Studying for an upcoming psychology, I discovered a new term i.e. semilingualism which means inadequate proficiency in 'both' languages. Research has shown that children who are not proficient in their native language and then are abruptly submerged in an "English-only" educational environment risk semilingualism or inadequate proficiency in both languages. (from Academic Review, 2010, Vol 5. )
I felt saddened to read the above statement. Semilingualism is affecting millions of young school-going children in India, especially in small towns and thousands of villages in the south. My father's generation who were born, brought up and studied in villages studied in the local language such as Kannada, Tamil, etc. Since the last 2-3 decades(as far as I know) villagers have discovered that in order to get ahead in life, one needs to know English and no longer send their children to Government run schools which teach in the local language but send them to schools where the teaching is in English. This has resulted in millions of children-turned adults who are neither adept in their own mother tongue or in English. Of course many other factors contribute to this deficiency: The teachers themselves have very poor knowledge of English; the students' parents don't speak or understand English and there's not much spoken English in the villages. There are no English books for children accessible to the children apart from the textbooks...no libraries in the villages stocked with children's books. There are few or no English programs on TV in rural areas (They may be but adults who control what is on TV prefer to watch shows they enjoy i.e. local languages)
How can thinking, reasoning, logic, ideas develop without language? Without words to encapsulate thoughts? This will lead to a decline in IQ in rural areas to some extent.
The impact of semilingualism can already be seen in various aspects of life. Just watch the utterly appalling TV shows and movies in Karnataka...the lack of creativity, the poor quality script, the lack of depth, the inability of majority of the actors to speak Kannada well, the increasing use of English in the dialogues...
I felt saddened to read the above statement. Semilingualism is affecting millions of young school-going children in India, especially in small towns and thousands of villages in the south. My father's generation who were born, brought up and studied in villages studied in the local language such as Kannada, Tamil, etc. Since the last 2-3 decades(as far as I know) villagers have discovered that in order to get ahead in life, one needs to know English and no longer send their children to Government run schools which teach in the local language but send them to schools where the teaching is in English. This has resulted in millions of children-turned adults who are neither adept in their own mother tongue or in English. Of course many other factors contribute to this deficiency: The teachers themselves have very poor knowledge of English; the students' parents don't speak or understand English and there's not much spoken English in the villages. There are no English books for children accessible to the children apart from the textbooks...no libraries in the villages stocked with children's books. There are few or no English programs on TV in rural areas (They may be but adults who control what is on TV prefer to watch shows they enjoy i.e. local languages)
How can thinking, reasoning, logic, ideas develop without language? Without words to encapsulate thoughts? This will lead to a decline in IQ in rural areas to some extent.
The impact of semilingualism can already be seen in various aspects of life. Just watch the utterly appalling TV shows and movies in Karnataka...the lack of creativity, the poor quality script, the lack of depth, the inability of majority of the actors to speak Kannada well, the increasing use of English in the dialogues...
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