanguaging on ELT in India

“…Another difficulty is the risk that these methods will be misconstrued or abused in the classroom. Translanguaging, for instance, may be seen as code-switching and thus discouraged by certain educators rather than as a purposeful and dynamic use of many languages to assist learning (Li, 2018;Lightfoot et al, 2022). Similarly, a restricted and prescriptive understanding of language and literature might result from some instructional stylistic approaches (Simpson, 2017;Kramsch, 1993).…”

“…According to Canagarajah (2011a, b), using multiple languages in the classroom can enhance language acquisition and promote greater cognitive flexibility. In India, research has shown that using translanguaging in the classroom can help learners develop excellent language proficiency and confidence (Menon & Pallavi, 2022;Lightfoot et al, 2022). In a study conducted in a rural primary school in India, Sah et al (2022) found that translanguaging effectively improved students' English language proficiency, allowing them to draw on their home language(s) to make connections with English (Shah, 2010).…”